Maturing UX

Human Centered Transformation

Brand: National Healthcare Brand

Role: Head of Platform Design & Design System

Challenge

Our platform was growing rapidly, but misaligned priorities, siloed teams, lack of shared design standards and processes were creating friction in the user experience. Lack of research, inconsistent workflows, redundant development efforts, and missed opportunities for innovation highlighted the need for a more unified, user-centered approach. Recognizing this challenge, I led the initiative to roll out a Human-Centered Design (HCD) Transformation. This effort aimed to embed UX principles into our product development culture, aligning teams around a shared vision while streamlining processes to drive efficiency, consistency, and impact. By integrating HCD practices, we empowered cross-functional teams to make data-driven, user-focused decisions that enhanced both business outcomes and customer satisfaction.

Goal

Our goal with this effort was to understand the gaps and opportunities in our UX maturity and to identify where improvements were needed. We aimed to infuse Human-Centered Design into our product development culture, ensuring teams had the knowledge and tools to prioritize user needs effectively. At the same time, we sought to roll out these changes in a way that seamlessly integrated with existing workflows and priorities, minimizing disruption while maximizing impact.

Assessing UX Maturity 

To assess the UX maturity of the organization, we conducted a comprehensive evaluation through surveys and in-depth interviews with stakeholders, product managers, designers, and developers. Our goal was to identify gaps in our current processes, uncover opportunities for improvement, and measure alignment with human-centered design principles. The surveys provided quantitative insights into the team's perception of UX maturity, while the interviews allowed us to dive deeper into specific challenges, uncovering inconsistencies in design practices, collaboration bottlenecks, and varying levels of UX integration across teams. This assessment helped us establish a baseline, highlight areas requiring immediate attention, and shape a strategic roadmap for embedding user-centered design more effectively across the organization.

Observations  

Our observations and findings revealed inconsistencies in UX practices, gaps in user-centered decision-making, and a lack of shared understanding of design principles across teams. It became clear that to drive meaningful change, we needed to focus on training the team in Human-Centered Design Thinking and refining our overall design processes. By equipping teams with the right mindset, frameworks, and tools, we could foster a culture of collaboration, innovation, and user-driven decision-making, ultimately enhancing both product quality and business impact.

Process Clarity and Refinement 

My team held several collaborative sessions with product teams to map out all key players, deliverables, ceremonies, and existing processes. By analyzing these insights, we aimed to identify patterns, uncover inefficiencies, and pinpoint areas where our new process could drive improvements. This deep dive allowed us to understand team dynamics and workflows, ensuring that any adjustments we introduced would be both practical and impactful.

Empowered Teams Playbook

To support teams in adopting Human-Centered Design, we created a comprehensive Product Design Playbook that outlined key principles, best practices, and actionable steps for integrating UX into their workflows. This playbook served as a guide, providing teams with frameworks, tools, and real-world examples to help them seamlessly implement user-centered strategies. By making it easily accessible and adaptable, we empowered teams to apply these practices effectively, fostering consistency and alignment across the organization.

Change Management

To roll out our process effectively, we collaborated with stakeholders and product partners to identify the best candidates for pilot projects—those that would benefit most from Human-Centered Design while offering valuable insights for scaling the approach. Once selected, we held team kickoffs to introduce the initiative, align stakeholders, and walk through the process to set expectations. Next, we moved into the planning phase with the team, where we defined goals, mapped out key milestones, and integrated our approach with existing workflows. We then conducted a series of hands-on workshops, guiding teams through Human-Centered Design principles, user research methods, and iterative design processes, ensuring they could apply these learnings directly to their work. We leveraged collaborative tools such as Miro and Figjam to have the full squad contribute to the strategy and solutions.

Redefined Success Metrics

Previously speed of delivery had been prioritized over the quality of experience. We balanced speed with impact, setting UX KPIs alongside delivery metrics (e.g., task completion time, usability ratings). We aligned success criteria with user behavior changes, measuring the adoption of streamlined workflows rather than just feature launches. We also transitioned away from using NPS as the only success measure and utilized SUS ratings to track, measure and communicate overall platform product experience usability.