Just as there's more than one way to solve a problem, there's more than one way to arrive at a solution. This part of my portfolio shows a few different ways I've approached process to get to a solution that achieves user goals in an optimal way. I'll start with a higher-level process map from the CVS Digital Innovation Lab. This poster was created to share with external teams, so everyone involved could clearly understand how the lab functioned.
One thing that didn't make it into that poster was a tradition we started as a team called the Innovator Award, which I was lucky enough to receive. The best part of this award is that it's peer-based — the recipient each month gets to pick the next month's winner. I consider these kinds of awards the highest honor, not for the prestige or the hardware, but because knowing I have the respect of my teammates tells me I've been doing something right.
During my time at Arnold Worldwide, an ad agency in Boston, the experience design (XD) team's role had a lot to do with advocacy. Since most projects coming out of an agency were "one-and-done," with little to no budget for research or user testing, it was our job to convince clients and stakeholders of the value of human-centered design. A lot of card sorting and workshops with internal teams and clients helped make that case. Clients especially appreciated the documentation we produced after each workshop — it gave them a clear understanding of what had happened, and how the technology we were proposing would actually work.
As Sr. UX Lead at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, there are problems to solve every day, big and small. We use a variety of methods to land on solutions and hold UX reviews twice a week to get feedback on work in progress. Sometimes those are small sessions with just the UX team; other times we bring in a subject matter expert or stakeholder. Most of this collaboration happens in our Quincy office, with stickies, sketches, and whiteboards.
For higher-profile projects, or ones with strong sponsor support, we'll run larger workshops spanning multiple teams over two days at the Well-B Center in Boston. These sessions are intense — in two days, we typically get through almost a week's worth of work. Grueling as they can be, I genuinely enjoy them. There's nothing quite like the feeling of getting closer and closer to a eureka moment. That feeling is why I got into this line of work in the first place — I'm always chasing the "it makes so much sense" moment.
