headshot

Hi, I'm Kim. 

Hi, I'm Kim. 

My approach to design focuses on working with stakeholders to define the problem space with respect to business goals, applying design research methodologies to identify relevant customer problems, and conducting rapid prototyping and testing to scope design solutions.

Ultimately my goal is to deliver the right product for customers while achieving business results.

Antenna_Logo_Antenna_logo_black

At Antenna Labs, I led design for an early stage startup, working with the founder and engineering team to create an analytics dashboard for Twitch broadcasters to deliver business insights. I defined standards and a process for design, created a design system, and conducted user research and prototype testing activities leading up to an Early Access launch in August 2019. After launch, I prioritized user feedback to iterate on the product and add new features, leading to a retention rate increase of +32% for our second cohort. Antenna Labs was acquired in spring 2020.

At Antenna Labs, I led design for an early stage startup, working with the founder and engineering team to create an analytics dashboard for Twitch broadcasters to deliver business insights. I defined standards and a process for design, created a design system, and conducted user research and prototype testing activities leading up to an Early Access launch in August 2019. I prioritized user feedback to iterate on the product and add new features, leading to a retention rate increase of +32% for our second cohort. Antenna Labs was acquired in spring 2020.

Antenna-fp
Antenna_Logo_Antenna_logo_black
pantheonlogoblack

As Senior Product Designer at Pantheon, a website operations platform, I designed tools that enable development teams to build, launch, and maintain websites without worrying about infrastructure. I provided design leadership to business initiatives by partnering with product and engineering to define design requirements, and created structure for design process and methods to increase our efficiency.

As Senior Product Designer at Pantheon, a website operations platform, I designed tools that enable development teams to build, launch, and maintain websites without worrying about infrastructure. I provided design leadership to business initiatives by partnering with product and engineering to define design requirements, and created structure for design process and methods to increase our efficiency.

Purchasing Experience Redesign

To support Pantheon's updated pricing and packaging for the first time in the company's 7-year history, we updated the product to proactively communicate the value of the platform while minimizing the perception of commodity web hosting, redesigned the entire checkout flow to align with an expected e-commerce experience, and implemented a new annual billing option.

Throughout the development, we conducted extensive user testing to ensure we sell the benefits the customer will receive (not features), highlight our main value prop, and call out differentiators our customers care most about. These product improvements contributed to the company's accelerated revenue growth YOY.

plans page

First Time User Experience Redesign

In order to increase Week 1 retention of new Pantheon users, we redesigned the first time user experience to communicate to new users the way Pantheon can solve current workflow challenges. We started with user research to discover the common roadblocks new users encounter. Through prototyping and testing we defined and implemented an approach to help developers more quickly realize the time and effort they can save by using the platform, and introduced teachable moments, and guided actions throughout the new experience. The project resulted in a 10% key metric improvement.

Welcome@2x

Command Line Interface Manual and UX Updates

To support some of our developers' preferred way of working, we support a Command Line Interface (CLI) called Terminus as an alternate to the web GUI for users to interact with Pantheon tools and their sites. Since we know that developers who use Terminus can become more engaged on the platform, I led the research and design for an initiative to increase usage and improve the CLI user experience in order to increase the number of active developers.

After learning our main problem is discoverability and lack of actionable information in one place, we developed a manual to consolidate information and use as an official, source of truth, and created a set of examples scenarios users can apply immediately to their work. We also improved the Terminus experience itself by simplifying the information, making it more usable by updating critical functions such as the help output, and implementing a consistent command schema. After release, the Terminus manual stayed the top-ranked page of our entire documentation for 6 months (and 2 years later remains in the top 3).

example usage screenshot

New Custom Upstream Feature

I led the design of a new capability that enables organizations to customize the way they use Pantheon by using a Custom Upstream, which is like a starter kit for their sites' codebases, instead of one of Pantheon's WordPress or Drupal upstreams, Because agencies usually start development with an established framework, this reduces redundant setup and maintenance work by using a common codebase for their portfolio of sites.

We started with a large vision of this feature that would have caused us to bite off more than we could chew. Through many rounds of prototyping, small releases, and iteration based on beta tester feedback, we were able to develop an MVP that met our user and business needs without over-investing unnecessarily.  Through testing, we also identified unmet user needs that weren't originally planned for this project. The MVP freed up time to invest in those unmet needs, and we ultimately launched a high quality feature that helped our developers' workflows in more ways than we had initially thought.

upstream model
binwiselogo

As BinWise's first designer, I led the design for a beverage management SaaS product for restaurants. To improve a  fragmented and inconsistent product, I was responsible for integrating user research and testing techniques to move to a human-centered development process, developed design principles and a style guide to reduce redundant implementation work, and redesigned several areas of the product to decrease customer frustration and time spent on tasks.

As BinWise's first designer, I led the design for a beverage management SaaS product for restaurants. To improve a  fragmented and inconsistent product, I was responsible for integrating user research and testing techniques to move to a human-centered development process, developed design principles and a style guide to reduce redundant implementation work, and redesigned several areas of the product to decrease customer frustration and time spent on tasks.

