STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP
Human-Centered Design Advocacy
Promoting design approaches that prioritize the needs, experiences, and perspectives of people. Advocates work to embed HCD principles within organizations, policies, and decision-making processes.
Program Goal
Increase design literacy across product teams to improve collaboration, encourage earlier user-centered thinking, and position UX as a strategic partner rather than a downstream service.
My Role
UX team lead and program initiator responsible for defining the approach, aligning the design team, and facilitating a sustainable, repeatable learning series.
Key Insights
Design maturity improves when teams share language and mental models—not just processes.
Product teams were already overloaded with technical learning. To be effective, design education needed to be lightweight, engaging, and immediately relevant—while also giving designers opportunities to build influence and communication skills.
Impact
Increased cross-functional understanding of design principles and methods
Improved collaboration and support for upfront user research and conceptual exploration
Raised the visibility and perceived value of the UX team beyond the product organization
Created leadership and presentation opportunities for designers through shared facilitation
Attracted participation from engineering, product, management, and customer service teams
My Challenge
Design a repeatable, low-friction approach to improving design literacy that fit into busy product schedules, encouraged voluntary participation, and could scale without becoming a burden on the team.
Users
Primary audiences: Software engineers, quality assurance, DevOps, and product management.
Secondary audiences: Other organizational teams with interest in product quality and user experience.
Constraints
Limited time and cognitive bandwidth across teams
Need for sustainability and repeatability
Desire for engagement beyond the product department
My Process
Proposed the concept to the UX team and aligned on goals and value
Explored multiple enablement formats, prioritizing interactive approaches over passive content
Designed a monthly brown-bag session format that fit naturally into existing schedules
Curated a rotating set of topics, including design principles, accessibility, success and failure case studies
Structured sessions to be informal, discussion-driven, and welcoming
Rotated facilitation across designers to distribute effort and build presentation skills
Iterated topics based on participant questions and engagement
Organizations
Sterling Identity
My Role
UX Team Lead
Date / Duration
Nov 2015 - Mar 2016
