I had the privilege of working with Mimi as a UX Academy student with Designlab. She always brought a sense of curiosity, empathy, and humour to her work.

As a UX Strategist at BLVR in San Diego, California, she draws from her experience in digital marketing strategy to create user-centered solutions. With a bachelor's degree focused in Psychology from University of California, Santa Barbara, she also draws on her curiosity about human psychology to conduct UX design research.

Mimi is a visual storyteller, and she is also able to paint a picture with words.

Her studies in psychology during her undergraduate years contributed to her belief that the mind and body are interconnected. She incorporates this holistic approach to design by practicing intent and making every interaction count. She falls in love with the problem and the user by fully immersing herself in the total experience.

Mimi has learned to collaborate, lead, drive consensus, and manage large scale projects with internal and external parties in mind. Not only does she approach problems with questions, but she encourages people to question whether or not it’s the right problem to solve.

Due to her background, she is able to draw upon finance, marketing, project management, art, and emotion to discover ways to create inspiring and enjoyable experiences.

Presenting UX Design

Know Your Audience

An excerpt from Mimi’s article on presenting UX design, published on Medium.

To ground yourself, layout the foundation to understand the objective of the presentation itself. Most of the time, it’s to gain agreement or approval from stakeholders. Easy as that.

The biggest challenge is that these stakeholders weren’t with you during your design process. They have no idea why you designed the way you did and your thought process. So how do we solve this problem?

As Always, Empathize

Any good UX Designer knows that the key to success is to have compassion towards people. So when it comes to presenting to different types of people with different backgrounds and perspectives, we tackle this like any other design challenge by understanding the user.

Ask yourself the following:

• Who is this presentation intended for?
• What part of the design will they care about the most?
• What are their personal goals for this design?

Once you’ve collected the answers to these questions, reflect on them as these answers will be your north star to remind you who the user of the presentation is.

UX Academy at Designlab

Designlab is the industry leader in online design education. With a focus on 1-on-1 mentorship with expert designers and hands-on projects, our award-winning UX Academy is a rigorous, 500+ hour course that will prepare you for your first role as a product designer.