Project Brief

Site design for a new product launch including product information, purchase, and spanish language version.

Success / Feedback

Well-received by entire account team and the client.

Challenges That I Overcame

• Tight turnaround time.

Direct Contributions

• UX Design
• Information Architecture (site map)
• Information Architecture-Spanish (site map)
• Process Flows

Project Brief

Design for a portal which would aggregate, and give visitors easy access to, a large volume of site content.

Success / Feedback

My boss called my solution brilliant.

We were made aware, however, that the project brief given to us had been incorrect. Therefore, we had built something different than what was needed for this project.

So, my boss tacked up a page or two from my solution on his bulletin board as a reminder, in case we could use it on another project.

Challenges That I Overcame

No significant challenges.

Direct Contributions

• UX Design (wireframes)
• Information Architecture
• Functional specifications

Project Brief

Create a “first blush” design for an improved self check-in kiosk interface.

Success / Feedback

My boss was happy with the work but the ultimate success is unknown since the agency was forced to release freelancers (of which I was one) and re-assign permanent staff when a different account was lost.

Challenges That I Overcame

• No opportunity to interface directly with existing kiosk.
• I needed to reverse engineer the current user experience from a mere few screen captures and 16 volumes of complex functional specifications that were not always complete.

Direct Contributions

• Process flow (multiple diagrams)
• “First blush” redesign concepts for the first few opening screens (light wireframes)

Project Brief

Create a mobile app that enables asthma sufferers to track their asthma attacks (thus enabling them to more accurately report their “flare up” history to their doctors).

The work did not require traditional wireframes but rather, a more high level and conceptual document for the client to understand the general features of the proposed app.

Success / Feedback

Client was very happy with the idea and design, touted it as “coming soon” on the home page of the website, and sought funding to develop it.

Challenges That I Overcame

• There is a long list of asthma triggers but each sufferer only experiences a few, unique to him/her, on a regular basis.
• The app was to be utilized right after an attack so it was important that it be easy and not burdensome to the users. As such, I designed the concept of a “short list” for use after the first time a user designated their triggers.
• The concept was pitched in the early days of mobile and the client was particulalrly “in the dark” about mobile apps. Thus, the presentation needed to be simple, yet educational.

Direct Contributions

• Concept UX Design (light wireframe)
• Feature guidance (light wireframe)
• Functional specifications

Project Brief

Create an improved, interactive “chat” interface for an event to be held on the web site at various times during the year by the client’s engineers.

Success / Feedback

Overwhelming positive feedback from the client.

Challenges That I Overcame

• No visual records of the original interface were available.
• The only means of gaining any insights into the previous experience was by combing through the voluminous transcripts of the prior events.
• The transcripts revealed that there were many, significant UX issues with the prior experience that needed to be remedied.

Direct Contributions

• UX Design
• Point of view document for guidance to internal teams

Project Brief

Content assessment and point of view to inform and advise the creative team on appropriate site content to be up-leveled into a microsite for a specific audience segment (effectively, a social forum for IT professionals).

(While the deliverable is merely a Word document, the impact and result is significant.)

Success / Feedback

My assessment and recommendations were proven to be spot on.

The creative team had maintained its belief that this should be brochureware and paid a Flash developer to have that experience built.

The client’s response to the that implementation was, “Well, it’s pretty but…you don’t understand our audience.”

Additionally, the account team shared with me that the client made several statements as to what the experience should be like and each of the comments mimicked a point I had made in my recommendations. The account team told my boss “She nailed it!” and “The creative team screwed up”.

Challenges That I Overcame

• Minimal information about the personas.
• Limited competitive inspiration

Direct Contributions

• Content Guidance Document
• Inquiries to equivalent personas in my personal network (for insights)
• Scouring content from many forums (to provide samples)
• Competitive Research (for vetting my recommendations)

Project Brief

Create a design structure that enabled the client’s multi-national divisions to have flexibility to make the site more locally appropriate in terms of marketing messages, calls to action, content, and available products in the market.

Success / Feedback

The solution set was very well-received by the internal team and the client.

It included static areas, customizable areas, and areas that could accommodate both global and local content (mixed bag).

Additionally, sections were designated as persistent or contextual, offering even more flexibility in the design.

