California based product designer creating human-centered, 0-1 solutions.
I am a quick thinking product designer with a background in neuroscience and 3 years of experience designing at early stage startups. I have a genuine passion for solving complex problems by tapping into my deep understanding of (frequently irrational) human behavior to help users effortlessly access the value of features and products I work on.‍

Design philosophy

Neuroscience based approach
Leveraging human cognition & behavior to create motivating solutions aligned with pre-existing  mental models.
Pragmatic design iteration
Creating pragmatic requirements, validating ideas early on, and moving forward based on feedback and usage.
Promoting user confidence
Focus on clarity to create empowering yet straightforward solutions ensuring they’re easy for users to adopt and enjoy.

Experience

Design Work

Five to Nine
Lead Product Designer
Jun 22 — Sep 24
Subkit
Product Designer
Jan 21 — Jun 22
Finli
UX/UI Design Intern
November 2020

Education

UCLA
Neuroscience, B.S.
2014 – 2016
General Assembly
Design Immersive
Sep 20 – Dec 20

Selected case studies

case study

Analytics dashboard for employee engagement

Data visualization
Created intuitive visual representations of complex data with user comprehension and engagement in mind.
Rapid prototyping
Developed quick prototypes to iterate on ongoing user research & feedback to ensure a user-centered design approach.
Webflow + ChartJS
Leveraged Webflow and ChartJS for seamless, no-code development of interactive web features, streamlining the design process.
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case study

Simplified provider onboarding

Self-serve onboarding for scale
Helped reduce cognitive overload and ensured alignment between design and providers' mental model, allowing them to progress from account creation to launching their subscription plan with minimal assistance.
Building for provider success
We built tools with provider constraints in mind. We build supporting tools to help with pricing plans, setting subscription limits based on inventory, and support product fulfillment.
Boosted completion rates
Moving Stripe integration to the end of onboarding boosted completion rates, as providers were more willing to finish setup after creating their plans.
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case study

Mobile class marketplace

Streamlining reservation & checkout
We helped reduce friction to reduce drop-off rates between class discovery and reservation/checkout. We iterated and tested to reduce the number of steps from 7 screens to 4.
Prioritizing customer-relevant details
After speaking to class-takers, we were able to elucidate important class details that would encourage our users to consider taking a class. To minimize time searching for relevant classes, we surfaced this information on the listing page.
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Additional project summaries

QR code check in system
Simplified event creation
Implementing a new design system
ERG & event budget tracking

Concept

Google Docs Mobile Revamp

Concept

Vissers Flower Shop

QR code check in system

Context

Problem

Solution

After COVID, many organizations started trending towards more in-person workplace events. Getting an accurate headcount for in-person events was necessary to track ROI of employee programming.
Getting accurate attendance data about in-person events was either highly manual or not done at all, requiring event organizers to rely on RSVP data as a proxy, albeit a highly inaccurate one.
I built low-dev solution using Webflow and QR code technology to track attendance while adding minimal work to the organizer workflow  to deliver more accurate attendance data for in-person events.

Simplified event creation

Context

Problem

Solution

Monthly active user counts were vital for contract renewals with existing customers. Unfortunately, we saw that there were only a few consistent adopters of our product at our customer organizations. We hypothesized that a lack of internal training and added complexity in core user flows were at the root of this issue.
The core functionality of our product—event creation— was riddled with numerous steps that overwhelmed new users and left too many opportunities for drop off before accomplishing their first win. It also caused issues with contract renewals because usage was limited to a few active users.
To increase adoption and help new users feel confident, I created a simplified event creation form to remove barriers towards getting their first event up. With better training and our simplified event creation form, we saw significant uptick in active users across new customer organizations.

