OBJECTIVE
Create an experience with high consideration to the business goals (increasing acquisition and retention with new Family Accounts feature), while keeping users needs at the forefront.
The interface had to be intuitive, and clean without minimizing the feature too much.
Discoverability was very important. With 12 possible accounts under one identity, the interface could easily get crowded and confusing.
THE PROCESS
I worked with the CEO directly to understand the business needs and his overall vision.
Super low (good ole' pencil and paper), and low fidelity wireframes were next, sharing with members of the leadership team throughout the process.
Once the requirements were locked, wireframes were reviewed with engineering to scope the project and routed to the issuing bank partner for legal approvals.
PUTTING THE POLISH ON
With wireframes in good shape, additional UI and visual design exploration began.
Visual designs then route internally with key stakeholders, compliance, etc. and eventually make their way into the engineering queue to get sized for individual sprints.
The process is an iterative one, with the final vision of the feature slowing coming to life.
Role: Director, Product & User Experience
Responsibilities: Product Roadmap, Content Strategy, Experience Design, Interaction Design, Visual Design
OBJECTIVE
Optimize the current Search experience to improve discoverability and intuitiveness while integrating geolocation.
We’re also transitioning the site to a new look & feel, and still establishing UI patterns like filters for responsive web design.
THE PROCESS
I worked with one of our design partners DesignMap to do the preliminary explorations including one round of usability testing. We partnered with DesignMap for a limited engagement on this project, so after they wrapped up their contribution, I began to further dissect the work we had done together.
There were several things that I didn’t feel we had quite nailed, so I decided to go back to the basics, do additional research and attempt to rethink the experience from an another perspective.
During our earlier work, we had been very confined by the technical limitations of our current search engine and taxonomy. Our solution was driven by legacy expectations and opinions, and I had felt we compromised too much in our approach. Plus, we were introducing geolocation as an enhancement, and I felt that if we incorporated that differently, we could streamline the experience.
I continued to do additional research on filtering, geolocation and search in general. I looked at what others were doing, best practices… the usual.
Sources of inspiration, intel and more: Dribble, Nelson Norman Group, Macys.com and, of course, the world wide web overall ;)
WHAT's NEXT?
I’ve started to sketch out some questions and ideas to see if I can get more clarity.
I’m wireframing out the filtering approach(s) on mobile first, and planning on taking that to Product for some new working sessions (and negotiations).
I’ve also begun exploring some hi-fi comps (visual designs) to see what’s starting to shape up there.
Role: Sr. Mgr., Experience Design & Principal UX Designer
Responsibilities: Experience Design, Interaction Design & Visual Design
OBJECTIVE
Create a co-branded experience bridging the gap between digital and retail.
The user would begin the flow from a logged in state within PayPal's interface. They would then get passed to Green Dot's parallel site and finish the process, in-person, at a retailer.
The interface had to be intuitive, and simple, while solving for a fairly complex flow.
Making sure there were no dead ends was essential. To achieve this, we utilized triggered email confirmations and reminders, as well as, a concise interface.
THE PROCESS
I worked with the VP of product for the network team, as well as, marketing stakeholders to understand the network limitations and co-branding expectations.
We worked out the details of the requirements during the wireframing phase. There were several risk and security factors to consider, and seeing it on paper helped the risk team get a better understanding of the options. As a result, the wireframing phase was the largest chunk of the project.
Once the requirements were locked, wireframes were reviewed with engineering to scope the project and routed to internal compliance and legal for approvals.
DESIGN PHASE
A couple of quick visual directions were explored, but ultimately, the design phase was a simple one, as PayPal’s brand guides were to be followed, not leaving for much interpretation.
Visual designs then route internally with key stakeholders, compliance, etc. and eventually to PayPal for final approvals.
Done and done.
Role: Director, User Experience & Design
Responsibilities: Experience Design, Interaction Design, Visual Design, Content Strategy
Card has a niche within the prepaid industry with the offering of over 3,000 custom card designs, from hollywood legends to sports teams.
As Director, Product and User Experience, one of my goals is to leverage that niche and guarantee it's discoverability, improving acquisition.
