I'm a Senior UX designer with more than ten years of experience in user research and product design, and a classically trained animator before that. Most recently I spent four years with the Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services, designing MyBenefits and the social assistance digital applications used by caseworkers and the public across the province. Before that: the Ministry of Transportation, Transport Canada, CBC Kids, and Toronto Public Library, where I led UX on the Kids' Library site and the national TD Summer Reading Club.
I also write and illustrate middle-grade books under my own imprint, Rainee Wise. I work Lean and Agile, I’m driven by curiosity about human behaviour, and I still like to dabble in HTML and CSS.
Portfolio
This is a selection of my work. If you like what you see, drop me a line.
KidsSpace
UX Research
Public Management Tool
Product Design & UX
CanadaStays.com
UX/UI Design
TD Summer Reading Club
UX/UI Design & Research
Kidco Construction
Responsive UX Design
WordSundae
UX/UI App Design
Contact Me
Feel free to reach out if you want to collaborate, connect, or just have a chat.
KidsSpace
(Toronto Public Library for Kids)
User Research / Information Architecture / User Testing / Data Analysis / Prototyping
The Project
Toronto Public Library wanted a new interactive website, to replace the current KidsSpace site. TPL wanted a kid-focused website designed to replicate in branch environments and encourage participation. A site that is engaging and provides support and point-of-contact for children and families across Toronto.
The Challenge
KidsSpace was built in 2009 and the site was non-responsive. There was a lot of information on KidsSpace but the information wasn't easy to find, and the user journeys to borrow books, play games, etc. were too complicated. The site content was disorganized despite TPL’s best intentions.
My Approach
Web Analytics Data
Why was the old website underperforming? To answer this question, I started by analyzing the web analytics data. My analysis revealed that new visitors were able to find the website, but they were not staying long. The website had a high bounce rate and low engagement metrics. Mobile reports showed that almost half of users were viewing the site using a mobile device. Being that the site was non-responsive and did not render correctly on small screens; this was a significant usability problem.
Online Survey
I created two online surveys, one for parents and one for kids. The purpose of these surveys was to find out components and features kids/parents would like to see in the new 6-12 website. Base on the stakeholders interviews I wrote 8 questions.
Focus Group & Usability Testing
I recruited users who met the website’s target demographic to test the existing website using KidsSpace. I led the focus group and I had a designer and a children’s librarian to assist me. We conducted observational study, card sorting exercise and asked participants open-ended questions to convey their thoughts and feelings. My findings were based on two focus groups that were conducted in the City of Toronto. In all, 18 children attended the 2 focus groups with age ranges from 5 to 12 years. From these exercises I created a new IA for the site.
Top insights:The category Games & Giggles and Books & Stories was the most popular section. The site contained too much text and was overwhelming to look at. Users didn’t know where to find content that interest them, i.e. videos, games and books
Personas & Empathy Maps
It was very important for the new website to communicate the right atmosphere. TPL knew that when it came to site engagement, motivation and a fun attitude was essential. I created empathy maps and personas to represent these values before continuing with the site design. These deliverables help to keep the end user in the forefront of the design process.
Scenarios & Customer Journey Maps
I created a scenario “borrowing a book” online and developed Noah’s journey map to help me see where the major pain points were in the user’s journey. I turned these pain points into user goals.
Top insights: Create clear simplified navigation for content. Keep text to a minimum and use clickable images. Create breadcrumbs so user knows where they are at all times.
Wireframes & Prototype Testing
I created low-fidelity wireframes to map out the new website's structure and page layouts. These were great for communicating the design vision and getting early feedback. The wireframes went through a couple rounds of iteration as final content was developed.
Impact & Results
The new site allows kids’ to easily search for, borrow and download books. We validated the working prototype and received positive feedback from library users. The site has a new navigation that is more kid-friendly.
User Interviews & Synthesis / Scenario & Sketching Workshops / Rapid Prototyping and User Testing / Lean Design
The Project
The client wanted to create a new case management system that enables their users to complete their work process efficiently while minimizing business disruption for the users clients.