Challenges That I Overcame

• The corporation wanted a single global presence for the overarching brand. Most divisions, however, wanted to maintain their own sites. As such, success would only be attained if the local markets’ needs were met by the design.

Since the local divisions would not have full editing power, it was important for me to identify areas in which they’d likely need to express local content.

• There was also significant variation in the amount of customization needed in each market. Larger markets had a lot of their own content but smaller ones were more dependent on the global content.

Direct Contributions

• Framework Deign (wireframes)
• Information Architecture

Project Brief

Improve various transactional aspects of a local community news web platform.

This 65-page deliverable included process flows, dynamic messaging recommendations, wireframes covering every state of being and all possible “next step” actions.

Success / Feedback

Well-received by all project teams and implemented.

Challenges That I Overcame

• All the different states of being in the existing UX
• The need to provide customized, dynamic copy per each possible task.

Direct Contributions

• Process Flow
• UX Design (wireframes)
• Guidance

Project Brief

A former client called me in a panic one Friday evening, needing me to be on-site with their client first thing Monday morning, regarding a project with which I had NOT been involved.

Another agency had been brought on to the project for a specific purpose but was imposing an information architecture of their liking.

My client agency said it needed my expertise to refine “our IA” and defend it to the client.

The end client is located in NJ and I live on Long Island. Commuting Monday morning would not have enabled me to be there on time. My agency client said it would do anything to facilitate my “critical” presence in the meeting. As such, it paid for a hotel for me on Sunday night.

I worked late into the night on the site map and related guidance, presented it in the meeting, and explained why it was the better approach.

Success Measurements

• The end client was extremely pleased, not only for the IA itself but for the expertise and guidance I imparted.
• My agency client was claiming they were forever in my debt.

Challenges That I Overcame

• No background or familiarity with the project.
• Only 1.5 days to get familiar with the project and prepare the deliverables.
• Battled a raging snowstorm on the drive to NJ which almost prevented me from getting there.

Direct Contributions

• Information Architecture (site map)
• Expert guidance regarding IA principles
• Lead the client meeting

Project Brief

Design a site for showcasing entertainment properties and connecting enthusiasts to each other.

Additionally, the design needed to be scalable since the volume and categorizations of videos were expected to grow. And it needed to accommodate future state e-commerce and “social chatter” aspects.

Success Measurements

Client was extremely happy with the design and during our worksession, came to understand information architecture, as well as, the rationale for things I recommended…or recommended against.

Challenges That I Overcame

• The nested hierarchy of the entertainment properties was challenging to put into a presentation that was not too daunting for users who might not be that web-savvy.
• Due to the nature of the audience, fairly recognizable (and consistent) pages layouts, design patterns, action icons (like ‘share’, ‘add to playlist’, etc.) needed to be utilized.
• While the experience was primarily about viewing videos, the IA could not be suffered due to the large volume and inconsistent categorization of the videos.
• Needed to balance the desire to showcase videos with the ability for users to browse without needing to explore an inordinate number of pages.

Direct Contributions

• Information Architecture (site map)
• UX Design (wireframes)
• Client Guidance (worksessions)

Project Brief

Design a tool that can help patients find their co-pay amount for a prescription drug.

Success / Feedback

Client was very pleased with the design and implemented the tool into several of its brands’ sites.

Challenges That I Overcame

• The amount of information needed to gather from the visitor was significant.
• The experience needed to provide the visitor with help at every step.
• The result sets were not standard. Some pieces of information were different, or absent.

Direct Contributions

• ● Mini UX audit
• ● Information Architecture (site map)
• ● UX Design (wireframes)

Project Brief

The client had an inordinate number of intranets, sister sites, departmental repositories, and frequently used external resources. As such, it was very difficult for everyone in the organization to find the information they needed.

The goal of the project was to create a single “hallway” for accessing all possible intranets, cross-department repositories, and resources sites.

An additional goal was to provide a designation for items that are of particular importance to newcomers to the company.

Success / Feedback

Deliverable was well received as “a good start”. The client, however, had an idea of their own in mind….utilizing a “cards” approach. While I did not recommend that type of presentation because this UI was essentially a directory of links, I did render a version presented as cards.

