Experience.

GREAT DESIGN MATTERS.

There are several phases to designing a product.  The most rewarding aspect of designing a product is when I’m able to align the goals of the users with the business, creating an experience that connects with the users emotionally.  I work closely with product teams and customers to identify gaps and pain points to insure that products are frictionless and intuitive.

01. USER RESEARCH.

For the last decade, I’ve had the privilege to create and work on a variety of digital projects creating web apps, games and mobile experiences. This phase is the most critical step of the design process for me. Researching helps me learn about the users, their behaviors, needs and motivations.  Thinking from their perspective helps me to ensure their goals are met. I’ve learned that in order to deliver a great experience, the right questions need to be asked and this starts with interviewing users and stakeholders, defining personas, completing competitive and data analysis to validating features. Research is carried out at various stages of this process to determine the right experiences for the targeted audience, and find innovative ways to keep customers engaged and execute on their goals.

02. UX DESIGN.

Following the research phase, the discussion continues to define the information architecture, which provides a clearer understanding of the project scope and priorities for users. This step requires me to remove the complexity of the design making it easy for users to navigate the information to achieve their goals. For example, a site may have simple UI elements, but may consist of complex rules to execute on a specific task.  A holistic view of the information architecture helps me provide the foundation to determine how to organize the information into experiences that make sense to users.  Customer user stories are created to map out possible user objectives to compare with business objectives prior to the wireframing stage. Rapid prototypes using clickable wireframes or paper to communicate abstract concepts to users and team members, is an inexpensive method that I use to help validate usability at this stage.  I’ve learned through this process, that analyzing all possible variables of the user’s interaction, greatly reduces friction throughout their journey.

03. UI/Visual Design.

Color affects emotions and behaviors and has a profound impact on conversion rates. This process requires me to carefully design visual cues, color schemes, typography and icons to help build trust.  In addition, consumers place visual appearance and color above other factors to influence their decision to interact with a product.  Depending on the needs of the platform and development team, a variety of graphic formats are produced and the interaction of the design start to come together through an iterative process. During this phase, I also gather insights on the design using guerilla testing methods which has contributed to the success of many projects.

04. Front-End/UI Dev Support

My role continues by providing support throughout the development phase.  Often times during the wireframing stage, I’ve already produced a clickable prototype to test usability and provide direction for the development team to implement the functionality of the product’s interface.  In addition to documentation, I’ve been responsible transferring user stories, acceptance criterias for project management tools like Jira, Bitbucket, Trello and more.  My focus is to remove ambiguity, clarify interactions and remove blockers throughout the development phase to ensure that budgets are met and features are executed to satisfy the user’s needs.

Clients.

MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

The responses I get from stakeholders and colleagues highlight the significant influence of meticulous UX/UI design. These experiences reinforce my dedication to crafting solutions that go beyond just satisfying user needs, continually inspiring my enthusiasm for this ever-evolving field.

“Lily is the person everyone should want on their team. I have never worked with anyone who was more organized, methodical, and proficient with their work. The first time I met Lily, I had been brought onto a project nearing completion and had to do some serious catch-up. With the help of her carefully-constructed requirements documents, wire frames and Q&A sessions, I was up to speed very quickly. Lily is the type of person who almost always has the answers you are looking for and when she doesn’t, she finds them for you. I maintain Lily can accomplish in mere hours what it takes the rest of us days to do. She is focused, dedicated, and has incredible attention to detail. As if that wasn’t enough, she is a pure delight to work with. She is always eager to support her team as needed and has a great sense of humour. I hope to work with her again in future.”

MEREWYN HINES -lululemon Project Manager

“I was fortunate to be able to work alongside Lily at Ayogo on three different projects. Lily is an incredibly gifted interaction designer with a natural understanding of usability. In many cases she was able to identify potential problems in the user flow and propose solutions that were both functional and elegant.As a designer, I found Lily extremely easy to communicate with, and she was very quick to seek clarifications on any designs she was uncertain about. Lily is a joy to be around and I look forward to working with her again.”

MARK LAFRAMBOISE – Co-Founder at Lightning Rod Games

“I was fortunate to work with Lily on a project at Ayogo. She exceeded any expectations I had, and delivered top notch work. Lily is an active listener, and extremely proactive. Lily knew her projects from stem to stern with incredible accuracy. She always had a positive attitude and the capacity to go through mountains of work.”

PAUL CORDICK – Production Management

“I had the pleasure to work alongside Lily when I was a front-end engineer at Genologics. Lily joined our team when we had no formal process for interaction design. Lily helped us change our process to incorporate interaction design and focus more on features that matter the most to the end user. She would produce thorough interaction design mockups rapidly and was always available to discuss the features or discuss the details in each user story with us developers. With her onboard, I felt more involved in the interaction design process and I felt more confident developing against the user stories based on her mockups. Having the mockups in front of me before I start implementing a user story meant that my work was not going to be wasted and that there was not going to be a dramatic change in scope along the way.Besides being technically knowledgeable and an adept interaction designer, Lily is a great team player. Her optimism and positive attitude was always helpful during those tough times when we were hammering away to get those last features in before the end of each sprint.”

ARAS BALALI MOGHADDAM – System Engineer

“I had the great pleasure of working with Lily at BCLC, she is very proficient at visualizing and implementing systems and turning them into usable workflows and user interactions. She is an excellent communicator and a prominent team lead. She collaborated on functional and non functional specs from requirements to deliverables. She has the expertise to get things done and make very good estimates of how long things should take base on her experience.  Lily understood the importance of the Product Design process bridging the gap between business and development.  She also understood the importance and balance of promoting positive interaction in the work place.”

STEPHEN SHEN – CTO Musefind

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