If you want your AI product to stand out in the veritable sea of others, you need autistic minds to help you design it. 🕵️

Good, human UX is your moat, and the key differentiator that will make a customer choose your Product over all the others that will pop up and breed like rabbits over the next few years. 🐘

Every new leap in AI is a paradigm shift — a different way of seeing the world. Very soon, it won’t be about faster or more data processing but nuance in how we interpret and interact with information. It already is for those of us in the weeds. 🍁

That’s where the unique skills a neurodiverse person offers will become game-changers for your business. 🚀

Individuals on the autistic spectrum have an exceptional ability for pattern recognition, intense eyes for detail, and a profoundly ingrained aptitude for unconventional problem-solving. 🏆

It takes a highly methodological mind to understand AI capabilities and development. There are subtle data patterns to catch that will make all the difference in identifying opportunities that will take an experience to the next level, making it that much more human, seamless, and intuitive. 📊

Sometimes, it’s hard for me to believe that we live in a world where designing a human experience will be revolutionary, but that is exactly where we are. We built technology to replace human tasks and thinking, and now we want to shape it into something that complements us and enhances our lives — by understanding human psychology. Perhaps understand us better than we understand ourselves. 🦾

Creepy, I know. 🐛

Herein lies the irony of AI. In the quest to automate, we’ve reasserted humanity's irreplaceable values. 🤲

Autistic individuals can see through the noise of big data to find opportunities for human threads that deeply resonate and connect us on a fundamental level, not just mimic us. 👀

You know why they can do that? Because they’ve had to do it all of their lives. An autistic person has had to learn and memorize millions of individual scenarios, interactions, causes, and effects — because every experience is different. 🔬

They cannot infer that a specific outcome will happen because something they’ve experienced in the past is similar to what they’re experiencing now. It has to be precisely the same. 🔁

Sound familiar? 🧩

All that said, these superpowers come with their kryptonite.

Can you guess what that is?

Let’s look again at some of an autistic designer’s…

🦸‍♀️ SUPERPOWERS 🦸‍♂️

1. 🟠 Focused open-mindedness: Perhaps the most valuable and unique skill an autistic mind has is the ability to analyze and understand different perspectives from a less biased place. Invaluable skill for UX Research. 🔑
2. 🟠 Pattern recognition: Autistic individuals often see patterns where others see chaos. This isn’t just useful; it’s revolutionary for AI, where recognizing subtle data patterns can lead to breakthroughs in machine learning. 📈
3. 🟠 Attention to detail: AI is precise, man. Who better to design it than someone who notices all the details other people miss? 🕵️
4. 🟠 Next-level critical thinking and creative problem solving: The ability to ask the right questions and approach problems from completely novel angles is exactly what’s needed to push AI beyond it’s limits. 🚀
5. 🟠 Hyperfocus and dedication: When an autistic designer focuses on a task or a problem, they dive deep. They will find problems and solutions others won’t because they can — and they genuinely want to. 🤿
6. 🟠 Empathy in design: Having often navigated a world not built for them, autistic designers inherently design with deep empathy. (Ironic, seeing how people view individuals with autism as not having empathy. It’s simply not true.) They seek to design experiences that are thoughtful, considerate, and inclusive.
7. 🟠 Heightened awareness of bias: Having faced bias and experienced watching the world from an ‘outsider’ perspective, autistic designers are best-positioned and conditioned to be aware of bias and champion spotting and stopping the perpetuation of societal biases through technology.

🦠 KRYPTONITE 🦠

OK, so what’s the catch?

These skills require accommodations on your end to work. 🚨

Thinking and understanding require time. You may not think you have time, but you really, really need to make it if you want to build the right thing. 🤌🏼

If you don’t give your neurodiverse designers enough time, resources, or data to understand the details and the bigger picture from multiple perspectives, they will not be able to do their magic. 🧙🏾

But if you can provide safety, transparency, organization, patience, repetition, and collaboration…⬇️

Incorporating neurodiversity into your AI design team IS your strategic advantage. 💥

Seek these brilliant designers out. Thank me later. 🫡

And thank you for reading! 🙏
Signing off,
-RB

My role: UX Lead & Sr. Product Designer

One of the biggest problems eCommerce businesses have to solve is helping people buy a product online without being able to see, touch, or otherwise experience it in the tangible world.

This problem is especially challenging in the Home Improvement space, with potentially high stakes for customers afraid to choose wrong.

People don’t commonly retile or replace their carpet flooring often. The average American typically changes their flooring once every 5–35 years.

Have you ever shopped for flooring for your home? Even when you can see and touch a tile sample in-store, it’s impossible to visualize what it’ll look like in a large room with 10–100 others.

One of the most complicated customer problems the Omniverse team at Lowe’s was trying to solve was to help customers make this arduous and expensive decision easier for customers. Flooring Visualizer was a tool we wanted to provide to help customers be more informed about their end result and make a more confident buying decision.

(✨ Later, we expanded the Visualizer concept to grout, paint, and blinds, with the seedling of an idea about allowing people to visualize furniture in their space, but more on that later.)

The work

I designed V2 of the Lowe’s Visualizer product for Lowes.com web and mobile web while leading research, content, and branding teams through validation and usability testing.

I was the UX Lead and Product designer for the Omniverse team at Lowe’s — a group that worked to solve problems like this for our home improvement customers — Do-it-yourselfers, Pros (contractors, etc.)

I inherited the redesign for Visualizer in its baby stages. (When I inherited the project, a simpler MVP version had been live on the site for a few months, testing the vision. It linked to a customizable third-party Visualizer product used by most home improvement e-tailers, like Home Depot, and other smaller specialty stores.)

Another designer on our team had created and tested a new concept for Visualizer, which changed it from a simple pop-up menu on the site to a functioning digital product that stood on its own. Desktop and laptop had a long menu on which we planned to build new functionalities, and mobile had a tab bar that mimicked the Lowe’s mobile app experience.

I designed V2 of the Lowe’s Visualizer product for Lowes.com web and mobile web while leading research, content, and branding teams through validation and usability testing.

