IA Collaborative is a global design and innovation consultancy.
As an Associate Director of Interaction Design for 3 years, I contributed to 10 initiatives for 8 clients in 6 industries, plus 2 internal initiatives, was a career manager and mentor for 3 “younger” interaction designers, and led the effort to intentionally reshape the culture of the interaction design team.
I cannot share the details of the work I did for and with clients here, but I’ll happily share my experiences with you privately.
A Glimpse into Client Work
Pharma
Envisioning The Future of Healthcare to Inspire Work Today
In response to common needs we noted across the health and wellness journeys of patients suffering chronic illnesses, we imagined a future digital ecosystem to shape our client’s thinking and investment in digital initiatives to support or complement their pharmaceutical offerings.
Logistics
Reducing Operations Costs With CustomeR Mobile Engagement
After identifying the biggest pain points for our client’s operations teams, we designed and vetted small changes to their mobile app to engage customers in their resolution. We determined which were most likely to both increase customer satisfaction and reduce costs, then completed a follow-on initiative to define an inter-departmental path to implementation.
B2B Commerce
Revolutionizing Sales and Support Through Experience Design
Following in-depth discovery and analysis of both our client’s and their customers’ business structures, processes, and needs, we proposed three concepts designed to address customers’ needs while either streamlining our client’s processes or expanding their offerings, including initial analyses of the operational and technical implications of their implementation, and preliminary roadmaps.
Insurance
Building commitment and Momentum Around Innovation
In tandem with our work to design the first release of our client’s new offering and app, we designed and produced a book to tell the story of, build the case for, and welcome new innovation team members to the project. It grounded the project in our past work and learnings, and encapsulated the vision for the future of both the app and our client’s innovation team.
Retail
Shaping a Marketing Strategy Based on Universal Unmet Needs
Based on insights from our field work, which we designed specifically to understand the difficulties larger women face with respect to wardrobe management, we identified a universal set of clothing-related needs and desires and defined a marketing strategy to reinvigorate sales to all of our client’s female customers.
Health - Corporate Benefits
Designing a Coalition, AN Offering, and A Movement
To alleviate potential friction and expedite time to market, we designed and facilitated a workshop to support our clients in bringing their organizations together, identifying their unique and complementary strengths, crafting a unified vision, and building an approach to bring their combined corporate benefit offering to life and support its intended targets in advocating for themselves with their employers and beyond.
Entertainment
Optimizing the Customer Journey to Maximize Sales
Based on learnings from time spent with research subjects both exploring their entertainment preferences and getting their feedback on concepts we designed to meet needs we identified, we recommended a series of optimizations to build our client’s customer base and loyalty, from small feature enhancements to their existing interfaces to the tight integration of their independent channels.
Health - Medical Devices
Establishing Device Loyalty through Personalized Service
Following the facilitation of a workshop we designed for our clients to guide them through the process of identifying value-added opportunities to augment an existing content-based service, we pivoted to a series of quick design sprints to illustrate how the most powerful interactive concepts we defined might be realized and integrated into their current offerings.
Insurance
Extending a Traditional Brand to Address Modern Vulnerabilities
Building on exploratory and validation research we’d conducted in the past, we completed a series of design sprints to finalize and release the app a the heart of our client’s new offering. We completed our work in parallel with and in response to both work being done to realize necessary technical capabilities, and usability and acceptance testing conducted following alpha and beta releases.
IA Internal Initiatives
Workshop Stimulus
“FUND-IT” Board Game
While designing a workshop to support one of our clients in redefining their project prioritization and funding processes, we realized that a board game would provide the perfect stimulus for the conversation we hoped to foster. I was part of the team that designed and refined Fund-it over the course of about a month, then customized it to reflect our client’s culture and quirks. The client loved it—while Fund-it is relatively simple to play, the conversations it provokes are not.
Venture
Kelvin Coffee Roaster
IA’s Ventures team invented a home coffee roaster, and as we prepared to bring it to market, I joined the team to replace and customize our E-commerce solution (move to Shopify, Bold Subscriptions), define our back-end processes, and select fulfillment partners.