digital strategy
At Thinx Inc I own the digital product roadmaps for all four of the brand’s digital properties (Thinx, Speax, Thinx BTWN, and the ‘Know Your Flow’ tool), working closely with the VP of Digital Product to determine new user features, updates, and research needs
I have experience executing effective digital strategy in a start-up environment where I’ve been responsible for developing strategies and in a large traditional organization where I’ve contributed to reimagining existing strategies
As the head of both user research and digital design, I have made invaluable contributions to the organization’s strategic priorities:
Creating greater brand awareness and increasing revenue through improving user flows, designs, usability, and site interactions
Utilizing digital design systems and web style guides decreases costs and increases design and development output
Leveraging user research to identify the most effective ways to reach new users, educate new users, and increase conversion
Increasing existing business through improved products and supporting new product launches both online and mass market
“No product is an island. A product is more than the product. It is a cohesive, integrated set of experiences.”
- Don Norman
leading digital strategy
User-Centered
User good is business good. I believe that only by understanding who your users are, where they are, what motivates them, and how they differ, can you understand how to reach them in an authentic, effective, and meaningful way. One of my top priorities as a digital strategist is to pursue this deep connection to the user, and then be their advocate within the organization. I create tools and living artifacts such as personas and journey maps that help the organization digest and utilize this knowledge; evangelizing not only the value of user-centered designed, but the value of a user-centered digital strategy.
Content Strategy
I believe that how you deliver content is just as important as the content itself. The best user experience comes from a combined strategy of content, user research, and design. The user research enables the teams to identify what the user needs to learn, how they will best understand it, and when along their journey they will be most receptive to hearing it. Integrating these user insights into the content strategy leads to an effective, aligned approach between all involved teams and user journey touch points from top-of-the-funnel marketing, retargeting, and emails to landing pages and the digital product.
UX Tipping Point
When I began at both Planned Parenthood and Thinx Inc I was an early UX hire (at Planned Parenthood I was the second and at Thinx the first). Inevitably this meant I needed to evangelize the importance of great user experience and user-centered design to the wider organization. I believe in what Jared Spool refers to as the UX Tipping Point, which is the point where all levels of a company understand what great design and user experience offers. This elevates the goal of digital product strategy to create products that not only work technically and meet business needs, but are also delightful design experiences.
Data-Driven
From project start, to iterations, to post-launch and beyond, the digital strategy should be driven by the data. In addition to relying on analytics to guide my team’s design decisions, I use analytics to understand who our users are. In order to optimize your digital strategy, you need to know where your users are physically located, what devices they are using, and which pages/features are they visiting. At Thinx Inc, I work closely with the Director of Analytics to evaluate our site performance; monitoring the analytics to measure the impact of design changes and better understand the user journeys and marketing attribution.
Journey Mapping
As Don Norman states every product “is a cohesive, integrated set of experiences”. User Journey Mapping is a great tool for connecting all the different touch points of your brand and thinking holistically about the user’s experiences across these touch points. User journey maps ensure that the brand experience is consistent and fluid from the marketing, to the digital product, to the user’s physical experience. It also allows you to identify and leverage the seducible moments, the moments when you are able to more naturally convert a user because they have received the information they needed prior to the prompt.
Cross-Functional Communication
One of my most important roles at Thinx has been creating cross-functional and transparent communication between teams where it hadn’t previously existed. As start-ups grow and especially at larger companies, maintaining effective cross-functional communication is difficult. As UX naturally involves collaboration with different departments and sharing user insights, it becomes an organic connection point. I take a lot of pride in my ability to work with various stakeholders including the VP of Brand, Director of Analytics, Creative Director, and Marketing Director to create work systems and alignment between teams.
Consistent, Flexible System
I think a great digital strategy relies on a shared vision of how the future will look and setting in place the system, the processes, and the tactics that get you to that future. While processes provide consistency and give order to the creative and collaborative work, the overall system should allow for flexibility and adaptability in different situations. My approach to digital strategy is to build out a digital playbook that outlines the modular and cross-functional tactics we can employ as a team or organization that will allow us to make the critical design decisions that get us to our ideal state.
Product Roadmaps
I believe a deep understanding and empathy for the user experience contributes to the most successful product roadmaps. Product roadmaps create a shared vision for the team and a blueprint for how to prioritize new features and fix bugs. I develop product roadmaps by aligning the goals of the business with the goals of the user, which are gathered from user testing, customer service feedback, and analytics, prioritized, and then added to the product backlog or icebox. The roadmap lays out how the iterations and sprints will lead to the desired product state, and make every part of the user journey delightful.
keep discovering
Being a committed user-centered researcher and designer has made me an effective digital strategist. Learn more about my specialities in user research and how I approach the design process to better understand how everything works together.