Acquisition is only half the battle, once acquired we need to improve retention and lifespan.
Here are some examples of explorations for various initiatives.
Role: Director, Product & User Experience
Responsibilities: Product Roadmap, Content Strategy, Product Design, Experience Design, Interaction Design, Visual Design
Conceptualizing and designing this interactive kiosk for a Green Dot/Target integration was a blast. It got me outside of the regular web/mobile mind set, adding additional complexities.
Integrating with internal stakeholders, our partners at Target, the kiosk company and internal engineering was super rewarding.
Role: Director, User Experience & Designer
Responsibilities: Concept, Experience Design, Interaction Design, Visual Design, Content Strategy, Animation
Green Dot has a massive reload network, and had recently added new features/functionality, so we created an informative video to help communicate the concept to Green Dot's partners.
Role: Director, User Experience & Design
Responsibilities: Interaction Design, Visual Design, Content Strategy, Animation Direction
While at Green Dot, I did a lot of work with Walmart MoneyCard®. During the site refresh phase, we dove deep into every flow within the site and prepared optimized flow recommendations. Because of the confines of the engineering schedule, we often needed to prepare ALT versions of the flows, which weren’t the optimal UX recommendation, but a more doable compromise.
The team then put together some prototype concepts to pitch… some, pretty out of the box for the Walmart folks, so we eventually settled on a refresh that is more inline with the current .com site.
Role: Director, User Experience & Design
Responsibilities: Product Design, Experience Design, Interaction Design, Visual Design, Content Strategy
I was tasked with creating a B2B portal with many network partners and a ton of content. Delivering that much information, while keeping the UI clean was quite a challenge.
Role: Sr. User Experience Designer
Responsibilities: Experience Design, Interaction Design, Visual Design
I was tasked by RadarWorks to redesign the Susan G. Komen Global Race for the Cure® website. RadarWorks is an advertising agency with offices in Seattle and Los Angeles.
I was provided branding and general direction, and went from there.
Role: Sr. User Experience Designer
Responsibilities: Experience Design, Visual Design, Content Strategy,
GoBank is an award-winning bank account, made to be used on a mobile phone. Designed with mobile usage in mind, evolving into a desktop site as well. We launched in 2013 with an awesome app experience, which continues to evolve, as well as, the desktop and mobile view.
I was lucky enough to be involved early in the development stage and was a large contributor to the product's beta and public launch.
Always a blast dreaming up scenarios for GoBank's mascot Professor Dog (PD).
Here's on overview of several explorations.
Role: Director, User Experience & Design
Responsibilities: Product Design, Experience Design, Interaction Design, Visual Design, Content Strategy
Lifecycle Communications Revisited
I was tasked with revamping the lifecycle communications for the Green Dot marketing team.
My approach was direct, attention grabbing, relevant content with minimal messaging to communicate what the features could do for the user (cardholder), rather than the traditional approach.
Here are some fun explorations.
Role: Director, User Experience & Design
Responsibilities: Product Design, Experience Design, Interaction Design, Visual Design, Content Strategy
Green Dot @ the Register was a pretty simple assignment due to the site not supporting any functionality. The challenge was coming up with UI and visual design that was scalable (due to new services being added throughout 2015), easily responsive and living in a sweet spot between digital and retail.
Role: Director, User Experience & Design
Responsibilities: Experience Design, Visual Design, Content Strategy
I’ve had the privilege of working with many talented people/teams. Here are some particularly notable…
Kasier Permanente
Role: Sr. Mgr., User Experience
Products include: KP iOS & Android app and companion site kp.org
Responsibilities: Experience Design, Interaction Design, Visual Design, Strategy and management of design team consisting of 10 - 15 designers.
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Green Dot Corp.
Role: Director, User Experience & Design
Products include: GoBank award-winning bank account; Green Dot Prepaid Card; Walmart MoneyCard; GD Network
Responsibilities: Concept Development, Experience Design, Interaction Design, Visual Design, Content Strategy
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CBS Interactive
Role: Sr. User Experience Designer
Products include: CBS.com
Responsibilities: Experience Design, Information Architecture, Interaction Design, Visual Design