The Challenge
The users spent a lot of time collecting and digitizing employer documents from their clients. They had many limitations using their current case management tool, including difficultly in navigating content and data duplication. The client needed to create a tool where users could open and close projects in a timely manner, minimizing paperwork.
My Approach
Kick-Off Meeting
The goal of the Kick-Off Meeting was to align Stakeholders with the balanced team. It brings everyone together in a single space for the first time to help define product, business and engagement goals. Understand the stakeholders and define target users to interview and what scenarios to focus on.
Identifying and Prioritizing Pain Points
The team and I spent the afternoon understanding all the steps that it takes to conduct an inspection, from the perspective of the user. We mapped out the current experience in yellow post-it notes and then layered on the future, digital experience in purple post-its. In addition to those sessions, our days were filled with workshops with the goal of fleshing out the purpose behind the tool we were building - what needs we had to satisfy in order to create a successful product? This would become our "golden nugget". The focus of our project upon which we can iterate to continuously build useful software that will provided value to our users.
Exploratory Interviews
After we listed off the assumptions we had in regard to the current users work process. We then prioritized these assumptions to create our topic map for our exploratory interviews.The product manager and I conducted five interviews to help validate and add to our ideas regarding the actual pain-points we need to alleviate in through the Inspections Tool. For those interviews, we invited users to come in and discuss their current roles, their existing tools, their ideas on how to improve the efficiency of their day to day tasks, etc. These discussions help establish a more concrete idea of how the case management tool would be used by the actual end users and will allow the balanced team to work towards prioritizing an ideal user experience.
Synthesis
We did a synthesizing exercise after around of research in order to analyze what we captured during research. We then used the output of this activity to identify patterns in collected research data, improve our understanding of users, and identify action items we can take. We also used it to support conversations on the why of behaviours, and what actions to take.
Scenario Writing
Together, the team determined a goal based on the primary needs of the users. Once this goal is determined, we then establish a context to ensure we are only focusing on a very specific scenario and not all of the possible outcomes so as to avoid overwhelming ourselves and our interviewees.
Sketching Workshop
The product manager and I led the sketching workshop. I gave each team member a large sheet of paper and, within a 15-minute timeframe. The entire team takes part in this, not just me the designer. The goal was to help draw some basic wireframes first to express the ideas we had in our heads. In the end, we consolidate the most popular page sections and features which I then drew inspiration from these drawings while creating a visual for our user tests.
Design Critique & Hypothesis
I consolidated the ideas gathered from the scenario sketching workshop into a high-fidelity mock. Once each page has been assessed by the whole team, I the designer cycled through the feedback notes and answer questions and save the post-it to refer to when refining the mock, depending on the nature of the given note. I then returned to work on this prototype in preparation for interviews.
Prototype Testing
The prototype was then used in subsequent validation with 3 remote user interviews. We use two separate rooms: one for the note takers and observer and one for the interviewer as well as a second note taker. We conducted each of the interviews in this set over the phone while using Zoom to monitor the interviewees' screens. The notes from the interviews were compiled, primarily for use by myself so that I can enhance the prototype for subsequent interviews and general application design.
Inception
The Inception meeting marked the end of the Discovery and Framing period. It's was a time to showcase our work and key findings from the D& F period, and to align everyone (balanced team and stakeholders) on what the first iteration of the product will be. We ended the Inception meeting with the team's Iteration Planning Meeting (IPM), which meant the Developers would officially "pick up stories" and write code the following day.
Impact & Results
We empathised with our users to discover their needs, defined the problem, brainstormed ideas, created prototypes and validated our assumptions through user testing. We learned a lot from our short development cycles, and received positive feedback from users. It was an all round success and we ended up building a managment tool that users wanted!
