Hi, I’m Courtney
I specialize in thoughtful, strategic, clean, and empathetic design.
Scroll to check out my work below, or get to know me.
How I work
Thoughtful
I believe in doing it right the first time, so I ask a lot of questions. "What’s the problem we’re solving? Is it the right one? What do we hope to learn?"
Strategic
I believe in being accountable for the experiences I design, so I strive to be measureable. "What’s our goal? How will we know we were successful?"
Clean
I believe design is mindful of the “how,” so I live in that fuzzy area of HTML/CSS and UI/JS. “Can we release and see? Can we reduce complexity?”
Empathetic
I believe it all comes down to the user in the end, so I aim to be their voice. “How do we want users to feel? What are users’ mentality/expectations?”
My recent work
TheLadders Jobseeker Responsive Member and Guest Websites
Product Design, UI + UX Design, UX Research
Responsible for the visual identity of TheLadders’ brand over large-scale web sites, email marketing and mobile. Advocated for visual consistency and identity across browsers, screen sizes, and platforms for collaborative, “Lean UX,” agile product-engineering work environment. Partnered with product managers, copywriters, and frontend developers to deliver innovative, user-centric, measurable, and manageable product experiences across all mediums. Assumed responsibility for the company’s creative direction after creative director left. All of which resulted in a 24% increased NPS rating.
One of my favorite projects (and major accomplishment) while at TheLadders, was leading the effort to create a living style guide that allowed teams to move faster more efficiently and ensure style consistency across touchpoints. I partnered with an engineer on each team to incrementally consolidate styles and eliminate thousands of lines of redundant, complex legacy code. The end result was a living style guide comprised of reusable, responsive components that engineers adopted and incorporated into their development process. What used to take days or weeks, now took hours.
When the company decided to transition 6+ million users to a new, modernized, responsive platform, I was responsible for the UI of the new experience – which included a redesigned search system.
With the intention of elevating the overall experience of the two-sided ecosystem, I led the UI + UX design and UX research to improve the data collection flow for new registrants, which resulted in a 90% profile completion rate versus 10% in the control with an improved onboarding experience. We later directed low-data users through the flow to further improve the ecosystem experience.
Ladders Recruiter iPhone App
Creative Direction, Product Design, UI + UX Design, UX Research
With a 4.5/5-star rating in the App Store, I led the on-going, iterative UI design work and UX research for TheLadders’ recruiting iPhone app.
Toast Android App
Creative Direction, Product Design, UI + UX Design
Curious to learn more about designing for Android, I picked up Toast as a side freelance project. Toast wanted to be for restaurants and retailers what Square is for coffee shops and farmers market vendors. I was primarily responsible for developing a scalable design and brand system – scaling across the nebulous world of Android devices, orientations, and resolutions. I also optimized the payment flow by redesigning a few key screens in the experience, which resulted in half as many screens (and more fun animations).
TheLadders Recruiter Responsive Website
Product Design, UI + UX Design, UX Research
Responsible for modernizing the visual identity of TheLadders Recruiter, the recruiting web component of TheLadders’ two-sided ecosystem. I partnered with product managers, UX designers, and frontend and backend engineers in order to redesign the product via on-going, iterative visual and interaction improvements. With a redesigned homepage, I elevated the brand and improved acquisition by increasing the number of registrants/day by 25% and doubling conversion (16% to 32%).