Inventory Redesign

Inventory Redesign

The Inventory system is a critical part of the platform customers use to count their inventory and track items over time. Through baseline user testing of the existing product, along with an audit of common support calls and tickets, we learned the existing 7-step process was unecessarily long, complicated, and difficult for customers to understand.

I led the Inventory redesign to streamline the system into a 3-step process, added moments of guidance and help for customers during the steps, and proactively assists the user in catching errors earlier and on their own instead of contacting BinWise support. These improvements reduced user frustration, the amount of time customers spent on this task, and the number of support tickets we received.

inventory

Scansheet Redesign

Most customers use our proprietary scanner system - a handheld device that scans their inventory using barcodes placed onto the bottles (used for slower moving items), or a sheet containing many barcodes placed near an item rack (used for faster moving items). In order to create a scansheet, customers assemble a list of items on that rack in BinWise and prints it out. 

The existing scansheet interface was difficult to use and inefficient - for example, users were unable to save existing scansheets and instead had to remake them from scratch every month! We redesigned this feature to implement new functionality based on user needs such as duplicating sheets, adding bulk actions to the items on the sheets, sorting by various parameters, and yes, the ability to save and later edit as many scansheet files they need. We also made previously hard-to-discover controls more obvious - such as a drag and drop interaction which is useful for users to organize items according to their physical arrangement in the restaurant. These improvements resulted in a highly usable interface our testers were anxious to get their hands on!

scansheet

Persona Development

To introduce a human-centered design process, we conducted interviews and observation with our customers to learn their workflow problems both inside and outside of BinWise. Based on this research, I worked with the engineering and product team team to develop personas, design principles, and implement interactions that were more straightforward and intuitive for our customers compared with the prior versions.

This research and new design system informed the redesign of several areas of the product to help our customers use the product more effectively and reduce our own support costs.

persona set

Persona summary sheet

Style Guide Development

The engineering team and I worked together to implement a style guide for all new feature work and updates going forward. 

Along with uniting our UI patterns in one place, we refreshed the visual design in order to present information clearly, so that the product can better enable customers to perform their regular tasks. When using features that pre-dated the style guide, poor design often increased customers' work time due to disorganized information architecture and lack of hierarchy, and the need to continuously learn new patterns due to inconsistently implemented UI. 

The style guide decreased engineering and design time for new and redesigned features by introducing a shared vocabulary and a reusable component system. Features that utilized the new styles resulted in a more cohesive and consistent UI for customers, resulting in positive feedback such as "[This] report is very clear, much better than the old one, and it will be understandable to a newer person."

tables1

New Dashboard Explorations

Customers know a lot of data is available in the product, but they often don't know how to access it or what to do with it.  In some cases the product doesn't provide the tools needed to run analysis. So we concepted new dashboard areas to put the most needed and valuable data front and center.

For instance, most areas customers need to manage their beverage program are scattered across different parts of the product. We envisioned a centralized interface to learn what needs attention, overviews to learn how their business is doing at a glance, and gateways to the most frequently used areas.

This work was concepted but was unable to be implemented.

dashboard
SchellGames_horiz

At Schell Games I was the User Interface Designer for educational desktop, mobile, and location-based games, responsible for defining user flows, iteration through playtesting, creating and implementing art assets. I was the art lead on several projects, advised the UI on other projects, and mentored junior artists and interns. 

At Schell Games I was the User Interface Designer for educational desktop, mobile, and location-based games, responsible for defining user flows, iteration through playtesting, creating and implementing art assets. I was the art lead on several projects, advised the UI on other projects, and mentored junior artists and interns. 

S.E.C.R.E.T: An Immersive Museum Experience

I was the early stage UI Lead for an immersive game based in the Children's Museum of Houston. I designed several interaction points at multiple installations located throughout the museum, and the overall UI design to support an overarching storyline.

About S.E.C.R.E.T.: Kids enlist in the Special Elite Crime Resolution and Espionage Team (aka S.E.C.R.E.T.) to uncover clues, crack codes, and outsmart villains. Agents are assigned missions, and travel throughout the museum to engage with several physical installations. A system tracks their mission progress throughout multiple visits, and they are rewarded by both physical and digital badges for completed missions.

antenna-rival-transmission

Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood: Companion Website and Games

I led the UI design for the Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood companion PBS website design, six games, and print-outs. As an extension of the animated series aimed at preschoolers, we created an experience to continue the mission for children to learn key social skills necessary for school and for life. The website launched alongside the premiere of the show in 2012.

I worked with the game designer and PBS to map out flow of the website and user experience for the games to create fun interactions for the preschoolers while remaining intuitive for the parent or guardian to use and play alongside their child.

Card Creator Screenshot

Tablet Game: Inklings Underground

Tablet Game: Inklings Underground

I led the UI and art developement for this language arts learning game for junior high students. Students play as a magical creature, Blott, who lives below the ground and needs to repair his home by fixing wrong words and sentences. Through the game, players will recognize patterns and word parts to grow their language arts skills. This game won a Gold Medal at the 2014 Interational Serious Play Awards.

Inklings screencap 04

© Kim Kiser Ramirez 2020