Break it till you make it
Growing up I was building websites before there was a Web to host them on. Though I eventually went to school for digital communications, I kept teaching myself design on the side.
After completing an internship at BlackBerry and learning from some amazing user researchers and mobile interaction designers, I booked my ticket into UX — starting with user research.
While doing my Master’s thesis on ideation communities, I got the chance to lead the redesign of BlackBerry Beta Zone: one of the first online user engagement platforms (think Centercode, but home grown).
When the platform wars hit and the writing was on the wall for BlackBerry, I made the jump over to financial services. This was back in 2012, and let me tell you: there wasn’t much appreciation for digital product or design.
"We're not a software company," a Marketing VP told me after reviewing a list of usability issues I documented after a $16 million(!) dollar web project launched, "we don't do user testing."
After picking my jaw up off the floor, I started working to help teams understand the value of good user experience — one user test at a time.
That wasn’t all I did, however. If so, I might have gone nuts. Around the same time I also formed a video production company with a couple of talented friends. We created explainer videos for startups and tech companies for a few years, which was a ton of fun.
Hearts and minds, one test at a time
In the early days a lot of people in financial services were downright hostile about bringing a user-centered lens to decades-old problems. However, with time and a little patience, we managed to evolve to the point where client discovery and user research became part of our day-to-day at Manulife...just in time for me to head back to tech where I found similar challenges waiting.
Reflecting on the past 10 years, it’s been incredible to see the shift in mindset across many industries toward user-centered product development. Finance and healthcare applications are used by millions of people every day, and there’s still a ton of opportunity for technology, design, and now AI to improve their lives.
"We're not a software company," a bank executive told me a few years ago, "but we'd like to be."
Designing organizations, not interfaces
Today I spend more time designing organizations than I do interfaces, which is equal parts challenging and rewarding: often on the same day.
I currently lead Sun Life's platform product management team in Canada - designing and building experiences for millions of Canadians, and pushing new product professionals to focus on their customers rather than constraints.
Prior to that I helped scale Sun Life’s experience design organization, building out our design operations and quantitative user research practices, launching an enterprise-grade design system, and improving team engagement scores across the board.
For a bit more about my background, what we accomplished at Sun Life, and some musings on AI and the future of design leadership, check out this podcast I did with Kuldeep Kelkar from UX Ignite: