ZoomInfo · Enterprise SaaS · AI

The navigation nobody planned for — and why that was the real problem

Director of Product Design · 3 months · 100+ people across 3 product orgs

ZoomInfo's first generative AI initiative was Copilot — an intelligent account analysis tool built to help sales reps find and close the right prospects faster. The mandate was clear: use AI to increase sales for our customers. The path to getting there was not.

As Director of Product Design, I led UX strategy and design execution across a team spanning SalesOS, MarketingOS, and Admin Portal. With 100+ people across three product orgs, coordination alone was a full-time job. But the harder problem wasn't coordination. It was something nobody had put on the roadmap.

While mapping the Copilot setup experience, I kept running into the same friction: features existed across the product suite, but users couldn't find them. Navigation was inconsistent. Naming was inconsistent. Where things lived made sense to the team that built them, and to no one else.

The new AI features were being added on top of an architecture that was already broken. Leadership's assumption was that onboarding would solve discoverability. I didn't believe that, and I had to find a way to prove it.

PMs across three orgs were competing for top-level navigation space with no shared framework for what belonged where. There was no ownership of global versus product-specific settings. And this wasn't a design preference — it was a real risk to Copilot adoption and time to value for new users.

Leadership hadn't scoped a navigation redesign into the roadmap. There was no budget for it, no timeline for it, and initial resistance to adding scope to an already complex launch.

So I reframed it. Not as a design fix, but as a business adoption risk. If users couldn't find Copilot's AI features after setup, the investment in building them would not deliver the returns the business expected.

With my manager's support, I decided to prototype and test without waiting for formal approval — building the evidence that would either prove the problem real or put it to rest.

Hands-on craft. I led initial concept development and mentored a designer through rapid research cycles. We ran A/B tests with real customers across all three product orgs, measuring findability, naming clarity, and task completion.

Systems thinking. I built a Navigation Strategy Framework so PMs could self-assess where new features belong and get the right sign-off. I worked with the Design Systems team to codify new nav components in parallel with testing — the right way to accelerate production without sacrificing quality.

Cross-functional execution. I centralized all feature workflows in a shared Figma repository where every designer mapped their flow alongside PM contact information, creating instant visibility across the entire experience. Weekly critiques with incremental leadership updates built buy-in over time rather than asking for it all at once.

Copilot launched on time with a unified navigation structure across all three product orgs — the first time SalesOS, MarketingOS, and Admin Portal had shared a coherent information architecture. New users could find and complete Copilot setup without friction, reducing time to value from day one.

The Navigation Strategy Framework outlasted the project. It became the long-term playbook for how ZoomInfo's product teams coordinate on shared navigation, well beyond Copilot.

Aviation · Operations

Designing a Kiosk That Works from Tampa's Heat to Chicago's Snow

Lead Designer & UX Researcher · Southwest Airlines · 6 months, research to delivery

Southwest employs roughly 4,000 baggage handlers across the United States. Each one shares the same mission: move fast, stay accurate, keep flights on time. But the kiosks they relied on weren't designed for the places they actually worked.

I traveled weekly from Boston to Dallas and shadowed handlers at multiple airports. On summer afternoons, the Tampa tarmac hits 120°F. In January, Chicago workers operate in -5°F windchill. The same interface had to hold up for both.

Glove-friendly large touch targets. High-contrast and low-light adaptive modes. Minimal navigation built for speed. Direct collaboration with hardware manufacturers so the software and the kiosk worked as a single system — not two separate things bolted together.

Robotics · Analytics

Real-Time Intelligence for a Warehouse Full of Robots

Design Lead · Vecna Robotics / FedEx · 2 months, research to ship

Genta works in a logistics center where Vecna's autonomous robots move carts for FedEx. Her job is to keep throughput steady. But existing reports came once a month — inconsistent, too late to act on, and delivered in formats that varied by site. Event logs cleared after three days, making root cause analysis nearly impossible.

Government · Social Services

The Hours We Gave Back to Child Welfare Workers

Director of Product Design · Rhode Island Child Services · 3 months, research to pilot

Terry has been a case worker at Rhode Island Child Services for five years. She spends her days visiting families, documenting children's wellbeing, and representing cases in court. Her notes matter enormously — but with only pen, paper, and dictation tools, she spent long evenings retyping everything into the office system.

The legacy system was desktop-only, inaccessible in the field, poorly documented, and disconnected from actual case work. Every hour of evening paperwork was an hour not spent with families. We redesigned around mobile-first field documentation — text, photos, and audio captured in real time, synced immediately to case files for supervisor review.

The new system — RICHIST — gave case workers a unified mobile and desktop experience: real-time case notes, photo and document attachments tied to individual case records, and an activity feed that kept supervisors updated without requiring additional reporting. Workers could now document during a visit, not hours after.

Healthcare · Mobile

A Breathing App for the People Who Struggle Most to Breathe

Director of Product Design · Healthcare Client · 3 months, research to delivery

Francine is a 67-year-old retired teacher living with COPD, diabetes, and arthritis. Walking short distances leaves her breathless. Panic attacks often follow. Tai Chi had become her lifeline — but in-person classes were increasingly difficult to attend. We built a guided mobile experience that met her at home, on her terms.