Innovation Strategy

Siming Cybercreative:
Architecting meaning. Designing enlightened experiences, I help to make your business plans come to life.

I create UX / UI product design solutions and offer innovation strategy consultations to help startups, small businesses, and global brands ideate new services and features that tap into new potential markets and / or strengthen their current user-experiences to help make the value of their services more transparent. I am open to different working setups with companies whether as a Sr. UX / UI Product Designer in a permanent full time role as or as an independent consultant. I can work on a regular hourly contract basis for your company on a part-time or full time retainer to offer you more consistent, ongoing design help and am also open to a contract-to-hire scenario.

SAMPLE RESEARCH + STRATEGY ARTIFACTS

EMPATHIZE / DISCOVERY PHASE
Stakeholder Interviews + Competitive Analyses

When I work with clients, I immerse myself into researching their industry and trends affecting their brand positioning and product development. Through stakeholder interviews and secondary research, I focus on understanding my client's unique competitive strengths and challenges. I recognize that each of my clients have a unique compilation of strengths and weaknesses and I work to illuminate my clients' value to their customers.

I adapt my methodology to suit the needs and objectives of my clients at the time. If you're a solo entrepreneur, startup, or SME business contacting me with a business idea and a request to help to develop your brand, I always begin with sending you an interview questionnaire to capture details about your company's products and services, target audiences, competitors, unique value proposition, brand personality characteristics, etc. I then set up a meeting with you to go through your answers and work to define a project scope such as a logo design based on defining your brand positioning.

If you should then need a responsive mobile web design or app design to market your services, I can create an informational brochureware site for you and / or help you design your product app. If you should need more technical functionality, these days, I typically collaborate with engineers from the client's team. However, I have worked some years solely as an independent consultant collaborating with my full-stack software engineer friend and former project partner Ben in our undergrad MIT web design course. I have recruited product manager and copywriters to help build up my client's startup team as well when needed.

Empathy Map

During this Empathize / Discovery phase of a project, we may collaborate in creating an empathy map to define the characteristics and needs of a prospective customer. Empathy mapping is a means to invite interview stakeholders or prospective or current clients to collaborate on documenting their interests, concerns, and experiences with your product or similar products or issues in your problem space. The information captured here is then used to generate a persona profile or proto-personas. In this example, these six coral, blue, purple, and green boxes represent stickies for each of the six individual participants to populate each section in response to these section prompts.

Here is a sample Empathy Map I designed here for a potential collaborative exercise with my prospective clients, project stakeholders, and / or their customers. Empathy mapping exercises may be employed throughout any UX process to establish common ground among team members and to understand and prioritize user needs especially is any fuzziness.

There are different versions of Empathy Map with some standard sections for 4-6 quadrants typically. Here's my take on what I consider may be important sections to capture perspectives, context, and objectives:

1) Gains / Objectives: What are your tasks, short-term objectives, or big-picture aspirations?

2) Pains / Challenges: What are your pain points, obstacles that you face in completing your tasks?

3) Values / Priorities: What are your values, priorities, and feelings when making decisions?

4) Context / External Influences: What and who influences your decisions or behaviors?

5) Actions / Behaviors: How do you act or what tasks do you do in a given situation?

6) Sensory Observations: What do you see, hear, taste, smell or feel that influences your perspectives and actions?

EMPATHIZE PHASE
Persona Profile or Proto-Persona Design

Following the Empathy Mapping exercise as described above or through my secondary customer interviews, I may create persona profiles for a project. If clients have several target audiences or complex customer engagement phases for a project scope, I may create personas or proto-persona profiles and journey maps to help us focus on areas for improved customer engagement and / or to reach new markets. It's in this discovery and definition phase that I may uncover new opportunities for innovation in their service offerings or a way to make their distinct value more apparent to prospective or existing customers. I studied personality psychology as part of my secondary concentration in psychobiology at Wellesley College and my undergrad studies that included sociology, anthropology, economics, and philosophy of self and world also inform my methodology in capturing various characteristics that factor into our decisions and perspectives on the world.