Implementing a new design system

Context

Problem

Solution

Being the first full-time designer at a seed stage startup, I was confronted with a disjointed list of components that were used to build the existing product.
A lack of clear UX and UI patterns led to  unnecessary design decision making, leading to increased design times. WCAG accessibility standards were not met in multiple areas of our product. Additionally, in collaborating with our lead FE engineer, it became apparent that custom CSS for the existing components was slowing developers down as well when it came to implementing & iterating on product features.
To enhance accessibility and increase both design & development speeds, I worked closely with our lead FE engineer to put in place a new design system using MUIs UI kit as a base. I worked towards customizing the components using theme elements, creating a robust library of matching components in Figma, and writing internal documentation about existing variants with cross-references to MUI's existing documentation.

ERG & event budget tracking

Context

Problem

Solution

Budget tracking was a highly requested feature from event organizers when it came to an all-in-one tool for event management. Tracking and effective communication of expenses and budgets was a highly manual task that was being managed outside of our platform. We saw this as a clear opportunity to deliver more value to our customers by incorporating budget tracking into our suite of event management features.
Tracking and reporting expenses associated with event planning is a disjointed and highly manual process for all parties involved. Requesting and communicating budgets for upcoming events also created an unnecessary lag in event planning. Most of this work was done off of our event-management platform requiring additional tools in the tech stack required for event planning.
I designed a solution that facilitated  communication between event organizers and their managers about event spending and event budgets. I also designed a feature that would deduct event expenses from the overall ERG budget for the given time period, allowing for centralized, real-time updates about the remaining budget for all ERGs at the organization.

Additional project summaries

Design system implementation

Used existing UI kits for speed
Implemented a new design system by customizing MUI base components for faster implementation & maintenance.
Increased productivity
Allowed for better collaboration and significantly reduced design & development time for new features.

Simplifying event creation

Increasing user adoption
Improved adoption outcomes by making the event creation process more intuitive and accessible and achieving a higher published-to-unpublished ratio.
User-centric design
Simplified a previously 5-step wizard to a one-page form with only one mandatory field to help new users build confidence with their first win and existing users to get their event up with speed.

QR code check-in system

Webflow & Low-code development
Designed a simple yet effective in-person check-in system on Webflow that minimized development effort while maximizing user experience.
User-centric design
Implemented a check-in system with a deep understanding of event organizer constraints, ensuring it aligned seamlessly with their existing processes and attendance tracking goals.
Improved guest list analytics
By taking the manual labor out of checking events into in-person events, we were able to deliver better reporting of guest list data using actual attendance instead of using RSVP as a proxy for headcount.

About me

Hey, I'm Shea 👋
I'm a neuroscience researcher turned product designer which means I totally geek out on learning about what drives and motivates human behavior. I approach problems with empathy and genuine curiosity to create experiences tailored to helping users achieve their goals. Finding myself happiest when I am productive, I aim to remove barriers that might hold people back from being their most effective selves through user experience design.
Hobbies
Tennis
Ceramics
Crafting
Travel
Yoga
Interests
Mental health
Problem solving
Economics
Self Development
Events
Biohacking
Podcasts
Values
Connection
Productivity
Growth mindset
pro-activity
Authenticity
mental health
Let's Connect
Linkedin
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Email
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X
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Employee Engagement Analytics Dashboard
Dashboard elucidating employee engagement as a function of internal events & ERG participation.
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Subscription Plan Creation for Small Businesses
Simplifying subscription plan creation for small business owners.
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Event and ERG Budget Tracking
Budget tracking feature, allowing seamless collaboration between event organizers, ERG leaders & people managers.
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I'm a neuroscience researcher turned product designer which means I totally geek out on learning about what drives and motivates human behavior. I approach problems with empathy and genuine curiosity to create experiences tailored to helping users achieve their goals. Finding myself happiest when I am productive, I aim to remove barriers that might hold people back from being their most effective selves through user experience design.
Let's Connect
Linkedin
Arrow
Email
Arrow
X
Arrow
Hobbies
Yoga
Tennis
exploring museums
Ceramics
Crafting
Travel
Interests
Mental health
Problem solving
Economics
Self Development
Events
Biohacking
Podcasts
Values
Connection
Productivity
Growth mindset
pro-activity
Authenticity
mental health