Product Design

From research to brand systems, these are the methods and skills I bring to product design. Each section below comes from real project work.

Research

Immersive Field Research

It is my favorite research method for understanding user experience more contextually and holistically throughout the journey. There is more to observe than what they are saying.

Journey mapping

Contextual User Co-Creation sessions

Research synthesis

A lead researcher, a designer, and an account manager, at minimum these three, are out in the field conducting research. Facilitating the journey, recording it on video, taking notes, and observing users are all handled by each of us. Back in the studio, we unload everything we captured and begin analyzing it.

Journey Map

One effective way to share research findings is a user journey timeline that maps the user's perspective linearly, highlighting how they feel at key moments. This helps us identify pain points, task causes, and product solutions as they emerge.

Brand Identity

Mood Board

A mood board is a visual direction constructed from existing images that have been re-purposed and re-combined to help communicate rough visual intent. They are very high-level and open to interpretation. They are meant to help shape our conversations around the design and provide some guidance to the design effort.

A mood board is not a definitive outline of the final design direction. They are intended to help inform key areas of design but are not comprehensive of every design aspect that may be required.

Visual asset conveys one or more values.

Mood board exercises yield the brand direction.

Co-Creation

A brand evolves. Invite the clients who live in it into the design process. Collaborative ideation sessions with stakeholders generate and validate design concepts, clients leave with ownership, not just awareness.

Writing

Good design starts with good writing. Precision in content design shapes how users understand and trust a product. I work with PMs and writers to frame the conversation before touching layout.

Information Architecture

Product features have grown unevenly since launch, a natural outcome of business evolution. We cannot expect every update to serve users equally. Still, we need to refine our information architecture so users can find what they need.

Top 5 pages serve 8 out of 10 users. Wow.

Information Graphics

Millions of people read information every day in newspapers, books, and magazines. Digital products serve the same audience. I aim to use everyday language in the information graphics which enable users to understand complex content in more than one way.

Tufte is a wizard of data visualization.

Brand Update

Updating a brand across live products requires understanding their architecture and working with developers to make the transition realistic.

JLL Global Brand update on its products

Other projects