Challenges That I overcame

• Many departments were not aware of the project so user interviews required substantial time for introductions and level setting, cutting short the available time for discovery. Despite this I was able to gain a good number of insights.
• While most departments agreed about the pain points, not all of them saw the project as solving the problem. My initial design was the simplest possible presentation and would’ve had a good chance at changing the mindset of those users. There were, however, some unsurmountable challenges.

Unsurmountable Challenges

• The primary stakeholder (who was not going to be one of the users) wanted “more visuals” and a landing page. If this were any other type of interface, and if the users hadn’t expressly stated that they just wanted one destination to see all links to the many other places they need to go (and some help for users who are new to the company) I would have made it more visual and given it more depth.
• I mimicked the “cards” presentation and merged my primary IA concept into it. S/He like liked it but still wanted more visuals./li>

Proof of the Pudding

Although I cautioned the primary stakeholder that some users were predisposed to not want the feature, did not want to represent their department in the interface, and considered it “just more work” s/he thought that because it was going to be created, management would force the users to use it.

Before my engagement was over (while we were still collecting user needs via email) one of the key departments expressly stated that they would not use the interface themselves and would not maintain a destination for visitation by other departments.

While I wasn’t able to see the final version of the interface, nor the reaction to the final version by the user base, the fact that a primary department decided not participate likely caused the project to either be scrapped, or not be useful to the other departments.

Direct Contributions

• User Research (group interviews)
• UX Design
• Information Architecture
• Prototype (in InVision)

Project Brief

The client’s individual departments had separate ownership of web site sectors and organized their product information in different hierarchies, and with different labels.

Recognizing that this created very confusing experiences for site visitors, the client wanted to harmonize these hierarchies into a unified one, and create a unified taxonomy.

Success / Feedback

Overwhelming positive feedback from the stakeholders. Even though the realization of what lay ahead for them to do was overwhelming, they conceptually understood the issues I’d uncovered and what I proposed to rectify it. And they were eager to jump in and get started overhauling things on their end.

Challenges That I Overcame

• I was not able to ask technical product questions or get any verification on my product questions.
• Even the stakeholders were not able to obtain this information internally. Those people with enough product knowledge to answer such questions were considered “inaccessible”.
  I used as much intelligence as I could gather from the client’s site, wikipedia, competitive sites, and other technology resources as surrogates for the inaccessible subject matter experts.
• Significant decision-making power was in the hands of people who had no understanding of how their decisions affected web site visitors. Business rules, product alignments, and marketing messages were constantly changing as a result of those decisions, and were often inconsistent, wreaking havoc on the site experience.
• Not only did these challenges exist for me, it explained why the stakeholders had the poor/inconsistent categorizations and bad data management habits. They were continually forced to “fit square pegs into round holes” in terms of the company’s taxonomy.

Direct Contributions

• I dove deeply into the client’s 2500-product database to isolate categorization differences. I identified that data management issues also existed on top of the conceptual differences in product categorization between the departments.
• I deconstructed all the product information and then reconstructed it in a consistent manner, and gave guidance on how to manage the information going forward. Doing so required an explanation of the differences between hierarchical items and attributes.
• Multi-facted deliverable (audit, data model, high-level IA, light wireframes)
• Competitive research
• Subject matter research

Project Brief

Create the information architecture and design options for a pitch to a newly formed institute.

Success / Feedback

The Creative Director led the project and was thrilled with my deliverable.  A while later, he recommended me to another agency.

Challenges That I Overcame

• Since there was no existing site or content, regular site maps would not suffice to help the prospective client understand the content ideas the team had in mind. (So I created a “content” site map.)
• The potential site content included a vast library of research which might be sought via a variety of different search criteria.
• Since this was a pitch, a fully fleshed out design was not required. But, making an impact with the recommended content and high-level design ideas was the critical need. As such, wireframe details were dialed down a bit.

Direct Contributions

• Information Architecture (“content site map”)
• UX Design (wireframes)
• Persona Matrix

Project Brief

Audit and send feedback to the Interaction Design Association regarding its redesign wireframes.

Success / Feedback

Many members in this large professional association responded with feedback but only I, and one other member, were mentioned by name in the Thank You message sent to the community.