Persona Profiles — Case Example v1:
Film Discussion App

I create customized persona profile templates for different industries and clients, because I believe that capturing different relevant types of information offer a more insightful perspective on the various personas that may use the app.

In this first case example, I created persona profiles for my film discussion-based creative workshop group that represents different target audiences for my potential app concept that would recommend films to watch with your friends or family for thought-provoking discussions. It could also be a means to form new film groups to make new friends based on shared film preferences. I love hosting film discussions inspired by my high school AP English literature courses that focused on analyzing thematic content, metaphors and allegories as well as my philosophy and other humanities courses at Wellesley College. I also organize film discussions around documentaries on various topics including linguistics and theories of mind, anthropology, climate change and sustainability, etc. I create topic agenda for each of my zoom-based remote and in-person gatherings as the discussion lead. These film discussion sessions are workshops in creative collaborative analyses.

Here is an example of a persona profile for my film discussion app. In this sample persona for me as Janey (the "Nostalgic, Philosophical Metaphors-Weaver"), I captured the following:

1) Demographic Overview: Occupation, primary residence, gender, age range, education, hobbies and interests.

2) In Your Own Words: Describe your preferences and perspectives on films.

3) Top Film Picks + Favorites: What are your top 10-15 films that you enjoy watching or you feel are representative of your interests and personality?

4) Film Characteristics / Genres: What are your favorite film genres or characteristics that you notice you like about your favorite films?

5) Directors: Do you have favorite film directors that tend to create films you love?

6) Personality + Film Preferences: I captured personality traits and film preferences that I think would factor into more personalized travel experiences. My proposed version here is inspired by Myers-Briggs Type Indicator's 16 personality types.

7) Objectives + Features Wish List: How would you like this travel app to help you? What type of features and functionality would you like it have?

Other sample persona profiles of my film tribe members — Daniel, Peter T, and Doug — for you to get a sense of how each persona type differs in film taste and preferences and are represented.

Daniel (The "Whimsical, Dreamy, World-Weary Robot")

Peter T (The "Metaphors-Decoding Technomancer")

Doug (The "Encyclopedic, Cognitive Scientific Paperclip)

Persona Profile — Case Example v2:
Travel Guide App (e.g. Client: TripAdvisor / Viator)

Here is an example of a persona profile for a travel app such as TripAdvisor who was one of my clients. In designing a persona profile, I document different characteristics that I think might be noteworthy and relevant to understanding different traveler personas. In this sample persona, I captured the following:

1) Demographic Overview: Occupation, gender, age range, primary residence, hobbies and interests. Do you tend to travel solo or with companions (s/o, friends, family with kids, etc)? What role do you play in trip planning?

2) In Your Own Words: Describe your travel experiences and perspectives on travel in your own words.

3) Top Travel Picks + Favorites: What are the top 5-10 places you have visited?

4) Travel Interests: When you travel, what interests you? What do you like to experience? How do you choose destinations?

5) Activities: What kind of activities do you like to do while traveling?

6) Go-To Guides: Where do you like to get your recommendations on where to travel and what to do while traveling?

7) Personality + Travel Preferences:
I captured personality traits and travel preferences that I think would factor into more personalized travel experiences.

8) Objectives + Features Wish List: How would you like this travel app to help you? What type of features and functionality would you like it have?

EMPATHIZE PHASE
Customer Journey Map — The Collaborative Mapping Experience

After the creation of persona profiles for a customer type, the next step in the Definition Phase is to create a customer journey which is essentially a spreadsheet documenting the steps the persona undergoes at potentially various touch points to meet their objectives and the challenges the persona faces. These steps are grouped into phases. Journey maps are particularly useful for companies with more complex task flows that users undergo that requires more detailed documentation. We may wish to make the creation of the customer journey a collaborative process with input from stakeholders or the customers that fit this persona type in order to identify gaps in meeting customer needs and opportunities for innovation. In this example below of an interactive group effort, we would give each participant different color-coded sticky to document the steps they think this persona type would complete, pains and gains, and touchpoints they would conduct these tasks. I would then suggest that the participants tack on a content, neutral, or dissatisfied emoticon to the site features, functionality, or content that they have issues with to improve the user-experience.