The technology was moving fast, and I worked with the Product and Engineering team daily to pace ourselves through adding exciting functionality in a way that supports a clean user experience.

• Researchers on my team: 3
• Content strategists / UX writers: 2
• Product Managers and Leaders: 6
• Engineers: 12+; I worked directly with 3

Early impact of work

• +50% conversion rate
• +.5MM weekly revenue
• +100% revenue per visit
• +60% ATC rate

In the coming months, my contributions to the product were expansive.

I:

1. Designed multiple new functionalities for Visualizer from 0–1, like the capability for customers to upload an image of their own room instead of seeing their flooring choices in our templated rooms.
2. Designed the capability to view two different flooring choices simultaneously.
3. Integrated Paint Visualizer into Flooring Visualizer — preparing flooring visualizer to become a greater “design center” for the home, and added 360° rotation for viewing products in rooms.
4. Worked with our UX writers to rewrite many of the CTA’s and labels for Visualizer.
5. Identified UX opportunities to increase conversions to the product from our site.
6. Championed accessibility by revamping design assets (Colors, touch point sizes, spacing, overall visual hierarchy, etc) and prioritizing those fixes during subsequential feature releases.
7. Translated inherited design concepts to components in our existing design system, created new ones as necessary, and followed up on their approval timelines with the DS team.
8. Supported engineers daily, performed usability QA, drove research and content, and worked on UX strategy with our PM and Product Leaders to plan future initiatives and prioritize releases vs. UX fixes in the now.

Upload an image of your room for 💻 desktop:

🏁 Approved design:

💡 Earlier concepts:

When I started designing the space for “Upload your own room image” on desktop, Visualizer looked like a blank canvas. But-I knew there were many plans for future functionalities for the product that I needed to consider to create a design our customers would learn to use that would grow with the product.

So to better understand future product planning, I worked with Product Leaders on a “North Star” vision for Visualizer. And I designed every research and usability study to gather strategic insight into customer expectations and understanding of the product.

Concept #1 ⬇️

I knew Lowe’s customers (and many retail e-comm customers today) love to open multiple windows when shopping on product pages to compare products. So I tried to translate that shopping behavior and customer preference here by creating the space and capability for customers to save and share their work differently.

My intention for Pro customers with this design was to allow them to strengthen their relationship with THEIR clients by showing them different options, which would also improve their usage of Visualizer (and loyalty to the Lowe’s brand.) This was an ‘educated’ assumption based on feedback from other features we’d have to test.

I tested customer preference for placement and content of the “Upload a photo of your room” button separately without any “concept assets” on the page. The top right-hand corner was the option that best met customer expectations.

The only problem with that, though, was that eventually, we would be adding different functions that manipulate the actual image, like 360° rotation and flooring layout — in addition to the light/dark mode toggle currently in the top right-hand corner of Visualizer. So, for customers to better understand what those icons will do, I moved them on top of the room image they’ll be influencing with them.

So….Concept #2 ⬇️

❌ Error messages

After a customer uploads their image to Visualizer, our system analyzes it to recognize flooring (so that we can apply flooring products as customers choose later.)

We had a default error message that didn’t tell customers why we can’t accept their photo, which doesn’t set them up for success if they want to try again. So I pushed to understand how the tech works and what we can recognize about the image on our end. Then, I wrote customized error messages that would tell customers why their photo won’t work with clear next steps so that they can choose to remedy the situation if they want to.

Upload an image of your room for 📱mobile:

On mobile, customers could upload an image from their device or take a photo using their camera.

➕ Upload an image

⬆️ In this flow, a customer chooses a flooring product from a search listing page → sees the flooring populated in one of our templated rooms →chooses to add a custom image →chooses to upload a photo from their photo library →is shown their image, and offered to upload another or use their current one →and sees their flooring populated on their uploaded image (the prototype above doesn’t fully reflect the last step.)

📷 Take a photo

⬆️ In this flow, a customer chooses a flooring product from a search listing page → sees the flooring populated in one of our templated rooms →chooses to add a custom image →chooses to take a photo →is shown their image and offered to “retake” (note the language change) or use their current one →and sees their flooring populated on their uploaded image (the prototype above doesn’t fully reflect the last step.)

Tablet Visualizer

The concept I inherited lacked a custom solution for tablets. So I created a custom solution better than our broken one with highly limited personal and engineering bandwidth. I reused some of our desktop and mobile design patterns to optimize the tablet experience for touch but on a larger viewport.

360° rotation

As a baby step toward a 3-dimensional design center where customers can drop multiple products in a room and see how they look from any angle, we designed and developed the capability for customers to interact with Visualizer by rotating their room 360°.

Identified UX problem and solution:

What happens when a customer has saved their image inside Visualizer, starts viewing and saving different products, and interacts with Lowes’ Masthead?

If a customer interacts with any of Lowes.com's navigational elements in the Masthead while using the Visualizer product, they’ll lose any progress and anything they saved. So I created a solution that would make them aware of the implications of that choice and the next steps for whatever their preference is. That said, we decided not to implement this message until we integrate paint into Flooring Visualizer and people start saving more products.

Integrate paint into Visualizer

Integrating Paint Visualizer to Flooring Visualizer was an exciting first step toward the vision for the tool to become a ‘Lowe’s Room Visualizer’ that people can interact with on the website and, eventually, in 3D in the metaverse. 🕶️

I loved working with the Omniverse Product team on Visualizers. Ours was a scrappy, entrepreneurial atmosphere where I learned many new things daily.

Different customer intents and mindsets to consider for an integrated Paint / Flooring Visualizer:

Customers who are:

1. Interested in buying flooring only
2. Intent on buying flooring, but want to explore paint as well
3. Interested in purchasing both paint and flooring
4. Interested in purchasing paint only
5. Came to buy paint, but want to explore flooring as well

The buy flow: The ATC button needs to be easily accessible for customers that are selecting multiple product options.

📐 Here are five design explorations for surfacing the ATC (as an additional) CTA for buying multiple products inside Visualizer.

