Design Operations

I am passionate about pinpointing and addressing opportunities for greater efficiency, collaboration, and research-based design.

In my current role, I have led the development of design operations to drive the impact of our design team at scale. Below is the impact of my proven process. If you are interested in learning more about my implementation please contact me to learn more.

Strategies for How Design
Work is Done

1.0 STANDARDIZE

Guiding Principles
Designers have a Team Vision guide that outlines the team’s values, the target customers it serves, and the unique attributes the product provides. A series of workshops are held to identify the team’s challenges, objectives, and intended impact for the future.

Design Process
Design and Product teams have a holistic process to work through problem spaces more efficiently by considering risks, business goals, and user needs. This process is being championed across all product and feature segments.

2.0 HARMONIZE

Design System Management 
The Design System has a dedicated space within the team’s intranet. This resource helps designers understand how the design system supports the product and provides process documentation on how to contribute or collaborate with the component library team.

Research Hubs
Research resources are aggregated into a centralized location on the team’s intranet. This leads to higher visibility of vital resources and a better understanding of how and when to engage with research during the design process.

3.0 PRIORITIZE

Balanced Workflows and Estimation
A product design review workflow was built to determine the scale of a project before it is developed and outlines distinct steps necessary for successful completion. It also establishes practices to detect bugs earlier in development and seamlessly integrate critical design updates.

Strategies for How Design Work Creates Impact

1.0 MEASUREMENTS

Design Standards 
Through a unified framework (e.g. Lean UX), teams can gain a better understanding of what should be built, why it should be built, and how it aligns with user needs. With clear metrics to measure success and a standardized system for creating and collaborating across Design and Product, the team can iterate faster and with less risk.

Design Metrics
Every new feature or product has measurements of success embedded within the Lean UX framework. Value added to the customer is measured through metrics related to engagement, adoption, retention, and increased NPS from customers. Furthermore, the framework is designed to provide executive leadership with the language they need to understand product value and relevance through a design lens. 

Strategies for Working Together

1.0 COLLABORATE

Team Environment
Product, research, and design use the same vocabulary when communicating their process and workflow. This leads to more productive and efficient conversations.

2.0 HUMANIZE

Onboarding Materials
Design and Product have access to centralized resources that span the UX Team’s vision, product history, design process, and organizational resources. 

Career Development
The Design Team has two Nielsen Norman Group (NN/g) UX Certified designers and four additional designers pursuing their certification. This adds knowledge to the team and creates a culture of learning and mentorship.

Product Design Process

I established the three-prong creation process.

🚀 PROJECT KICK-OFF

Establishing scope at the beginning of the product design process with a big-picture understanding of user and business needs.

Resources Created

  • Lean UX Canvas

  • Product Feature Canvas

💻 DESIGN REVIEW PROCESS

Guiding Product Requirements and UX/UI needs from preliminary planning to development.

Resources Created

  • Design Review Process Infographic

  • Product Design Process Infographic

🔎 RESEARCH PROCESS

Participating in discovery, generative, and evaluative research practices throughout the design and development process.

Resources Created

  • Design Research Process

  • UX Research Method Library

  • UX Research Decision Tree

Design operations artifacts organized within the three main areas of the DesignOps Landscape by NN/g