Work
Here's a brief history of my last 8 or so years of work, with work samples and ephemera. Want to know more about it? I've written up a couple of posts about Joule Ready and Scaling the Logixboard Design Team. Still have questions? Hit me up!.
Logixboard (2019-2022)
My most recent work was helping Logixboard go from 0 to 1 in the freight forwarding space as Head of Design. I started there back in December of 2019, when I was certain there was going to be downturn in the market and I was looking to work somewhere that had a lot of upside. Additionally, I wanted to work somewhere that was led by underrepresented folx in tech.
Foundational UX and UI
Early on, I did a lot of foundational work on the product design, including establishing the look and feel for the UI and working to help represent a clear structure of the shipment lifecycle for Shippers and Freight Forwarders alike.
Product Evolution
I inherited some great work from a contract designer and added more structure to the app with a type ramp and introduced GT Walsheim as the UI font to make the app more distinctive. As we developed the app, we worked harder on giving a clearer representation of the Shipment Lifecycle by breaking it down into Planning Phases, Active Shipments, and Post-delivery.
Brand Development
As an early-stage startup, I always find it beneficial to put some guidelines around what the brand means and how it can help create a shortcut to decision-making to the product. I also make a lot of Switch Diagrams which help codify why someone would wnat to use the product. You'll see below I did this for ChefSteps, too. All that is informed by interviews with real-live actual users!
ChefSteps (2016-2019)
Early years
I worked on the website a lot in the early years. We evolved the look and feel over the years, but the most successful thing that just kept on beating expectations was the madlib sign-up that I designed very early on. It helped grow the mailing list to several hundred thousand users over the years, and every time we tried to change it to see if we could beat the conversion rate, it could not be beaten. I'm sure local maxima played a part, but it did really well so we decided to stop messing with it.
Joule Sous Vide and Joule Ready
When we started work on the hardware/software combo of Joule, it was a rallying moment at the company and a lot of things solidified with its inception and development. It's still a great kitchen tool and is beloved by its users.
After launching Joule Sous Vide, we had an awesome time developing our CPG, Joule Ready. It did well, but ultimately did not fit in with the plans of the buyer of ChefSteps, Breville. I still think there is a market for ready-made sauces for sous vide (and Instant Pot), and occassionally think about trying to experiment more with it. Someday, maybe!