Concept 1:

⬆️ Thinking ahead to a design center, I thought about adding a carousel of products a person is currently viewing in their room to select and add all to the cart. This concept would be an additional opportunity to add products to a cart without interacting with each category in the menu.

Concept 2:

⬆️ This was an interesting exploration highlighting the Product's interactivity, but it wouldn’t scale well once we had many products inside Visualizer.

Concept 3:

⬆️ This interaction utilizes a strong design pattern on Lowes.com — the slider to ATC.

Concept 4:

⬆️ Part of this exploration also wouldn’t scale well, and wouldn’t work when someone moves the slider over to populate more of one color choice in the entire room. However, there is an element that would have worked well with multiple products — clicking on a swatch would highlight the desired product inside the room to clarify what products people would like to keep considering when the room got full.

Concept 5:

⬆️ The icons' intent was to add stability and context to the experience, especially for mobile.

🚨👋🏻 From here on down is a work in progress, please contact me for any questions or inquiries :)

Finalized version:

mmmmmm

Paint and grout are only available on our templated room images and are unavailable on a user-uploaded image. How do we communicate that?

Users wanting to buy Paint Visualizer must first visit the Product details page to configure pricing and other options. How do we solve the problems/friction this causes?

Accessibility & readability overhaul — Before & Afters

Flooring measurement challenge

While ceramic and carpet flooring is sold by the square foot, laminate flooring is sold in rolls by Linear foot. Since every product is packaged uniquely, offering a calculator for Linear foot flooring wasn't technically feasible like we did for Square foot flooring. This solution wasn’t the best, but it offered an answer to how a person can calculate what they need. (In retrospect, I could have explored adding a CTA for contacting a representative for help calculating their flooring…which I only thought of while writing this case study.)

Increasing conversions to The Lowe’s Visualizer

This is where we focused on a brand-focused change in the header text.

Adele was my friend’s grandmother and one of the first people to inspire a feeling in me of “wanting to be like someone when I grew up.”

Adele was the picture of creativity. Her house was filled with handmade endeavors — collages, artwork, jewelry, tablecloths, and dollhouses made of things people usually throw out (like the tiny blue inserts inside coke bottle caps — they make great dollhouse plates!)

But what left a lasting imprint on me was how freely and naturally Adele shared her gifts and passions with others. Her house was always open. She’d make us hot pancakes and teach us how to hand crochet. She taught us so many things we didn’t know — like how you can eat red cabbage raw as a snack and how to crochet and make bubble letters.

She nurtured our creativity, minds, and souls.

I knew I wanted to be like her when I could, and as I had kids, our house became the place for our friends and us to play, explore, and make things. This passion even became a company I founded called Silicandy which designed and manufactured kid-friendly bakeware to help get families back together in the kitchen.

As a UX project and team lead, the most important thing to me is to create safe and organized spaces and processes that help people do their best work, learn and thrive as human beings. My life ambition is for that never to be a paradox.

To inspire that space:

1 — Embrace your weirdness:
(If you can feel yourself quickly resonating with this, you already know you don’t have a choice. :))

Do you know those ice-breaker questions at work? Like, “If you could have one superpower, what would it be?”

I’m terrible at answering them. Once, our project manager asked us if we were a vehicle, which one would we be?

One coworker said, “A motorcycle because I’m fast and dangerous.”
Another said a Lamborghini because they’re classy and expensive.

I’m not a car enthusiast, and I must have had an Orlando trip on my brain (as I often do), so I said, “Maybe a monorail at Disney World — because it’s an experience that transports and bridges this larger dream experience.” Or something to that effect.

And as often happens when I answer these questions, the team met me with….total awkward silence. 🤪

So if this kind of thing happens to you, repeat after me: It’s ok to be the different one. You’d be surprised how many more of us will come out of the woodwork when we dare to show our true selves.

2 — Do something for yourself every day

If you’re reading this, chances are that you’re already a leader, whether you officially lead teams or not. So you have a lot of empathy, heart, and inclination to give, give, give, and….give.

If there was ever a cliche that warranted repeating, it’s this one:

You cannot pour from an empty cup. And the more cups you need to pour into, the more you must keep the pitcher full — from a healthy source. We need to find that source. And some people have bigger cups, some smaller ones. And cups empty pretty fast and need refilling on those hot days. You know the ones I mean.

Consider it your civic duty as a leader to do things daily that make you feel fulfilled. I’ve found that creating something, getting outside, music, and journaling do that for me. So prioritize time for yourself, but don’t stress about it. That defeats the purpose.

Your inclination to lead is a drive and gift in that you fulfill your purpose when you give to others.

My kids and I love the concept of bucket filling — to an extent. (Check out “Have you filled a bucket today?” if you want on Amazon — it’s a sweet kid's book on happiness and fulfillment.) Highly sensitive people (HSPs) must learn about the boundaries of giving and self-care. And we will — I’m not speaking only for a friend here 🤝 💪

3 — Share personal stories
Our vulnerability makes us relatable. If you feel like the people on your team have guards up, they’ve been burnt by sharing before. Or they’ve been rejected by being themselves. And if you lead a design or development team, you likely have neurodivergent teammates — people who have learned to hide who they are from a very young age.

You don’t have to (and definitely shouldn’t) tell your life story. But I strongly believe in sharing small personal details — how you couldn’t find your keys this morning for half an hour till you opened the fridge and found them next to the milk. (⬅️ I must have made that one up ;)) Pictures of your pet, hobby, kid’s graduation (with their permission), etc.

Normalize being human — it inspires others to break out of their shell and implement ideas because they aren’t as scared of failing.

So when I say to be the person you needed to become who you are today, it’s equally about continuing to channel that inspiration to yourself as it is to inspire others. Because ultimately, we’re all in this together, and we all have the power to leave this place in better shape than it was when we started. 💪

My role: UX Lead and Designer

When I designed it, Lowe’s Visual Search was part of a three-fold search bar — text search, image search, and barcode search. We also started preparing a fourth element — voice search.

In addition to using text-to-search, we wanted to offer customers the option of searching using an image (either one they take using their camera or uploading from their local device) or scanning a barcode, like they could on the Lowe’s app.