CanadaStays
(Vacation Rental Website Redesign)
User Research / Competive Analysis / User Testing / Wire Framing / UI Design
The Project
CanadaStays is a global vacation rental company who is in partentship with HomeAway a world's leading online marketplace for the vacation rental industry. The platform allows cottage and cabin owners to advertise their property online. After 8 years in business CanadaStays.com needed a new website design that was flexible enough to accommodate new functionality.
My Role
I joined CanadaStays to be their Senior UX/UI Designer and participated in a redesign of their website. The main aim was to create a new account platform that would be easy for homeowners to set up and manage their properties online. During the redesign process I created sketches and wireframes to quickly find what worked, and what didn’t. Being able to see a walkthrough of an idea so early on was invaluable to the design process. I researched best practices of similar organizations, prioritized content and features, created site map and wireframes.
New Account
I made a few key changes to the layout and structure of the application. I created a side bar nagivation to declutter the header area. I simplified the navigation by adding important elements like notifications and a link to add your Property section.
Property search
I redesigned the property search section of the site. I implemented the newly designed property search, a review system using stars, and kept a strong focus on imagery and photos.
List Property
I gave the List Property section a fresher look by separating the content with bright images.
Impact & Results
The new site allows homeowners to add new property listings in just 7 easy steps. A traveler can now request rental information in less clicks.
User Research / Information Architecture / User Testing / Data Analysis / Prototyping
The Project
TD Summer Reading Club is an national program that strives to engage children in the joy of reading during the summer months while championing Canadian writers and illustrators. Children can sign up for a digital notebook where they can track books they have read or want to read, add ratings, write reviews, submit jokes and more.
My Role
The Toronto Public Library brought me on to lead UX and UI for the redesign of their annual national TD Summer Reading Club website. I analyzed site data, wrote user testing script, conducted user testing of their target audiences, analyzed findings, report insights, created wireframes and mockups.
Wireframes
Here's an example of my wireframes from the book search section of the site.
Mockups
This site re-design was full of interesting UI challenges! I created a simple kid friendly navigation for easy access to difference selections of the site. A completely new redesign of the books page was created, I added a carousel for the featured books the client wanted to highlight.
Impact & Results
As a result of the changes, we saw a 95% increase in traffic. Our users felt they could trust us with their kids — a big win for us. The end result was something we all stood behind proudly.
Research / Analytics / UX design / Site map / Wireframes
The Project
Kidco Construction Ltd., is a full service earthmoving contractor, specializing in Highways, Municipal Public Works, Residential and Commercial Land Development. Kidco strives to provide our clients with conventional and high production volume earthmovers to maintain production capacity, efficiency, and accuracy.
My Role
Venture Communications brought me on to lead UX for the redesign of Kidco Construction website. I researched best practices of similar organizations, prioritized content and features, created site map and wireframes.
Site map
I worked with the client to figure out the website structure. The sitemap was simplified from the previous design.
Wireframes
Impact & Results
Finally, we helped retain and amplify any and all information that Kidco Construction wanted to port over from their previous site. Together we created a modern, mobile-friendly approach to Kidc without losing sight of their core business values.
Research / Creative Direction / Wireframes / Mockups / Animation
The Project
Word Sundae is a Scrabble-style game for iOS. Parents and their preschool or school age child can go head-to-head to build word sundaes out of ice cream letters. The players can scoop up points by building words up to five letters long using bonus tiles, point multipliers and extra turns. Word Sunade made it to the top of educational games on the Apple store for several months.
My Role
I was to redesigned an iOS game for Kids' CBC. At the start of the project I did research about educational games with that knowledge I created cute animated characters that appeal to kids. Along the way, I created wireframes, mockups, animation and wrote specifications for design and behavior.
Wireframes
I wanted to design a friendly and simple user interface for young users. I aimed for an engaging game that would help children develop their spelling skills and still have fun.
Mockups
I designed an uncluttered user interface, using bright, exciting colors and including cute animations and sounds which helps keep kids engaged.
Impact & Results
I had a lot of fun working on this game. The cute characters and fun animations made the game stand out and the game exceed the users’ expectations
You can download Word Sundae iOS App from the AppStore at Word Sundae App
