UX Experience Overview
Summary
I (Anna) was lucky enough to have a great 5+ year run as a tech product designer. I went from supporting projects for small startups to leading UX initiatives for large enterprises like Shopify and VistaPrint. Along the way I learned from some amazingly talented designers, and made lifelong friends. Here you can see some high-level highlights from my time as a UX’er. Please feel free to reach out if you’d like to see more detailed project case studies.
Services
Industry
The challenge
It’s tough to distill 5+ years of UX challenges in a couple paragraphs! Some especially meaty questions I tackled during this time included: How might we make it easier for customers to report and resolve problems with their print orders? How might we empower warehouse managers to resolve human errors that occur in the order fulfillment process more quickly? How might we enable busy parents to order laundry services from their phones within just a few clicks?
I always loved that with UX, tackling a new problem meant learning the ins and outs of a completely new industry and spending time getting to know the human beings powering it.
The solution
As UX designers, we’re taught a somewhat linear “design process” for tackling product problems. In my experience, the reality of UX projects is messy and non-linear, since each project has completely different constraints and considerations (timeline, research capabilities, budget etc.).
While adapting to these realities is important, having a design process to provide structure and direction is also critical to keeping projects on track. I always found myself coming back to the following key touchpoints:
Discovery: Diving deep into gathering insights about the problem, understanding user needs, and exploring opportunities.
Definition: In this phase, research findings are synthesized to clearly define the problem statement and focus on the specific challenge the team will solve.
Development: We (designers) explore potential solutions, brainstorm ideas, and iterate on designs through prototyping and testing.
Delivery: Refining the chosen solution, finalizing the design, and preparing for launch or implementation with continued testing.
More than anything, working as a UX designer trained me to methodically break down problems, relentlessly challenge my own assumptions, and listen carefully to the needs of the end-users who I'm designing for.
I also feel lucky and proud to have been a part of teams that saw real impact from features that we launched. One highlight from my UX years were designing a platform enabling users to better track work completed throughout the day in a warehouse, resulting in 28% decrease in missed cutoff times. Another was creating a new service design for exception management in Shopify warehouses, resulting in a 38% decrease on time taken to fulfill orders with exceptions.
As mentioned, for a detailed view into these projects and the process behind them, feel free to reach out to request case studies.