Challenges That I Overcame

Critiquing the valiant efforts of the members who worked on the redesign required a delicate balance.

Being too soft would result in a site that did not meet the needs of the members.

Being too strong would insult the skills of colleagues in the community.

Direct Contributions

• Deep analysis of the wires
• Substantial, detailed, audit feedback

Project Brief

• Part I: Extensive, multi-site audit and mapping of the 18 sites in the association’s ecosystem.
• Part 2: Design a new user experience for a harmonized primary site incorporating voluminous content from a very old, out-dated site.
• Part 3: Design the personalized and social interaction aspects of the redesigned/harmonized site.

Success / Feedback

• Proudest moment: The third party development firm was so impressed with my work that they have become a client of mine.
• Recognizing that my client stakeholders and the third party dev firm would have difficulty absorbing the structure of so many sites and recognizing how tedious it would be for folks to try to familiarize themselves with the content from all the sites, I summarized each site before presenting the site map.

  I also made the deliverables fully interactive using advanced Omnigraffle and Acrobat features. Both the client and development team were ecstatic about this aspect the deliverables.

• A major problem of the old site was the inconsistent manner in which the content was presented. The new design included simple templates for simpler pages but more importantly, provided a consistent, robust filtering experience for the large volumes of content for which visitors would need to forage through to find desired content.

Challenges That I Overcame

• Very short turnaround time
• Client had no prior documentation on the multitude of sites within its jurisdiction. There had been a significant, undocumented evolution of “sister sites”, microsites, and subordinate sites. Thus, the client was not sure exactly how many sites actually existed.
  Since there were no guiding documents the endeavor required clicking on every link within every site and analyzing every page in order to properly map the sites, and offer recommendations.

Direct Contributions

• UX Audits (18)
• Information Architecture (current site maps)
• Information Architecture (harmonized map)
• UX Design (wireframes)
• Process guidance

Project Brief

The team was embarking on three separate marketing communication process timelines for a product that had three different audiences. The client was having difficulty absorbing all the details, as well as, the big picture of the communications plan.

So, the Account Manager asked me to craft something that visually represented the big picture, the individual plans, and the timelines in a simplified, consistent, and more intuitive manner.

Success Measurements

The Account Manager was extremely pleased with the document, feeling that it intuitively conveyed the various marketing tracks.

Challenges That I Have

• Each marketing tack had different documents representing the communications flows and timeline for each indication.
• Due to the different presentation methods it wasn’t easy to determine the similarities and differences between them.
• While some portions of the plans turned out to be similar and occurred at similar times, not all aspects were, making it challenging to pull it all together in a consistent fashion.

Direct Contributions

• Concept models
• Process flows

Project Brief

Audit the existing interfaces for a marketing asset management platform.

Success / Feedback

All stakeholders were extremely pleased with the deliverable. For some it was eye-opening regarding the many aspects of the platform that were impeding users.

For their in-house UX Designers, however, it was invaluable. It vetted everything they had been vying for internally. Their recommendations hadn’t been being heard but now had a voice.

Additional Success Measurement

Approximately 1 year later they hired me as the UX Architect.

Challenges That I Overcame

Each of the platform’s clients have slightly different instances of the software. So the audit required looking at multiple instances and pulling the findings together into a single cohesive evaluation.

Direct Contributions

• UX Audit
• Guidance

Project Brief

Design an app, and tablet experiences for “social gifting” and payments.

The App: Order, send drinks (“Goodies”) and pay the tab.

The Service Interfaces: See who’s ordered what, who’s sent Goodies to whom, serve the drinks. Payments are automated through the app.

The Merchant Interfaces: Send promos to loyal customers, direct messaging to customers about special events, analyze sales.

Success / Feedback

• Extremely happy client.
• Successful product launch.

Challenges That I Overcame

• The client didn’t realize the volume of screens needed for such transactional interfaces but I educated them on the process steps and other nuances that were needed.
• The gifting aspect needed to mimic the real world mental model of ordering and gifting drinks at a bar. It’s more complex than meets the eye.

Direct Contributions

• UX Design (iPhone wireframes)
• UX Design (iPad wireframes)
• Process Flows (various)
• Industry guidance

Project Brief

Provide high level wireframes of creative presentation options for videos testimonials.

