I’m a design partner to companies and teams looking to make a leap forward.
-
Approach
I apply user research, strategic decision-making frameworks and co-creation to help accelerate teams to find direction and move into making with confidence. I value customer research and invest in figuring out “the right thing to build” before tackling how to how to build it. My ideal process combines qualitative and quantitative research, data analysis, lean UX and rapid prototyping & testing to deliver solutions rooted in meaningful customer insight.
-
Strengths
Navigating ambiguity using my expertise in discovery methods
Developing customer insights to define and explore problem spaces
Visualizing insights through personas, journeys and other models
Mapping user journeys and experiences to contextualize insights and identify areas of opportunity
Facilitating workshops that apply decision-making frameworks to drive alignment and roadmaps
Working with cross-functional teams (including engineers, PMs, content strategists, and product marketers) within agile and iterative processes
-
Outputs
With a multidisciplinary skillset blending research, strategy and design, and experience as an end-to-end product designer, service designer, and strategic design leader, I’m able to easily adjust my elevation and approach based on where there’s gaps and where I can have the biggest impact.
When I’m embedded within a product triad, my outputs include: wireframes, flows and UIs, user stories, and prototypes for concept and usability testing. As a strategic designer taking a 10,000 ft view, I help drive formative research, define discovery approaches, facilitate co-creation workshops, set vision and strategy and connect the dots between product areas to support cohesive experiences across the customer journey. My outputs typically include:
research plans and interview scripts
workshop plans (e.g. Lean Canvas, Moscow Prioritization)
personas
journey and experience maps
concept visions and strategic narratives
roadmaps and experiment plans
-
Environment
I can work alone or embed directly with your team. My favorite environments tend to have a few things in common. They:
are customer-centric
have high UX maturity
allow me to have a direct customer impact
score high on collaboration and low on politics and ego
-
Résumé
In my 12 years as a product and experience designer, I’ve worked in a wide variety of contexts, including agencies, startups and mature products at scale. Currently, I work with the Commerce teams at Squarespace helping millions of Entrepreneurs & Creators monetize their expertise and transact with their customers.
Examples of recent problems include:
How can we set merchants up for success and get them to their first sale quicker?
Who’s churning from our Membership product – and what does that tell us about what’s missing?
How can we capitalize on the Knowledge Commerce boom and make it easier for Creators to monetize their expertise?
How can we better support sellers who sell multiple kinds of things, including products, services and content?
Check out some recent work or view my resume.











Kind words
from others
“Nina is an incredible strategic and design thinker, UX expert, and colleague.”
— KAREN S, VP OF INNOVATION STRATEGY, RETAIL AT SALESFORCE
“Nina has deep UX and product expertise paired with great design and language sensibilities, so she's able to think and collaborate in a super sophisticated way.”
— LIZ J, GROUP STRATEGY DIRECTOR, RED ANTLER
“Nina has a unique ability to absorb a ton of information with ease and a relentless energy that helps her narrow in on smart solutions quickly.”
— ELIZABETH O, HEAD OF DESIGN, COMPASS
“Nina is so open to the iterative process. She is great at shaping the ‘best’ approach while balancing the ‘best for now’ approach. She was a blessing to the team.”
— JASON B, PRODUCT OWNER, IBM
“Nina is someone I’d recommend for any product, application or service design work that needs a considerate and strategic guiding voice.”
— CORY C, VP PRODUCT MANAGEMENT AT WEWORK
