my UX journey
the beginning
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When I was 9, I was introduced to the tech world because of my younger brother. He survived a case of meningitis and received a cochlear implant when he was 3. Ever since then, I wanted to work in the tech industry to build software and hardware that can benefit the lives of others.
international UX internship
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Back in Fall 2011, I worked at SAP in Germany on their Business ByDesign product - their cloud-based ERP and business intelligence solution for small businesses and mid-sized companies.
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My role was to research and compare interactions for data management and onboarding processes. While evaluating use cases, I created interactive mock-ups using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, and Microsoft PowerPoint. Through PowerPoint (because there weren't many design tools available to choose from in 2011), I created 40 images and placed them in a presentation with mouse over and hyperlink actions to cover the possible interactions. I summarized the usability results from 15 colleagues' perspectives. With the results and presentations I created, the senior UX designers presented the information to the management and development team to discuss implementation for improving their current systems.
(image from SAP Business ByDesign video tutorial)
Mock-up I created to compare placement of primary functions
scrums, and more scrums
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In 2013 to 2014, I worked at Syscon Justice Systems as a Junior UX Designer. We used the agile development method with 2-week sprints.
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My main tasks were to create mock-ups in Axure for over 20 new features and 4 global changes. I presented some of my design changes in front of 40 colleagues on a bi-weekly basis. Additionally, I fixed front-end development issues with CSS/HTML in Sublime Text 2 and used CSS media queries for responsive design implementation.
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Through this experience, I worked closely with Business Analysts, Developers (some were based in India), Technical Writers, and SMEs to fully implement designs. With my fellow UX Designers, we had daily UX meetings to receive feedback on wireframes and mock-ups, and discuss other possible solutions.
WorkflowJAIL Jail Management System
juggling multiple clients
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In 2015 to 2016, I was given the opportunity to work as a UX Researcher at FCV Interactive.
I led usability studies for websites on desktop and mobile devices, and wrote test plans following similar to the MeasuringU template, and created presentations featuring our qualitative and/or quantitative findings. As we wrote recommendations for our clients to use to improve the UX in their systems, I started to think more about big picture strategies instead of providing straightforward changes to UI patterns.
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We used Morae products for our recording and observation tools to conduct studies in-lab and remotely. After our client, like Destination British Columbia, received the presentation of our findings for their HelloBC website, they may hire FCV again to redesign their website and the research team would answer any further questions UX Architects have to aid with the redesign solutions.
Clients I worked with at FCV
cross-functional team challenges
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From 2016 to 2019, I worked at Move, Inc. on the UED (User Experience Design) Professional team to create a CRM for real estate professionals to manage their listings, leads, and their relationships with their clients.
For over a year, I was the design lead for the Local Expertâ„ Ads dashboard experience which allows clients to customize their Local Expertâ„ digital ads to be featured on the realtor.com® website and Facebook news feeds.
The PO (Product Owner) had changed 3 times over the course of a year, but we tried to keep the goals and objectives the same. I would assist in the knowledge transfer from one PO to the next PO. Also, it was challenging due to working cross-functionally with the PO and development team across 4 offices throughout the US and our Richmond location. To overcome this obstacle, I connected with the PO and developers daily through Slack/Google Hangouts. I participated in the scrums and backlog grooming meetings to present my designs to the developers and handled any questions regarding the designs.
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Throughout the project, I worked closely with the UX Research team by creating wireframes and high-fidelity prototypes in Sketch and InVision, so they could run usability studies and provided recommendations on how to improve the user flow and the product itself. The design achieved a System Usability Scale score of 90 (grade A) during usability studies.
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Many positive compliments were received whenever I presented the prototypes to Marketing, Sales, and Customer Care teams and we received their feedback on the product as well. The first product launched successfully after 8 months I joined the project. Within 5 months, the product had met yearly sales target.
Local Expertâ„ Ads dashboard experience
Local Expertâ„ Ads performance section
my future
Want to work with me?
Connect with me at chihsi.ch (at) gmail.com.
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If you would like to see my work assets and case studies, please send me a request by email. Thank you.