From landing pages that doubled conversion rates, to machine learning models that cut support tickets in half, to side projects experimenting with new tech. This is a look at the efforts that incrementally defined my career. The work that happened in between the shiny case studies and big product releases. The weekend experiments, freelance endeavors, and unsung hero projects that kept businesses thriving. The day-to-day stuff that defines so much of what we do as designers. And a bit of the fun too.
That's my business card, which uses NFC, A-Frame and AR.js to create an AR experience on smartphones.
From conversion-tripling experiments to launches of entirely new technologies like PWAs, here's a quick look at some of the experiments, websites, software, emerging tech and side projects that I've worked on.
With the hypothesis that video could improve HubSpot's conversion rates, we ran a test to measure its effect and how it should be displayed. Variations included designs that were absent of video, used a simple play button, and had an embedded autoplaying video. The video did not rely on sound, and was muted in the autoplaying variation.
We found that video increased conversion in the range of 300%. When a play button was in the design, it was the second most clicked element, behind only the conversion CTA. When an autoplaying video was used, conversion increased by another 11%.
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Periodically, various teams within HubSpot needed to promote campaigns on the company’s home page. With over 5 million users visiting the page per month, this could drive a lot of traffic and awareness. But it also brought up a debate over aesthetics and performance: should the notification conform to the rest of the page’s design, or should it be unique to the campaign?
Despite internal pressure to use unique designs for each campaign, we found that standardized designs were more effective. The design on the left outperformed the design on the right by more than 400%.
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PWAs are like native apps, but they’re actually websites. They’re cross-platform, windowed, on-the-dock, offline-available, and powered through Chrome on the open web.
I designed and helped launch this new web standard across Windows, MacOS, Chrome OS, and Linux (in addition to Android and iOS). From Twitter to Spotify, it went on to be used by some of the largest entities on the web.
Albeit not the most visually interesting feature, DFMs had a huge impact on the trajectory of Chrome. During a time when the product had a negative APK budget on Android (meaning it was too big to be released), I designed a flow that would load and install features on an on-demand basis, thus reducing Chrome's initial APK binary size.
This would be used across dozens of features, so it was designed to be a flexible and versatile system. Upon rollout, it reduced Chrome's binary size by 8%, introduced a host of new features, recovered the APK budget and enabled an on-time release.
initial DFM list
With HubSpot launching freemium options for every product, I worked on growth-oriented designs and experiments to convert the userbase into paying customers. This meant uncovering the most effective upgrade paths and capitalizing on them by providing users with information critical to conversion.
To support this, I helped design and launch a pricing page within the app that would pull the user’s data and tailor itself to their needs. It effectively changed the product positioning based on the user's profile. This went on to add paying customers that amounted to millions of ARR for HubSpot.
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I worked with the talented teams at Fidelity Labs and Wevo Conversion to re-think their Investment conversion flow, serving as the sole UX Designer on the project. This resulted in 4 different variations (wireframe to the right) that would be tested against the control.
The previous design wasn’t mobile responsive and used their former design language, so we set up goals aimed at mobile conversion and design compliance specifically. This project was also particularly sensitive from a legal perspective, so we had limited flexibility in the design and copy. Ultimately, the new design won and kicked off a set of conversion flow redesigns at the company.
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HubSpot’s pricing page was arguably the most valuable and complex page on the site. It was present in every core conversion flow, it was the second most trafficked page by volume, and its users had a relatively high purchase intent. At the same time, it was frequented by both prospects and sales reps (with different use cases), and it had high legal implications.
With the company going multi-product, introducing add-ons, and implementing global currencies, I led the UX for a total redesign of the page. This included intensive user testing, which led to the introduction of an interactive pricing calculator, responsive comparison table, new product positioning, and more.
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With more than 3,400 partners in 69 countries around the globe, the HubSpot Partner Program made up over 40% of the company’s total revenue. It was a vital part of the HubSpot product and strategy. My team was tasked with reinventing the entire Partner experience, with the goal being to increase sign-ups to the program and acquire new customer leads for existing partners.
A customer-facing and partner-facing experience were created in tandem, resulting in 6 total pages that were designed from the ground-up. This ultimately tripled the conversion rate for our Partners Program, thus outpacing our original goals.
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HubSpot’s Marketing Library housed hundreds of offers that drove leads to the business every day. In early 2017, however, its design was several years old and it was missing out on critical SEO and usability opportunities. Google was unable to crawl the content because it was built in JavaScript, the UI was reminiscent of the old product, and nothing was responsive.
We did a complete overhaul of the library’s IA and UX, resulting in a fully SEO compliant, design language compliant, accessibility compliant, and responsive design. It was then localized for six languages. This more than doubled the traffic to the Marketing Library.
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In the midst of COVID-19, I began to see people in my community being affected by layoffs and hiring freezes. So I composed a post offering to help: be it a portfolio review, interview practice, or simply a chance to be heard - I'd jump on a free 30 minute 1:1 call with anyone in need. This quickly gained traction, and overnight, people started showing up. And while many of them needed help, many others were also offering to help.
Through this, we began to build a makeshift network of mentors and mentees. Over 30 established professionals from companies like Google, Facebook, Spotify, Cloudflare, Microsoft and Apple showed up to volunteer their help. Some of these people were even unemployed themselves, and still raised their hand to be there for others.
Over the following weeks, I personally conducted dozens of 1:1 portfolio reviews and coaching sessions. But that paled in comparison to the impact we created with the volunteer network. As hundreds of designers came for help, every single one got matched with a mentor.
Soon, dozens of posts started to flood in, with people offering to do the same for their networks. Then, Felix Lee and James Badour reached out, expressing that they'd like to build a directory of mentors and designers that were recently laid off. They launched it in a weekend.
Then things took off further, with non-profits, universities and companies like Zendesk and Paypal launching their own initiatives.
As a result, we managed to match hundreds of people from all around the globe with direct 1:1 portfolio reviews. With time, we began receiving reports of job offers and landings. Today, I've continued this effort by regularly offering free mentoring slots to my email list.
In my opinion, leadership extends far beyond the walls of the office. This was a nice manifestation of that. Outside of work, these leaders organically came together to help people that had been impacted by a crisis, and in doing so, they had a material impact on the professionals they mentored. I'm glad to have been a humble part of that effort.
Reviews conducted
Reports of jobs landed
Countries represented by mentors & mentees
Following our initial redesign, we went through rapid iterations that would multiply the site's traffic, conversions and revenue.
A revolutionary idea and a tight timeframe would result in this critical redesign of our fledgling startup's website and product.