Success / Feedback

Creative Director and team were extremely pleased with the solution. Ultimate success unknown as client tabled the project.

Challenges That I Overcame

• The videos needed to fit into a into a newly designed look & feel for the site that had not considered this content.
• Needed to provide for biographies content, filtering by topic areas, and scalability for future expansion of the content.

Direct Contributions

• UX Design (wireframes)

Project Brief

Redesign a product site to showcase new packaging. Content included product information, supporting content with tools, and purchase options.

Success Measurements

Well-received by entire account team.

Challenges That I Overcame

• The need to simplify the existing product presentation while still showcasing new brand variations.
• Conceptualize and recommend a food calendar which served a variety of use cases.

Direct Contributions

• UX Design
• Tool Design
• Information Architecture (site map)

Project Brief

Design a simple mobile app to facilitate collaboration on projects, including task status and completion, and centered around a calendar framework.

Success / Feedback

I landed the gig!

Challenges That I Overcame

• Tight timeframe
• Balancing the need for simplicity with the need for valuable features.

Direct Contributions

• UX Design (wireframes)
• Information Architecture (app map)
• Strategy for features and future state

Project Brief

This is an oldie but goodie.

The 2-phased, 6-month consultancy encompassed a variety of deliverables for a large, complex web application in the recruiting industry that serviced hiring managers, recruiters, and contractors alike, in a single digital marketplace.

Success / Feedback

• The presentation of my findings, and my high-level design recommendations so impressed my boss that he requested a two hour block for me to present them to the President and his Leadership Committee in their next monthly meeting.
• While I described one of my primary solutions, the Vice President of New Business told the room that he was recently in a meeting with Microsoft (as a potential new client).  The folks in that meeting had asked for precisely the feature I was recommending.
• I was asked to give my presentation to all departments (including the dev team) to educate them as to the software’s usability issues.
• I thought the dev team might be a tough audience for this subject matter. Not only were they interested and eager to ask questions, in the days that followed they began coming to me regarding things that were already in their pipeline of work, to ask for my POV on the UX of what they were building.
• My contract was extended to flesh out the details of my high-level design recommendations.

Challenges That I Overcame

• Large volume of content (records)
• No exiting user research or insights
• No direct access to users
• System was built for one user type when four primary user types were ultimately identified during my discovery.

Direct Contributions

• UX Research (user interviews) – Since there was no existing research and no access to end users, I opted to use the client’s service team (who worked closely with customer users) as user surrogates and conducted in-depth interviews with them.
• Deep product exploration & testing
• Personas (crafting & guidance)
• UX Audit & High-level recommendations
• Overhaul of the Information Architecture
• UX Design (wireframes) for all major features of the application
• UX Design (wireframes) for a dashboard
• Process Improvement, including the detection of two manual process points that could be eliminated via automation
• Consulting and UX Design of new features
• Educate every department about UX

Project Brief

Analyze user testing videos and report the findings.

Success / Feedback

Client has been very thankful for the insights conveyed in my reports.

Additionally, I have found flaws in the execution of some of the tests, causing users to be unable to complete the tests or some of the tasks. The research company was very happy with my ability to pinpoint the issues so that the tests could be re-run.

Challenges That I Overcame

Generally, these analyses don’t carry challenges but the ones with executional issues were initially difficult to analyze and took some time to figure out what was going wrong.

Direct Contributions

• User Testing Analysis
• Report findings

Project Brief

Design a mobile app that enables users to refer and rate professionals, and earn social clout for valuable referrals.

Success Measurements

The level of detail and the level of effort for development was more complex than than client imagined. So while my design was successful, the client has not yet been able to launch.

Challenges That I Overcame

While the app was intended to scale to any type of professional, the client wanted to hone in one one industry for launch.

I needed to explain that while we can limited the launch to the one industry, the thinking behind the process flows and design needed to take the scale into consideration.

Direct Contributions

• UX Design
• Process Flows
• Information Architecture
• Strategy

Project Brief

Design a site “refresh”, to modernize it.

Success Measurements

Well-received by entire account team and client.