If you do not have clients yet or are seeking to explore new markets, we could create an experience map that is not specific to using your product or service. This experience map would look at prospective customers'

Customer Journey Map — A Sample Completed Customer Journey

Here's a sample customer journey that I created below that could summarize the insights from the collaborative journey mapping process above or could be the result of gleaning insights from secondary research, stakeholder interviews, focus groups, diary studies, etc. The journey map here details the steps in my customer journey using my client's TripAdvisor / Viator's responsive mobile and Droid App. I included screenshots of the website's and app's pages for the team's reference when reviewing areas for improvement as evident by the dissatisfied-looking orange emoticon and areas that were working well or were neutral experiences.

EMPATHIZE + DEFINE PHASES
Competitive Analyses + Other Research and Innovation Strategy Documents

To view sample case studies from my previous client projects in which I conducted more detailed competitive analysis and identified areas for innovation, check out the following projects:

1) Boston Globe
I was the Sr. Interactive Visual Designer at Mobiquity, an omni-platform / mobile apps consulting agency tasked with designing new UI design of Boston Globe's native iPhone designs in 2012. For this project, I wrote a competitive landscape analysis with visual mood board documentation of the ways the media space presented content. I analyzed media sites and apps to see how different niche genres and news giants from traditional big names to upstarts presented their brands to contextualize Boston Globe's brand positioning, UX and aesthetic objectives.

2) Barnes & Noble College
As the principal Sr. UX Designer consulting at BNED in 2019, I wrote competitive landscape and eCommerce features analyses and recommendations documents for our VP of Product and eCommerce directors to be used in their company strategy presentations and requirements gathering. I also introduced bluesky Sketch concepts illustrating opportunities for new innovative potential services for college bookstores. I proposed features such as personalized course management, tourism and events-based community development, centralized FAQs help center, philanthropic concepts, lifetime learning and networking features for on-campus and virtual students, parents, and alumni.

3) McGraw-Hill Education (MHE)
I was a Sr. UX / UI Designer on MHE’s eCommerce responsive website design and the Lead UX strategist on their content strategy team and on the search, find, and filtering strategy teams. In addition, I served as the principal UX / UI Designer tasked with the UX and UI visual redesign of the International Division’s eCommerce responsive website. MHE’s textbooks and digital adaptive learning products are designed for faculty, students, admin, and professionals. (2014 - 2018)

IDEATE PHASE
Detailed Annotated Wireframing Ideations + Interactive Prototyping

Here are links below directing you to projects in which I created detailed annotated wireframes to communicate new Northstar feature proposals to key decision-making stakeholders — directors and VPs of product development as well as to detail expected functionality and interactive elements to our frontend and backend developers. I think of my wireframes as proposed architectural blueprints of detailed ui that outline the features, functionality, content, interaction states, etc for a responsive mobile website or native app.

1) Monster Worldwide
While I was an Interaction Designer on the Monster Global UX team, I collaborated on the design of a large-scale CMS-driven website for the UK Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that serves England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Our DWP solution—Monster's largest contract project at $20M—connects BusinessLink employers with job seekers for UK- and International-based career opportunities. I created very detailed annotated wireframes for this primary project as well as few other Monster projects.

