Case Study Summaries
NFT Merchandise for Entertainment Partnerships: Strategy & Platform
Role: Product Design Lead
As the lead product designer on the launch team for Candy’s partnership with Netflix, my focus was on the development of the overarching entertainment digital merchandise strategy and user experience for the launch of Candy Digital’s Stranger Things product line, including journey mapping and puzzle development for the hugely successful iamhellsmaster ARG and leading UX for the launch of the Netflix x Candy platform. In parallel, I was also a key contributor to the digital merchandise strategy for the Getty Images partnership and UX lead for the Getty Images x Candy platform.
Related to: Product Design, Product Strategy, Startup, Concept to Launch, Remote Work, Team Management, Cross-Functional Collaboration
Smart Home Food Storage App: Interactive Prototype
Role: Product Designer
As an independent contractor, I worked directly with the founder of an emerging food tracking and storage solution to define the MVP app experience, as well as explore several conceptual future features. Based on a few key wireframes and extensive collaboration, I greatly enhanced and refined the information architecture, user flows, and interaction design. The final deliverable was an interactive Figma prototype that would go on to support app development and investor pitches. Though this engagement didn’t include research, the deliverables included in-depth, actionable recommendations for how their small team could gather meaningful user feedback for iteration.
Related to: Product Design, Product Strategy, Information Architecture, Startup, Prototyping, Concept Development, Contract Work
Wealth Management Tool for People with Volatile Income: Proof of Concept
Role: Product Design & Research Lead
I took the initiative to lead a team of four designers to create, test, and iterate a unique tool to help those with volatile incomes easily and effectively grow, and ultimately invest, their long-term savings. Over the course of four modified Google Design Sprints, we developed the core value proposition of the tool via a unique onboarding experience and raised the user-reported desirability score from 3.4 to 4.5 out of five. The concept went on to be successfully used by the business development team to pitch and win engagements with multiple major international financial institutions.
Related to: Product Design, UX Research, Rapid Iteration, Prototyping, Concept Development, Team Management, FinTech
Looking for a little more context? Check out my resume or contact me!
Market, Opportunity & Brand Landscape: Perlite for Legal Cannabis Growth
Role: Research Lead
As the sole UX practitioner at a digital branding agency, I got the unique opportunity to do emerging market research for a perlite manufacturing client undergoing a full rebrand. The executive team requested a custom in-depth view into past and current sentiments on perlite for cannabis growth, the forecasted timeline for legalization in the Midwest, and recommendations for positioning themselves as the go-to supplier for perlite as legal cannabis operationalized to scale, without threatening their existing client base.
My final deliverable included a full report and custom four-hour seminar that I lead for their leadership to internalize the content and collaboratively workshop their next steps, which included accompanying the executive team to a cannabis industry expo in Denver, CO as their subject matter expert.
Related to: Market Research, Competitive Analysis, Business Strategy
Internal Use Reporting Software: Discovery, Usability Testing, & Interactive Prototype Development
Role: Lead Product Designer & Researcher
It may look dry at first glance, but this incredibly complex and domain-specific project was one of the most challenging of my career to date. For this effort with a multinational wealth management firm, I lead a team of five designers and researchers to make dramatic, systemic updates to an internal reporting platform used by the company’s wealth managers to communicate with and make decisions on behalf of their most important clients.
After an intense round of discovery interviews, requirements gathering, and target state alignment, we broke the project into multiple work streams that ran concurrently to rapidly design, test, and iterate a brand new streamlined interface and output for the entire reporting process. Using complex interactive prototypes at multiple levels of fidelity, we arrived at a solution that restructured the workflow from the ground up, made quality-of-life improvements to dozens of existing features, and incorporated thirteen highly desirable new capabilities.
One participant in our final round of usability testing said, “the one thing we've been wanting for a while is extremely high levels of customization, and you guys have gone above and beyond... but if you gave me a few hours with this, I could still figure it out on my own.” For me, that was the highest compliment!
Related to: Product Design, UX Research, Consulting, FinTech, Rapid Iteration, Prototyping, Team Management