Lowe’s apps launched Visual Search a year before the mobile web version. So there was a lot of data I started looking for to understand what customers' problems were and how they wanted to solve them using Visual Search.

1. What ratio of Lowe’s customers uses apps vs. mobile web in general? What relevant findings do we have on Lowe’s Visual Search usage from the apps team?
2. What are people currently using Lowe’s visual search for? Where are they using it? (In-store, at home, on the go, etc?) How is our accuracy?
3. How many people scan barcodes and search by taking photos vs. uploading photos from their machines?
4. What technical issues and constraints does our technology have, and what unique limitations will we have for mobile web that we don’t have for apps?
5. How are Lowe’s DIY customers using Visual search vs. “Lowe’s Pros” (contractor and other professionals?)
6. What categories, if any, are people using Visual Search for the most? (Where do they find it most valuable)
7. What is the Product team’s long-term vision for Visual search?
8. What are business expectations around the feature and timeline?

Barcode search

At the time of this design cycle, the current power users for barcode scanning were:

• Lowe’s employees — in-store
• Lowe’s customers — in-store
• PRO users — contractors, etc. They are using barcode search largely when reordering their go-to items.

The work

I designed Lowe’s Visual Search on mobile and tablet web and tablet from 0–1 while leading research and content teams through validation and usability testing.

I also worked daily with a team of fast-paced engineers through technical constraints while working with Product on prioritizing critical UX elements with tight engineering bandwidth and deadlines.

• Researchers on my team: 3
• Content strategists / UX writers: 3
• Product Managers and Leaders: 5
• Engineers: 12+; I worked directly with 4

Impact of work

+2X conversions compared to apps

The search bar — entry to Visual Search

Entry to Visual search can start anywhere on Lowes.com from the masthead and search bar, as pictured above. Access can also happen via Google searches or marketing e-mails.

Understanding current customer awareness of using visual search for retail products, in general, played a crucial role in testing versions of the barcode and image icons inside and outside the search bar and when they’re visible.

Lowes.com had been working hard to drive the tone of our copy across the site toward a more conversational one. Using copy as an essential UX tool to create a more human shopping experience is something I’d been advocating heavily with my teams. I continuously challenged and advocated for in-store-like conversation copy, to simulate a more human conversation that is on brand for Lowe’s with our customers.

That said, the search bar text above was an example where conversational text only complicated things (especially on mobile viewports.) So we landed on consolidating the search text to “Search” on mobile and tablet and keeping “What are you looking for today?” on laptop and desktop views.

(Later, I designed and tested a new unified icon, as did the app team. More on that in a bit.)

When customers click the “scan barcode” icon inside the search bar, they’re taken directly to the scan barcode experience.

They can then move between image search and back to barcode search as needed. The scan will happen automatically as we recognize a barcode.

If customers know in advance that a barcode won’t be scannable (maybe it’s partially ripped off or colored on), they can enter the code manually.

Setting customers up for success when our tech fails:

1. What happens when a customer tries to scan a barcode, but our tech can’t pick it up?

Messaging was crucial here. Customers get frustrated when things don’t work. To mitigate frustration, we offered context and transparency about why things weren’t working, logical next steps, and easy ways out/back.

1. We suggest better lighting or moving closer to the barcode, then a “Try again” CTA.
2. We also offer customers to enter their code manually instead of scanning it.

2. What happens when we can scan a barcode and recognize it’s a universal UPC — but one that we don’t carry in Lowe’s product catalog?

Version A was a “quick fix” that we implemented in the meantime.

At the same time, I continuously advocated for the technical bandwidth of integrating an easily accessible search bar, as shown above in version B.

🚨 During usability testing, Version A was the point that 90% of customers were most likely to leave Lowes.com to search for their item at a competitor site. Version B offers a more conversational and transparent way of providing customers easy access to use text-to-search to look for a similar item.

The integrated search bar tested very well during a follow-up usability test — almost 100% of customers tried to use it as a next step to search for an alternate product. (The engineering team was working on integrating the search bar inside this messaging at the time of this writing.)

Image search — security

Security was one of the first things I considered on entry to image search.

It was very important to me to get this first step right because people are getting increasingly weary of allowing access to their devices. We needed a customized message that offered customers transparency on why we needed their permissions for visual search.

While our Product Manager checked the legal requirements of showing a permissions screen, I wanted to understand how important it is for customers.

Of 30 people tested (during a larger general usability test for a complete first version of visual search), 21 of 30 found the camera permissions request completely trustworthy and expected it before using the feature the first time. The other nine people still found the request somewhat trustworthy but overall have a little apprehension when giving a new app or website access to their phone and personal information.

🗣️ “This is something I would expect to see if I’ve never used my camera on the particular site before, for privacy reasons. I guess I’m glad to see it. I have no problems granting access in this case because I understand I need my camera to be able to search.”

🗣️ “It’s what we generally expect using anything like Google Lens or taking a picture to do something like that. It always asks permission to use cameras when we’re doing that. So, I think it’s totally trustworthy.”

(The center-aligned text is in our style guide for these messages. Left-aligned would have been a better choice for readability.)

Understanding current customer awareness of visual search played a key role in testing versions of the barcode and image icons inside and outside the search bar and when they’re visible.

My oversight — A technical constraint I discovered late.

There were multiple problems with the first design of Visual Search. Two of the biggest problems were:

1. The viewport for photo allowance was compromised. The semi-transparent overlay behind the shutter button suggests that whatever a customer can see will be part of the picture they take and search for, but this was not the case. We were only returning everything above the overlay.
2. “Your photos” and “Take a photo” will both prompt the iOS and local Android components that further prompt customers to upload or retake a photo. So we’re making people choose this twice in two places on one page. (This is a mobile web issue I should have learned of earlier. It was a significantly painful learning experience!)

As we had a tight incremental release schedule, we chose the “quick fix” version so customers wouldn’t need to take a picture twice.