I created alignment diagrams that would help our team identify potential opportunities for Monster's product innovation. Using Indie Young's Mental Model alignment diagram method, I analyzed the key tasks and objectives for both job seekers and employers. I identified where Monster was meeting the demand and areas for innovation where Monster could offer new services which I then proposed in my diagram. I conceptualized and created a responsive mobile web design prototype illustrating my proposal for new Monster services and user-experience concepts targeting startups, non-profits, and other small businesses. (2012)

2) McGraw-Hill Education (MHE)
See above for description of my work on the projects integrating PreK-12 with higher ed content. I included links to view the detailed wireframes featuring innovation strategy proposals and annotated functionality documentations for our backend development teams within this case study page. (2014 - 2018)

PROTOTYPE / DESIGN PHASE
High-fidelity UI Visual Designs and Interactive Design:
eCommerce Examples

Listed below are additional samples of recent projects for which I worked on the high-fidelity visual designs, eCommerce and content strategy. As a Sr. UX / UI designer on these projects, I collaborated with the research teams onsite on user-testing exercises to explore which versions of designs were more intuitively designed and user-friendly. I would develop the customer interview questions and test scripts and design the interactive prototypes in Invision typically. I created and updated components and pattern libraries. I was often tasked with ensuring that our color palettes met color-contrast-ratio ADA guidelines especially if working in the education sectors.

1) McGraw-Hill Education (MHE)
See above for description of my work on the projects integrating PreK-12 with higher ed content. I created high-fidelity visual designs in Photoshop and Sketch corresponding to my wireframe ideations proposals. I wrote styleguides and created atomic designs for our components library. I built interactive prototypes in Invision for user-testing. (2014 - 2018)

2) TripAdvisor
As a Sr. UX / UI Designer at TripAdvisor and its subsidiary company Viator which offers guided tours and attraction tickets and more, I worked on their responsive mobile websites and native Android mobile app. I proposed eCommerce strategy, UX / UI responsive web and native mobile designs for TripAdvisor and its Viator subsidiary brand. ( 2018- 2019 )

3) SmartDestinations
Principal Sr. UX and Visual Designer on responsive website and lead gen strategy. Provided UX and product positioning strategies designed to boost e-commerce sales of their multi-attractions admissions pass product lines. (2014)

High-fidelity UI Visual Designs and Interactive Design:
SAAS (Software as a Service) and Other Product App Examples

For additional samples of product apps that required some degree of data visualization conceptualizations for data analytics features, here are several examples below from my portfolio. Most of my app experience has been in the Edtech space for students at schools, universities, corporations, and medical training in more recent years. Previously, I designed prototypes for a human resources app for the US Army and a Citigroup cash management app. In addition, while working at a mobile apps and omniplatform consulting agency, I designed native mobile apps for Weight Watchers, Panera Bread, VistaPrint, Boston Globe, and State Street.

1) EBSCO Learning
As a Sr. Interactive Designer at EBSCO Learning, I designed and helped launch FinancialFit, the personalized financial literacy app for Gen Y and Z on practical issues from budgeting, renting and purchasing a home, funding higher ed, retirement planning, etc. EBSCO Learning provides research databases, e-journal and e-package subscriptions, book collection development and acquisition management. It is a major provider of library technology, e-books, and clinical decision solutions for universities, colleges, hospitals, corporations, government, K12 schools and public libraries worldwide. EBSCO also offers edTech products including FinancialFit, GradPrep, and corporate learning platforms LevelUp and ACCEL 5 — all of which I was the principal designer. (2022 - Present)

2) Savvas (formerly Pearson PreK-12 division)
I consulted as a Sr. UX / UI Designer at Savvas Learning where I worked on two K-8 adaptive learning apps — Reading Spot, a digital library with 3,500+ ebooks and SuccessMaker, a reading / literacy and math adaptive learning program. (2021)

3) Firecracker (formerly Gunner Training)
As the Principal UX and Visual Designer and Innovation Strategist, I designed and l launched an adaptive learning medical training app for Firecracker that prepared medical students for their USMLE medical boards as well as MCAT. Firecracker is a medical training software startup founded by a team of Harvard Medical School residents in 2009 that was later acquired by Wolters Kluwer Health in 2018. At the time of its acquisition, 20% of all medical students were already using their pioneering adaptive learning platform. (2008 - 2010)

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