Challenges That I OVercame

• Extremely tight turnaround time.
• Client and team were set on using parallax scrolling and had some pre-conceived design ideas. While there are times that parallax scrolling can be effective, there are also dangers in terms of usability. The art director and I worked in tandem to review his design ideas and the ideas for utilizing the parallax scrolling. I identified where usability problems would exist and recommended alternative approaches or tweaks, then wireframed the site.

Direct Contributions

• UX Design
• Information Architecture (site map)
• Process Flow
• Help Visual Designer bring forth his creative idea without compromising the UX

Project Brief

Design a website that connects all players in the theatrical community and facilitates the collaborations that typically take place between them.

Success / Feedback

Client was extremely happy with all aspects of the work.

Challenges That I Overcame

• There are a substantial number of personas with very different needs and goals.
• The site goals were impressively lofty but there were a lot of hurdles to conquer (both strategic and executional).
• There were a multitude of filters: to find information, collaborators, and collaboration opportunities. Additionally, the client’s strategy is a “freemium to premium” model. As such, the filters are complex for freemium subscribers but the complexity expands exponentially for premium subscribers.

Direct Contributions

• UX Design (wireframes)
• Information Architecture (site map)
• Process Flows (signup, engagement)
• Functionality Design & Guidance (for document submission and collaboration)
• Process Flows (user collaborations)
• Filtering Design & Guidance (complex and multi-phased filters)

Project Brief

Provide an audit of UX issues on a university website, for the purposes of including it in a pitch.

Success Measurements

Client was extremely happy with the deliverable and was anxious to incorporate it into the pitch presentation.

Challenges / Rationale for Design Solution

• None – audits typically do not carry challenges.

Direct Contributions

• UX Audit & Guidance

Project Brief

Create widgets that can facilitate a visitor’s access to large volumes of content from the client’s site, distributed to social media and other off-site locations.

Success / Feedback

• Via the design, I was able to convince the client that one widget could house multiple “channels” to accommodate the different types of content it wanted to distribute. Additionally, I pointed out that this would simplify development and maintenance.
• The client team members were also using the terms search, sort, and filter interchangeably so the deliverable included samples of each in order to educate the team.
• The client also wanted the widget to be sharable in several ways. I found the sharing service (now called) Share This and recommended that service’s mechanism be used because a) it contained all the desired share options, b) it was customizable, and c) it’s compact nature made for efficient use of space in the small footprint of the widget.
• Ultimate success unknown as project was tabled for budgetary reasons but well-recieved by client.

Challenges That I Overcame

• Client was fixated on having our team create multiple, slightly different widgets.
• Real estate limitations.
• Consideration that these would eventually need to translate to a mobile platform.

Direct Contributions

• UX Design (wireframes)
• Information Architecture
• Strategy
• Guidance (filtering and sorting)

Project Brief

Design the space for a new set of content (videos) to be incorporated into an existing site.

Provide the ability to rate videos & download transcripts. Provide recommendations for scalability for future years of videos.

Success / Feedback

Account Executive was extremely pleased with the solution and the recommendations for scaling to include future years.

Challenges That I Overcame

• We were not permitted to overhaul or re-structure the site. We were forced to find a way to retrofit the new content into the existing site structure.
• The video library contained multiple levels of hierarchy while the rest of the site was fairly thin / flat.
• Design needed to consider significant scaling for future content.
• Design also needed to provide for interactivity within a cramped space.

Direct Contributions

• Information Architecture (section map)
• UX Design (wireframes)

Project Brief

Map the existing web site experience.

Direct Contributions

• contribution 1 (deliverable type)
• contribution 2 (deliverable type)
• contribution 3 (deliverable type)
• contribution 4 (deliverable type)

Success / Feedback

• Client did not have a handle on the breadth of the site. This map helped the client visualize the existing experience as a point of reference for understanding recommendations for improvement.
• success comment 2
• success comment 3
• success comment 4

Challenges / Rationale for Design Solution

• As this was an expression of the exiting experience there were no challenges to this facet of the project.
• challenge 2
• challenge 3

Project Brief

Audit / evaluation of a dashboard task interface

Success / Feedback

Client was very appreciative of the insights and set off to employ the improvements recommended in the evaluation.

Challenges That I Overcame

None – audits do not generally carry challenges.

Direct Contributions

• UX Audit