UX CASE STUDIES
PRODUCT DESIGN CASE STUDY #1
​Overview
Shine Solar’s sales team relied on outdated tools that slowed down their ability to contact leads quickly and manage growing customer demand. The objective was to streamline the sales rep workflow, increase lead response speed, and build a scalable internal CRM system — all while supporting Shine Solar’s goal of rapid revenue growth.
Objectives
- Align the sales workflow with company-wide business goals.
- Design an experience that supports Shine Solar’s growth and scalability.
- Improve speed to contact and ease of managing new leads for the sales team.
Step 1 — Identifying Business Stakeholders
​Through a series of discovery meetings with the executive team, I identified key business owners — individuals responsible for sales strategy, management, and performance. These stakeholders provided critical insight into business goals, current challenges, and success metrics.
Step 2 — Identifying and Understanding Users
Next, I collaborated with the business owners to define our primary users: Shine Solar sales representatives. Together, we selected a few experienced team members to act as representative users for research, testing, and feedback throughout the process.
Step 3 — Research & Observation
To build empathy and context, I shadowed sales reps during their daily routines and conducted one-on-one interviews. This helped uncover:
- Pain points in their current CRM tool
- Inefficiencies in lead management
- Gaps between company strategy and sales rep workflow
I then mapped out a user flow representing a typical sales rep’s daily process. This became the foundation for identifying opportunities to streamline their experience.
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Key Insight: Sales reps needed faster, simpler ways to view, contact, and organize leads — without unnecessary clicks or context switching.
Step 4 — Ideation & Requirements
​With insights in hand, I facilitated brainstorming sessions with stakeholders to align business goals with user needs. Together, we defined success criteria and key functional requirements for the new sales interface.
Core Requirements:
- Visibility of all owned leads (Name, Lead ID, Status, Source)Core Requirements
- Quick view of lead details and appointments
- One-click call functionality
- Lead organization via sorting and search
- Metrics: Number of dials, time since last dial, total owned leads
- Quick “Claim Next Lead” action
I then began exploring interaction models and information architecture to ensure the tool fit seamlessly into the existing sales process. Multiple design concepts were sketched, tested, and refined through feedback loops with both sales reps and executives.
Step 5 — User Interface Design
Once direction and success metrics were clear, I designed the new Sales Pipe Interface — a single, intuitive workspace where reps could manage all their leads efficiently.
Key design features:
- Dual Views: “List View” for detailed data and “Board View” for drag-and-drop organization (customizable by each rep).
- Instant Search: A persistent search bar for quickly locating leads.
- Quick Call Button: Fixed call action beside each lead row for faster outreach.
- Live Metrics: A lead count indicator and total leads summary directly on the page header.
- Native Mobile Apps:Â Companion mobile apps designed to compliment the web interface to facilitate viewing crucial data on-the-go.
- Smart Lead Retrieval:
- A “Get Next Lead” button accessible from anywhere in the app.
- Automatically serves the next available lead based on rep qualifications and lead age.
- Adapts dynamically to show “8 New Leads” or “Get Next Lead,” depending on lead availability.
Step 6 — Validation
I conducted usability tests and interviews with sales reps using interactive prototypes. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive, though several small UI refinements were made to improve visibility and reduce visual clutter.
After additional review sessions with business owners, the decision was made to launch with the List View first to meet tight delivery timelines. The “Board View” remains in the product backlog for a future release.
Step 7 — Handoff & Collaboration
Once validated, I shared detailed Figma specs and prototypes with the engineering and product management teams. I worked closely with developers throughout implementation to ensure design fidelity and user experience consistency.
Outcome & Impact
​The redesigned tools — Sales Pipe and Get Next Lead — significantly improved usability and performance across the sales team.
- Measured Impact:
- Revenue Growth: Annual revenue increased from $11M to $50M average within five years post-launch.
- Total Revenue Impact: Over $250M generated using the Luminary CRM.
- Onboarding Efficiency: New sales reps required less training due to simplified workflows.
- User Satisfaction: Continued testing shows high engagement and satisfaction among reps.
“The simplicity and speed of the new tools completely changed how our reps work. They spend less time managing leads — and more time closing deals.”
PRODUCT DESIGN CASE STUDY #2
Overview
Our podcasting platform needed a “wow” factor — an AI-driven feature that not only showcased our technical capabilities but also generated buzz among users and the industry.
The challenge was to design and prototype a highly engaging, hype-worthy AI experience that could quickly be validated, built, and promoted internally and externally. The result was the AI Voice Translator, a feature that transforms a podcast host’s voice into another language — while keeping their unique vocal tone and personality intact.
Objectives
- Build a high-impact, AI-powered feature to elevate our platform’s innovation reputation.
- Create a viral, buzzworthy experience that excites both users and internal teams.
- Deliver a functional MVP quickly while maintaining high design polish and storytelling value.
Step 1 — Ideation & Discovery
The project began with a collaborative brainstorming session focused on AI innovations for podcasting. Together, our design, sales, executive, and in-house podcast production teams generated a list of 80+ potential AI-powered features — from smart editing tools to audience analytics.
To narrow focus, we surveyed our in-house podcast producers, gathering feedback on which ideas they found most exciting, valuable, and achievable in the short term.