Then, I worked with our Product Manager and Lead Engineer to prioritize new releases vs. fixes. We all worked together and compromised. When our PM wanted to add a tooltip underneath the search bar to attract more usage to Visual search, I asked that we implement the better fix on the right above ⬆️ first. It was still far from perfect, but much better than what we had. I didn’t want to approve onboarding more Lowe’s customers to a new but broken experience. We also expanded the viewport by improving our header. Instead of ‘closing’ Visual Search, we are moving customers’ back’ wherever they were on the lowes.com site before they entered Visual Search.

How do we introduce Visual Search?

Tooltip versions ⬇️

Image cropping tool

I added six touchpoints to the cropping tool to be super easy and intuitive to use and give customers maximum control to customize the image they want to use to search. (We have plans for automatic image detection, but this is what we’re using in the interim.) After a customer uses the cropping tool, we show them their result so they can choose whether to use it, “retake” their picture, or “redo” an uploaded image.

Setting customers up for success — The “Relevancy Screen” photo tips

🤳 The photo tips on the screens above are based on the thousands of images we parsed through to see what images aren’t making it through and how people could have taken pictures that would improve our capability to get them more relevant results.

Our tech is imperfect, and we don’t want customers to think they’re at fault when we can’t show them relevant results.

After a customer takes a picture and while we “are looking for best matches,” we can recognize if we can offer results better than 60% relevancy. When we can’t, we wanted to show helpful tips for taking a better picture.

We alternated between showing this screen on people’s first entry to Visual search and only after we analyzed their photos. The first option (with examples of images) was something we used for V1 of Visual Search for education purposes. V2 was an improvement — offering more accessible ways for customers to click out and access their intended task.

Search results text customized for different product categories.

Our technology couldn’t yet accurately analyze size-specific home improvement products — like nails and bolts. And those details are critical for those categories!

So, I worked with our UX writing team on creating custom messaging for the results of those products — “Results may vary on size based on product” and something that works for any other general inaccuracy for other categories— “Search results may vary.”

SKU Search will only return one result, so the message is straightforward. “Here is what we found...”

How can we get genuine customer feedback without too much intrusion into a customer's mobile shopping experience?

The Feedback Component

We rely heavily on customer feedback and constantly monitor for bugs and improvements. One of the ways we do this is through a service called Medallia, which has its technical requirements and constraints. And while we need this feedback, we don’t want it to intrude on a customer's experience.

🧐 How many products do customers need to see before they know if they’re getting relevant results for their search?

We tested this for multiple categories, and our testing showed that people usually know whether we have what they are looking for after the first two or three results (on mobile.) They aren’t scrolling much farther than that.

There was a technical issue around the “undo” button on the “Thank you for your feedback” message. After a customer clicks on either “yes” or “no” inside the feedback component, that message is sent to Medallia’s system, and there is no way for us to call it back. So technically, we can’t make “undo” work.

I still advocated adding it anyway, even if it doesn't work. Customers WILL inevitably click on a “yes or no” when they mistakenly on a small mobile screen. I didn’t want them to feel frustrated that they may have sent feedback that doesn't best represent their experience using our product.

Visual Search V2 — Customizing error messages

The more we can understand what is causing an error and customize the error message and corresponding action to fix it, the faster and better people can complete their tasks. “Little” things like this are what build a more trusting relationship between a brand and its customers.

Unified barcode icon

I worked in unison with the app team throughout Visual Search, especially with the iconography. While our design system and design patterns are different for apps and mobile web, we wanted to achieve consistency with branding elements.

Visual search for tablet

The next addition to visual search will be QR codes. The product team identified this because customers already use image search to take pictures of QR codes. That’s how they expect QR search to work — based on learned behavior and design patterns in other digital products they use in their day-to-day.

My last contribution to this project at Lowe’s was integrating UX strategy and prioritization for Visual Search. And measuring the value to customers based on all we know, I didn’t see QR code scanning needing additional UX work.

If people already use image search for QR codes, let’s build that capability technically and meet their expectations. We can, in the meantime, prioritize other things for visual search — like merging image and barcode search into one collective experience. This would change everything anyway, be a V3 for visual search, the next step we were waiting for based on technical capabilities for the mobile web version.

Thanks for reading! Please contact me on Linkedin with any inquiries; I love working with mission-driven e-commerce and other interactive brands and products

-RB

Yesterday on the Clubhouse app, I listened in on a great UX conversation led by Joe Natoli, Nick Finck, Lisa Angela, and some other fantastic design voices.

One of the topics covered was the definition of the ever-alluding “Product Design” role.

There’s SO much to be said here. For a good overview of where this conversation can go and for some of the root issues at hand, I’m going to paste something Trip O’Dell wrote in response to something I recently posted on LinkedIn.

“…and the uncertainty and legitimate frustration many designers feel about “breaking in” at every level of “UX, UI, UX/UI, VUI, Product, Service Design” or whatever flavor of the day we’re calling it. I’m not going into the pointless navel-gazing exercises of defining what “it” is, because its a trap. “Design” has essentially become everything and nothing at the same time, and the pain of the job search reflects that. That’s why feedback is so crucial, and kindness when the answer is “no” because often the reason is “it’s not you, it’s us” — companies attempt to lump about 15 different jobs into “UX” and hold the bar unreasonably high across all criteria, or we’re not clear about what skills are critical and which aren’t for the role. That’s why it’s important to identify the key UX skills that are your strengths, as well as those that are weaknesses, and decide which to highlight and build on. Peter Merholtz put together a good framework for this. Look at the core skills to get a sense: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16ZHJ6caItLUdRScaToS330ebp7yijCDIOUq1ANDzcug/edit?usp=sharing"

As people who make a living identifying and solving complex problems, it’s a little ironic that we as a design community haven’t yet figured out this one, though big kudos to everyone trying and making any kind of headway.

Link to the original post for more context, to those who are interested: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rebeccabardesign_productdesign-hiringmanagers-recruiters-activity-6764957785848352768-MCeC.

I was a career changer from designing and implementing tangible products and experiences to digital ones and started my transition into UX six years ago.

