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My Role

UX Team Lead - DesignOps - User Research (Research Gap Analysis, User Testing) - Facilitation (Workshops, GV Design Sprint) - Prototyping

Context

I was brought in to lead a global UX team of 3 for a high-profile iOS app project that had stalled. Once I had aligned with the lead product manager on the issues faced & how I could help, my approach was to implement basic DesignOps to unblock team communication & get things moving. Next, I designed & ran a usability testing project to both assess product design confidence & to function as an introduction to a user-led product design process for the wider team & executive management, which was rare for the organisation. Leveraging the success from that effort, I ran a highly-praised Google Ventures Design Sprint with the globally dispersed product team to further unblock & unify project direction.

Key Challenges

Stalled Product Team
The long-gestating iOS app project had essentially broken down, due to a combination of communication issues within the globally spread product team, coupled with limited team experience with shipping consumer-facing products.

To address this, I began by running an internal discovery project to map out existing product team processes, with a focus on both how design decisions were made, how output was managed & how all this was communicated with the wider product team. Leveraging the learnings from that, I implemented basic DesignOps process to better integrate design planning & task management into the product team’s existing agile workflows (a first for the organisation), alongside scheduling weekly alignment & review meetings between design, dev & product teams to facilitate clearer communication.

User Centricity in an Engineering First Org
This rare consumer-facing project sat in an ingrained ‘Engineering First’ technology-licensing organisation that came with institutional resistance to user-centred thinking, with no clear path for how to transition from its original technology-driven project roots to a user-led product.

To resolve, I designed, ran & synthesised a series of complex live-music recording usability tests to both assess project status and showcase the clear benefits of involving representative users as an integral part of the product design process, while making a point to involve the entire product team & executive management. I leveraged the success of the learnings & interest that emerged from that research initiative to sell the organisation on running a Google Ventures Design Sprint, which I designed & hosted. This hugely successful workshop was fundamental in unblocking & unifying a new project direction, pulling in product team members from across 4 different geos.