Discovery Outcome: The top concept was the AI Voice Translator — a system that converts podcast audio into new languages while preserving the original speaker’s voice.
Step 2 — Data Gathering & Validation
Before diving into design, we collected and analyzed online data and technical resources to evaluate:
- Feasibility: Can current AI models support natural, multilingual voice synthesis?
- Market interest: Are creators and listeners intrigued by AI-translated voices?
- Differentiation: Would this create a unique positioning for our platform?
This research phase ensured our efforts were grounded in realistic potential and market relevance.
Step 3 — Technical Feasibility
Working closely with engineering, I mapped out the tech stack and integration requirements needed to bring the concept to life.
- Proposed Technologies:
- 11 Labs: Voice profiling & audio generation
- OpenAI: Audio → text transcription
- Google Translate: Language translation
We evaluated API costs, scalability, and how each piece could connect into a seamless production pipeline.
Step 4 — User Insight Interviews
To ensure we weren’t building “tech for tech’s sake,” I conducted interviews with:
- Podcast creators (to understand excitement and perceived value)
- Internal producers (to assess production workflow impact)
- Marketing team members (to gauge potential for storytelling and hype)
Key Insight: Users and team members were immediately excited by the concept — seeing it as both a productivity boost and a creative superpower.
Step 5 — Speed vs. Impact Strategy
With enthusiasm high, we prioritized speed of delivery while maintaining a strong “wow” factor. The goal was to ship an MVP quickly — something impressive enough to showcase publicly, even if not feature-complete.
- We focused on three guiding principles:
- Ship fast — prove concept viability and market response.
- Design for excitement — ensure the experience feels magical and intuitive.
- Enable future growth — design flexible architecture for future expansion (e.g., additional languages, editing options).
Step 6 — Competitive Analysis
​I conducted a review of competing AI tools (e.g., Descript, Riverside, ElevenLabs, and Podcastle) to identify where we could stand out.
​Our differentiator wasn’t just functionality — it was emotional resonance. Most tools focused on efficiency; ours aimed to inspire creativity and generate conversation across the industry.
Step 7 — UI & UX Design
Drawing inspiration from top transcription and translation tools, I designed an experience that felt simple, professional, and empowering.
- Core User Flows:
- Upload & Transcribe: Seamless upload of podcast audio with automatic transcription.
- Review & Edit: Inline editing of transcribed text before translation.
- Translate & Generate: One-click submission to create a translated version — automatically synthesized in the original speaker’s voice.
- Download & Share: Easy export of both text and new audio files.
The interface emphasized clarity and flow — minimizing complexity to let the magic of AI shine through.
Step 8 — Prototyping & Testing
High-fidelity Figma prototypes were created to visualize the full user journey, test interactions, and collect early reactions. I collaborated with internal teams for informal testing sessions to refine the user flow and interface polish.
Step 9 — Early Promotion & Feedback Loop
​Even before launch, we began strategic early promotion.
Sales reps and marketing leads shared sneak previews and demo clips with clients and partners, using the prototype to build anticipation and gather qualitative feedback.
The result: buzz spread quickly — both users and internal team members were genuinely excited about the feature and what it represented for the company’s innovation roadmap.
Outcome & Impact
The AI Voice Translator became the centerpiece of our platform’s innovation story.
- Results:
- High engagement: Both creators and internal teams expressed strong excitement and curiosity.
- Brand differentiation: The feature positioned our platform as an AI innovator in podcasting.
- Momentum boost: The success energized internal teams and became a rallying point for the product roadmap.
- Future potential: The MVP opened doors for expansion into multilingual content creation, accessibility, and localization.
“This project didn’t just build a feature — it built excitement, confidence, and momentum for what’s next.”
PRODUCT MANAGEMENT CASE STUDY
Objective: Plan the roadmap and release schedule for the Luminary 2.0 launch. Help executives and business owners better understand and appreciate the design and development process.
Understand
Frequent meetings with head of development, development team, and business owners. I came identify that we had a few key problems that were preventing us from moving at the pace we would like.
- Methods of communication
- Prioritization process (dealing with differing opinions)
- Communicating Progress and timelines
- Communicating process and development complexity
Prioritize
​Product meetings with business owners and head of development to prioritize key features (used R.I.C.E method to help guide prioritization, not just opinions) and ideal release schedule. Meetings with development team to hand off designs and explain functionality to get realistic level of effort and timeline. Visual roadmaps and release schedule designed.
Follow up
​Daily standup with dev team to ensure they were on a trajectory to deliver within release window. Daily email sent to business owners with tasks assigned for the day and accomplished tasks from the day before.
Delivery
​With this information I created release schedule and road map slides to present to business owners and CEO. Bi-weekly product update call to review the current state of development, roadblocks and adjustments to release schedule. Â
Other Visual Communication​
​A challenge that we faced was to help sales managers and other executives understand the complexity of the app and all the critical parts to the product design process. They had a mentality that creating software was like magic and took very little time to complete. Our answer to this was to create a series of visual depictions of the complexity of the app, the design process, development process, prioritization method etc. that we could present to help them come to a basic understanding of all the moving parts and appreciate how complex of a project it was. This helped them accept the timelines better and realize what it really takes to create software.
