Versatile and Strategic Product Designer
New York, NY
How I Work
1.
Trade-Offs
Every design decision has a trade-off but transitioning from a role in government to a startup quickly introduced me to the most constant trade-off a designer will deal with. Time.
I learned firsthand the difference in development time when you're designing screens vs designing patterns and how effective it can be to be an expert in your component library. Determining when to cut a feature to immediately reduce development time or when to opt for polish and reduce development time later down the road is a frequent problem, but one I learned to be comfortable with.
Support Console: Cut feature that would allow users to search by location in addition to the user's name or email address which directly reduced development time.
Home: Chose to introduce a new UI to simplify core workflow rather than reusing a table and reduced the need to rework the feature later.
2.
Complexity to Clarity
From data-dense government applications, to multi-step onboarding portals, to administrative tools; complex systems are what I'm most familiar with and the problems they face are my favorite to solve. Thinking through the happy path, the edge cases, and everything in-between leads me to my most intuitive, efficient solutions.
Support Console: Handling support tickets is a complex, branching tasks dependent on a number of factors. By speaking to our support team and getting a better understanding of how they operate, I was able to eliminate unnecessary steps and simplify their path moving forward.
Home: To put it plainly, there were too many issues with the prior workflow to fit in a short blurb. Customer feedback, replay sessions, and a thorough UX audit allowed me to untangle this messy workflow that contained multiple pages and unintuitive loops into a clear, process-targeted experience.
3.
Navigating Ambiguity
I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see a clear product brief until I was already a man. On a serious note, most of the product briefs I have ever received leave me with more questions than answers, but that experience has allowed me to get good at asking those questions. Who we're building for, why we're building, and eventually what we're building are all answers I'm comfortable finding.
Support Console: Only briefed on a vague idea of a “single pane of glass” to improve our support experience. Through research I was able to determine what this needed to accomplish and how. By doing so I was able to unify a fragmented process into a clean flow + single interface.
Home: There was no clear vision for what this project would become. By communicating with stakeholders, leveraging previous research, and adding that to new findings I created a product vision to strive for and boosted momentum for this transformative project.
4.
Systems Thinking
I become immersed into whatever product I am working on, thoroughly learning the ins and outs to fully understand how it works. This allows me to take a holistic approach to design that considers how each piece connects to one another. And with that, I'm able to see how a small change may ripple through the product and accomplish more, rapidly.
Support Console: Building 0 to 1, I was generous with white space, placing content where it made the most sense, and not forcing elements into spaces just for the sake of it. Later down the road when features were being added that made sense for those spaces, they could be built in without friction and create more intuitive experience.
Home: This was a large project that benefited hugely from being able to cut corners anywhere along the way. By creating UI patterns that could be shared on both the internal and external sides I was able to cut development times drastically.
5.
How I've Changed
Support Console to Home: The biggest growth I saw in the time between these projects was my ability to design at scale. I became an expert with our component library, our system and its restraints over time. And with that, I was able to build quicker, more scalable interfaces with what was available and knew the time when it was necessary to push for more.