Lead Designer on leadCAST
leadCAST is a software to help utilities inventory, sample, and replace private and utility side pipes for lead. I worked with customers from large metropolitan areas like New York City and Houston to small towns all across the country.
Elevating UX Maturity & Establishing Process
When I joined the leadCAST team, the product had low UX maturity and no formal design workflow. Feature development was driven solely by the Product Manager’s client conversations, with design reduced to quick wireframes and no research, iteration, or distinction between fidelity levels. This led to unclear requirements, developer rework, and a general sense of chaos.
Building a Design-Centric Development Framework
I worked with the Product Manager to create a structured, research-informed design process. The new framework included:
User research
We used multiple avenues to perform creative research tasks
Iterative Design
Started in low-fidelity and iterated with the development team into high-fidelity
Collaborative Reviews
Collaborated in weekly design reviews with developers and validated designs with the team and users
Design Handoff
Handed-off of designs with clear feature documentation in Figma
QA Testing
Performed QA testing in our dev environment checking for adherence to design, functionality, and bug testing
Creative Research Solutions Under Constraints
Because our users were government employees, direct access was limited and incentives were prohibited. To gather meaningful insights, I established alternative research pipelines:
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Monthly sessions with internal consultants serving as “super users”.
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Notes and insights from sales team based on client and prospect conversations.
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Reviews of customer onboarding calls, supported by AI-generated transcripts and automated identification of feature requests and complaints. We categorized findings into themes and evaluated them through an impact/effort matrix to prioritize features.
Iterative Design & Cross-Team Collaboration
For each new feature, I worked with the Product Manager to define requirements and acceptance criteria. I created low-fidelity concepts, collaborated with developers early for feasibility feedback, iterated into high-fidelity designs, and documented functionality directly in Figma. After development, I tested pull requests for design adherence, functionality, and bugs before preparing release notes.
Outcomes
Over two years, I identified, designed, and launched dozens of features using this process. The new workflow I implemented:
Reduced inconsistent, hastily built features
Dramatically cut rework for developers
Freed the PM to focus on higher-level product strategy
Streamlined feature development timelines by weeks
Elevated the team’s overall UX maturity and collaboration