Having been a tangible Product Designer, I naturally have a lot of my own unique definitions and understandings of the role, as does everyone else, based on their previous experiences. (Which is was makes the UX world go-'round, IMHO.) This article is going to be a demonstration of a tangible Product design process, in contribution to this ever-evolving conversation. :)

Just as there are no templates in UX / Product Design, there is no one right answer here. And I’d say there doesn’t have to be, except as Trip explained above, job postings are hella confusing because organizations don’t even know what they want or need. So there’s that.

When I was designing kid-friendly bakeware, I had an idea for a concept of a measuring cup. I noticed while baking with my kids that there are a lot of flaws in the current offerings.

So I ordered over ten different measuring cup sets, paying close attention to the reviews for each and what other customers were saying. (Yes, always take Amazon reviews with a grain of salt.)

We used those measuring cups with thin liquids and thicker batters with lots of end customers (my kids and their friends!) and paid attention to where the products fell through.

Then, I worked with a 3D engineer who helped me understand and create the perfect curvature, choose the right material, 3D print a sample, test it, and finally — mass-produce the first iteration.

Looks nice, right? But do you know what we discovered while testing on some professionals? We didn’t include some essential measuring marks.

Imagine making and shipping 10,000 measuring cups to be sold in stores with lacking measurements. Customers who had a disappointing and sub-par experience with our product would be less likely to buy another one of our offerings.

UX designers praise books like “The Design of Everyday Things,” (and rightfully so, it’s awesome,) call author Don Norman the founder of UX Design, yet refuse to acknowledge how similar the tangible and digital Product design process is.

I’m also a big believer that as our tangible and digital worlds mold together, there will be less separation between designing for them. We’ll be developing an increasing amount of Products that need to have overlapping features and functionality in both disciplines. (Think wearables, self-driving cars, smart home devices, etc. We’re certainly moving in that direction)

Some of my learnings from my tangible Product design days:

1. Iterate early and often.
2. Test early and often (not necessarily in that order :))
3. Collaborate with engineers before sending off to production. I can’t stress this enough. They understand how the finished product will function and look better than you do.

It sounds a whole lot like digital Product design. Doesn’t it?

Something else to think about: Are digital Products even Products at all, or are they services? (Attributed to something I learned from Christian Crumlish while collaborating on a project.)

Hold that thought…

Signing off for now,

R

What exactly is Product Design? Article #7,020,001 was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I rented space in a large open co-working facility similar to WeWork.

It had its ups and downs.

I was reading through some of the anecdotes I wrote down during my time working there.

There was the time when this one guy had to loudly retell the same joke to every single person in the room even though we all heard him the first time.

The time I walked in and the military was using our space. Instead of being greeted by the usual early morning rush to the coffee machine, I did a double-take and felt like I should salute to the 30+ men in uniform.

That day when the private room guy in the back of where I sat — pretty sure he was a stock market trader- was cackling like a villain in a cartoon show every few minutes.

Human interaction. Real-life is so much more entertaining than the movies.

Then a CrossFit gym opened right across the street, and I was psyched!! I had my whole workday planned, starting with exercise I loved, and a full-time contract I was super excited about to be signed. Things were looking up! Finally, a schedule was forming.

That’s precisely when the Coronavirus hit, and everything collapsed. The new gym had to close after only one week of being open. Co-working cut their space to 1/3 of what it was. My dream contract fell through because of the virus. The kids couldn’t go to school anymore.

When I started working from home, things were VERY hard. The organizational difficulties were gruesome, with everyone’s different schedules and the split focus between housework, family, and work.

But as soon as I realized that this might be a constant reality, I was able to learn, adapt, and become more mindful of my time.

I set up a workspace. Fixed the calendar. And things started to get a little better. (I won’t say for a second that I don’t still struggle with this. But I needed to understand that this was not a short-term problem to integrate into a new situation.)

My point?

WFH is a struggle when it’s unplanned.

Which is why it’ll never work as a “temporary solution until we can get back to the office.”

People feel harried, unsure, unable to plan, and upset about not knowing what the future holds. This might have worked as a “Heuristic solution” when we didn’t know what the future would hold, but more than six months later, we should have more than enough employee stories and other data to build a better and longer-term solution. (And we should be thinking of the next Global Catastrophe we can still reverse — Global Warming.)

So when I say kudos to big companies like Microsoft and Twitter that are announcing a permanent #wfh policy, I appreciate and applaud them.

Microsoft makes remote work option permanent

That said, I also understand why it’s the right business decision for them.

Employees need closure in order to be able to plan, regain their productivity and emotional wellbeing. I don’t doubt that companies have been recognizing this over the last few months. And a few months in tech time are like light-years anywhere else.

I truly want to thank every company that gives its employees that level of transparency and control in their schedule while our governments fail to do so.

*There are good reasons more and more large organizations are announcing permanent remote work for employees. Pay attention. It’s a mutually-beneficial arrangement.

Thanks for reading, and signing off for now,
-R

There’s a useful little exercise that can help us observe people in a better light.

It’s an excellent way for leaders & managers to help others apply their traits as strengths, rather than perceiving them as weaknesses.

To my fellow UX Designers — this is a helpful guideline to balance out user frustrations/motivations. It’s been beneficial to me while building more positive experiences for customers — by bringing out their personas’ best intentions.

Allow me to elaborate by trying to reverse some of the labels we create in our minds. (We all know our social titles are so biased anyway.)

Please don’t get me wrong — I’m not against calling a spade a spade. But I believe that everyone can choose to use the character traits they were born with for better or worse. I also think that if the leaders in our lives would understand this concept better, we’d break a lot of broken aspects of society.

I received this as an anonymous printout that a friend handed me about 10 years ago, so I don’t know who to credit for it. If anyone reading this does know where it came from, please let me know so I can credit them here!

What if, instead of seeing someone as “Anxious,” we saw them as “Alert, Caring, Involved”?

Instead of “Arrogant,” — “Self-Confident,”?

Instead of “Clingy” or “Dependent,” — “Affectionate and Caring.”

Instead of “Cowardly and Indecisive,” —“Cautious or Protective”?

Instead of “Crazy and Unstable,” —“Highly Sensitive”?

Instead of “Critical” — “Upholds High Standards.”

