Leading end-to-end user experience leveraging Agile and Scrum methodologies for prioritized, high-value strategic use cases to guide clients through the design process from ideation to implementation in 2-6 week pilot sprints.
In my current role, I work as a UX Designer on the Client Engineering team within IBM. IBM is known for its hardware and software products, and also provides technology services, such as cloud computing, data analytics and artificial intelligence. I specifically worked on a multi-disciplinary team with engineers, data scientists, solution architects and business leaders to work directly with IBM clients.
UX Designer
Figma
Mural
Webex / Outlook
IBM Products
Aug 2022- Now
The Client Engineering team at IBM helps co-create with clients to innovate and rapidly prove solutions to business opportunities by leveraging IBM Technology. Some recent clients include:
Client Engineering is a team of business and technology SMEs as an investment by IBM to jointly innovate and rapidly prove solutions to your business opportunities by leveraging IBM hybrid cloud and AI technologies. As a UX Designer, I help uncover client and user needs and define a scope to prove value using client design workshops and a variety of research/design methods. I lead UX and customer / user journey design for prioritized use cases, and then work with the technical team to build custom interfaces to meet the client needs.
Our Client Engineering team is made up of AI Engineers, Cloud Engineers, Data Scientists, Solution Architects, Business Leaders, and other Designers.
A general summary of my day to day work:
Design Thinking Workshops: As a CE designer, I lead Design Thinking workshops with our external clients. I both travel with my team in person to the client site or lead sessions virtually. An in-person workshop I facilitate includes post-it notes and whiteboards to draw out the physical activities that our clients partake in. When I lead virtual workshops, I use Mural and Webex (or any virtual meeting tool) to facilitate conversation and participation. Leading Design Thinking workshops require research and preparation on the specific client and need, as well as preparing the materials and activities that I run in the session.
Sample activities include business landscape (understanding the clients business and team), use case exploration and prioritization (helping the client determine use cases and which make sense to focus on), user journey maps and future state maps (looking for pain points and improvement areas in their current process) and many more.
Other User Research Methods: Outside of running and facilitating a workshop, I utilize many other user research methods daily:
User Interface Design: One of the main (and my favorite!) parts of my role is designing customized interfaces for our clients. Because of the number of projects I am on, there is a wide range of interfaces that I have designed for- from web dashboards to virtual assistant chatbots to backend technical developer tools. I utilize Figma and typically have an IBM product as the scope for which I can customize the product to fit the needs of the client. Clients typically have requirements for interfaces to fit their branding and style guides. I design in sprints, sharing designs with the client to get feedback and iterate. Then I use the Figma Dev mode to handoff and transition my high-fidelity screens to my engineers to build and implement for the client.
User Testing: For the interfaces that I build, I gain insights on usability and functionality through user testing. In my current role, user testing is extremely important because it can mean the difference between a client buying and implementing our IBM technology, and going with a competitor instead. So after I transition designs over to my technical team, I work with them directly to test our solution. I utilize a variety of user testing methods such as usability testing, A/B testing, focus groups and solution workshops. I also test the products myself for high-level usability issues that our team can fix before going to the client.
AI Product Experience: This role has allowed me to have a front seat in the new AI technology landscape because of IBM's watsonx platform. A large majority of the projects I work on with our clients involve and center AI technology at the heart of the solution. Because of this, I am well versed in designing for artificial technology, and also well equipped to lead user research surrounding the use of and ethics behind AI interactions.
Handling Multiple Projects: At any given time in my role as a Designer, I am "Lead Designer" on 5-6 active projects and typically have 10+ more ongoing projects happening in the background. Because of this, I am skilled at performing in a fast-paced environment and managing a lard workload of engagements.
Interactions with Clients: Because my team works directly with external IBM Clients, a large part of my work includes interfacing with our stakeholders. I lead design thinking workshops directly with the client, help facilitate and initiate conversation and collaboration in product working sessions, and typically champion any playback and final readout presentations with the client.
Because of the nature of my work with external clients, please contact me directly if you want more details on the projects I worked on. A few examples of projects I have been a part of include:
1. UI Dashboard Redesign: A 5 month project with a non-profit fundraising company where I led the UI design of a dashboard experience for the client. This project included a redesign of an existing user facing portal where customers could access and display data visualizations for their fundraisers. I then led the creation and design from conception for an admin side of the portal for internal employees to access and assign permissions to those fundraisers for customers. This project included 3 sprints with multiple iterations and playback presentations, and working sessions with the client throughout the entirety of the project. I led the final demo and readout to our stakeholders to demonstrate the value of the new platform for them and their customers.
2. Internal Website Redesign: I helped IBM's Consulting team redesign an internal website for Generative AI. This project included an entire information architecture restructuring, content strategy and finally redesign using the existing information.
3. Business Automation Design Thinking Workshop: On a project with a large insurance company, I led and facilitated four hours of in-person activities with the client on site as the lead designer. I facilitated business and technical conversations, uncovered customer pain points, and balanced hybrid participants. My experience and leadership in the workshop led the seller to regain confidence in the opportunity, leading to a successful win. I received an average NPS score of 9.75/10 from the clients who attended the design thinking workshop. The outcome of this session included a successful project with the client, including a multi-million dollar close (my team's largest of the year) and the addition of 12 new products bought.
4. Large Retailer AI Virtual Assistant Design: I was the lead designer on a multi-million dollar deal with a large retailer who wanted an AI digital shopping assistant that provided customized product recommendations to users. They wanted this solution to be multi-channel; available through website, tablet, phone, call center and in-store experience. I created multiple personas, storyboards, user flows, and process maps for each of these channels that informed the end-design. I worked alongside our technical team to assure user-focused decisions during the creation and iteration of our AI solution, as well as championed the design of the it. I led the testing of the virtual assistant to ensure a consistent and beneficial experience for the end users. The end result of this project was a happy client because of the innovative and cutting edge solution that put the large retailer ahead of its competitors.
Other Visuals:
Created a visual for the Regional Leader to use as educational material for all incoming sales roles
Created a 50+ slide visual story, persona-led presentation deck for the BTL community, used to present to all sellers
Created a highly visual / creative 1-pager for a new Engineering role initiative
Redesigned a slide deck for a CSM to be used externally with clients
Created an end-of-year team video to be played for my entire department
Created a "midwest team" logo to be used on t-shirts at a partner event with more than 300 attendees
Member of the Women at IBM BRG
Member of the "Fun at IBM" team for the IBM Chicago Office
Member of the Sustainability team at the IBM Chicago Office
IBM Spark Design Festival Volunteer
Part of multiple Design Guilds, including UX Design, Design Eminence, Illustration and Foundation Models for Designers