Instead of “Cruel”, — “Self Protective, Honest”

Instead of “Cynical”, — “Witty, Independent Thinker”

Instead of “Guilt-Ridden”, — “Conscientious”

Instead of “Independent, Reckless”, — “Spontaneous, brave, Enthusiastic, Adventurer.”

Instead of “Nervous” — “Introspective, Self-Aware.”

Instead of “Lazy” — “Relaxed, Composed, Satisfied with their Lot”

Instead of “Obsessive-Compulsive” — “Industrious, Meticulous, and Thorough.”

Instead of “Permissive,” — “Talented, Forgiving.”

Instead of “Rebellious & Defiant,” — “Individualistic & Courageous.”

Instead of “Selfish” — “Self-Nurturing.”

Instead of “Shallow” — “Cheerful, Faithful, Optimistic.”

Instead of “Stingy” — “Thrifty, Frugal.”

Instead of “Stubborn & Fanatical” — “Resolute, Devoted, Unwavering.”

Instead of “Tactless, Cynical” — “Honest, Gutsy.”

Instead of “Wasteful,” — “Generous, Charitable.”

Instead of “Wimpy, Oblivious, Indifferent,” — “Optimistic, Full of Faith.”

Again, please regard this as very light “food for thought.” NEVER excuse abusive behavior from others by justifying the good in a person. When in doubt, consult a professional. [Insert any other warning labels my writing should have here] :)

Also, don’t get me wrong — I love people in general, but I’m no saint, and sometimes y’all really piss me off. And I know I do the same to so many of you, too! We’re still stuck with each other, though, so with a mixture of a little more pragmatism and a lot more heart, maybe we can understand and get along just a little bit better.

And the more we can recognize the good in others, the more they’ll be able to see it in themselves. ❤️

Thanks so much for reading!

Signing off for now,

-R

Personality, Perceptions & Personas was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

1. Know your customer VERY well — There’s no better way to get to know anyone than by observing and interacting with them. We naturally befriended our customers because we REALLY cared about them. We kept up with their personal events, celebrated their milestones, and continually listened to their ever-changing motivations, frustrations, and needs.
2. Community Matters — Build a company customers will be proud of being a part of. Values are important — Most people are inherently good and love identifying with a worthy cause.
3. Transparency above all — Open lines of communication help build mutual respect, earn customer trust, and encourage healthy b2c relationships.
4. Tell good stories and share about you — People are smart and curious. They appreciate openness, kinship, and even vulnerability from time. Storytelling helps to further strengthen the bond between us and our customers. “The most endearing four words in the history of mankind are ‘Once upon a time’” — Rabbi Rietti
5. Communicate at eye-level — The last thing you want to do is put an unnecessary barrier between you and your customers. Speak in their language so they feel at home and (at least) as equals. It’s also important to be direct and frank about products, policies, and anything else.
6. Customer needs > Your ego — ALWAYS test and ask customers about the products and experiences you’re building. Just because something seems like a great idea to you does not mean it is needed or is good for them.
7. Be unconditionally generous; GIVE, GIVE, AND GIVE SOME MORE — An unexpected gift at point of purchase, no strings attached, will leave a lasting impression and help build customer trust and a stronger brand relationship. Empower your employees to give as well, and set an example by doing the same for them!
8. Practice Ethical selling — Actions speak louder than words. There are no shortcuts when it comes to great CX, you have to prove yourself trustworthy and consistent to earn customer loyalty. Your customers will know you truly have their best interests at heart if you don’t oversell, and happily point them in a better direction if your product or service isn’t the right fit. You’d be surprised by how many friends they’ll recommend back to you.
9. Balance policy with strategic exceptions — Know that being confident in your product or service value is important, but the ability to listen and be flexible in different circumstances and make quick decisions in your customer’s favor will set you apart as an honest and caring brand.
10. Keep learning — To be able to continually deliver value and improve your CX, you’ll need to be constantly studying your customers’ behavior and needs. Remember — these factors are AWAYS evolving. (Age groups, values, needs, frustrations, motivations, etc.) The

And BONUS — Just be a nice person.

We’re all human, and get hit with curveballs like hard times, mood swings, pandemics(!) and other discouragements sometimes. There were so many times I struggled because I had to be there for a customer/client when I had plenty of personal things going on and also needed time for myself. I’ve learned that caring about your customers is a 24/7/365 adventure, in good times and in bad.

In addition to learning different courses and tools to grow professionally, make sure to invest time in doing things that will improve your happiness and wellbeing. The dividends for you in business (and of course otherwise!) are immeasurable.

Signing off for now,

-R

Memes like this get passed around in shopping groups, and they’re funny because they’re so relatable and, unfortunately, all too true.

One of the many benefits of shopping online is that the internet is open 24/7.

Does that mean it’s OK to capitalize on the impulsive decisions your customers make when they’re tired?

It’s not illegal. But consider the possible ramifications to your business from doing so:

1. Higher return rates on impulse purchases. Return rates in a physical store are around 8% today, while their online counterparts average 25–30%.

2. These returns will cost you more money in employees and resources to restock the items.

3. Customers are smart. When they realize they’re buying items from you that don’t get used, they will stop coming.

A local bulk supermarket ran an advertising campaign a few years ago that I’ll never forget. They had branded signs hung up all over the city that would tell you how NOT to spend money in their store. It was creative, different, and refreshing. Each tip on how to spend less at their store had a number; Tip #17, tip #21, and so on. They printed these tips on the back of receipts too.

Here are the ones I remember:

1. “Did you eat breakfast this morning? Don’t come shopping here when you’re hungry.”
2. “Never shop without a grocery list.”
3. “Don’t buy in bulk if you live near the grocery store.”

Today, they even sell a child’s board game that teaches you how to save money on your grocery shopping.

And yes, I bought it. 😂

Remember consignment buying? What if we had the option to reserve items in our cart for a certain amount of time (12–24 hours?) while considering our purchase, or even for a week or two while we paid them off? I know many big e-tailers offer payments on your CC.

This might not be a money-maker for the immediate user, but it’s a tactic that can build your brand as one that cares about ethical selling and buying.

Additionally, I’d love to see e-tailers that have enough inventory use AI tech to suggest lower-budget options to designer brand items.

Don’t get me wrong; a little retail therapy never hurts. However, when it’s taken to an extreme and encouraged in too many directions, it becomes a problem.

That means being careful with Shopify and Woocommerce plugins that push us towards impulse buying. I know the numbers work in the short term. There are billions of people waiting to buy your next one-off product, and you found a system that works, so you don’t care about customer retention. That is one way to do things.

But to the companies looking to grow and that do care about customer retention:

Wouldn’t less returns, more customer loyalty, and a healthier, more ethical brand sound enticing to you?

Nothing worth having comes easy. That said, for better or for worse, it isn’t hard to stand out today by genuinely caring about doing the right thing for your customer.

Signing off,

-R

(Spoiler: It doesn’t happen by skimping on UX).

I grew up in retail, pitching in and working in the family business from a very young age. While my peers were going to camp, I spent my summers attending trade shows, rearranging merchandise for optimal visual representation, and personal clothes shopping for women many times my age.

Our family’s clothing boutique always stood out. It started with my mom teaching me, by example, to see our customers as more than a pocketbook, or numbers in the bank. She cared about her customers. It was natural for my mom to invest just as much time and energy on her customers’ experience as she did with the products. And since we knew them so well, (and had good ‘hunting’ instincts!), we had stellar merchandise.

Our large clothing boutique had a big selection as well as many add-ons that varied at any given time like costume jewelry, handbags, fashion belts, hosiery, etc.

But what made us stand out was the big couch in the back of the store, next to the dressing rooms — our famous couch. Very much like the character-couch relationship in the show “Friends,” we got to get to know our customers better while they spilled out their frustrations and celebrated their triumphs with us on that couch.

We lived in a growing and close-knit community, and many generations of women would come shopping together. That couch became a focal point for our store, and an actual reason to choose us over another. Tired moms would plop down and relax while their picky teenage daughters tried on clothes, and we would take care of bringing them any alternative sizes or styles. Friends would come and shop together because of the great conversations they had on that couch.

“Sandwich generation” women would bring their older moms in for a quality and fun afternoon to chat with everyone in the dressing room area, while, you guessed it, relaxing on the couch.

Then there were the shoes. We didnʼt sell shoes, but we always made sure to have different styles and sizes of “try on shoes” in the back for people that came in with sneakers, for example, and were trying on dresses that needed a heel. We sold so many pieces of clothing just by good-naturedly begging our customers to take off their white cotton slouch socks and see how pretty the dress would look in heels.

We also had toys in the back for women who brought their babies and toddlers shopping with them. At one point, we even had a baby swing. Some of these moms would not have been able to get any shopping done ANYWHERE. A few choice toys not only allowed them to do so, but say, “We care about you, and we’re thinking about what you need.”

So. What does this have to do with UX and digital product design? In todayʼs world, more than ever.

A lot of retailers would have regarded our couch, shoes, toys, as a complete waste of square footage. When youʼre paying a lot of rent, a smart business person will figure out how much it costs them to run their store per square foot, and place and price inventory accordingly.
But what is “inventory” if no one knows about it? If it’s no different than what any of your competition has?

What makes you a better choice than anyone else?

About seven years ago, I got stuck at Newark Airport, waiting for a delayed flight. I can never resist a bookstore (not that I’ve ever tried), so I quickly found myself browsing the Hudson News Stand.

They were featuring a book called, “The Retail Doctors Guide to Growing your Business,” by Bob Phibbs. Of course, I had to buy it. It talks a lot about the personalized service I mentioned above. What I vividly remember, though, was one chapter called “What you donʼt know about the internet will kill you.” It was the first business book I had read that explained how and why small business owners need to get their business a digital storefront.

When you’re selling your app/software/tangible products online, you canʼt greet them at the door with a genuine, human smile and say, “Hi, welcome!”

So. How do you do that? By getting to know your customers through research. By talking to them as much as possible, so you can communicate with them in their language, address their problems, and celebrate their successes.

By doing that, we can build lasting relationships with our users. Giving builds trust over time, as does sharing and transparency. Your customers want to get to know you. A healthy and robust business-customer relationship is when the conversation is two-sided.

Here’s where a UX designer comes into play. Ever hear the saying, “Words from the heart enter the heart”? Understanding your business’s nuances and intentions is just as essential as doing the same for your user’s habits and needs. That is how UX and CXers can manifest transparency.

Particularly in the eCommerce space, many stores have mastered the physical shopping experience, but fail at replicating that goodness to their digital counterparts. While I hate to call anyone out, hereʼs looking at you, *cough* Target. Target! I love you when we’re near each other, but you’re not (yet) good at making our long-distance relationship work.

Sometimes this works the other way around as well. I’ve noticed that some retail chains invest plenty in their digital user experience, but in-store, they’re a mess. Rude and unhelpful employees, lack of knowledge of their merchandise, and never having the size or color one needs in stock. Often, it feels that their instructions are to direct customers out of the store and back online as fast as possible. “If we have it online, just take this coupon, buy it there, and get out of here.” [Hey there Gap/Old Navy/Banana Republic, how u doin?]

With all the mixed messages out there, it’s getting harder to remember who is willing to earn our business. Where has all the consistency gone?

There are distinct ways we measure the customer experience for digital products.

● success rate;
● conversion rate;
● time to complete a task;
● error rate;
● abandonment rate;
● click completion;
● complete a task with ease;
● engagement rate; and
● search web pages with ease.

All of these originated from years of trial and error during the era of real, physical interactions. User research is crucial because it allows us to go back and see our users’ facial reactions, hear the tone in their voice, and read their body language while they use our prototypes. And design/fix our products accordingly.

I havenʼt owned a retail store in over six years. But, I still get passing comments in the street about how much people miss our store, and especially, our couch.

So, to conclude, find your couch!! Make your customers feel comfortable.

Befriend them! They’ll keep coming back, recommend you to friends, and remember you in a positive light, years after youʼve gone.