cass designs digital products

my name is cass

currently, i'm working full time in a hybrid role as senior product designer and product manager at BondLink, a govtech startup in Boston. i have accumulated different experiences and skills in music, business development, sales, marketing, coworking, education, and writing, but i can sum all of them up:

i generate

"this looks great!"

i create

"this works well!"

i fix

"this doesn't make sense!"

i like cool things and making things cool. let's talk!

What I do

ux and product design can be summed up as one general goal: smoothing, fortifying, and beautifying the entire experience of the user, the visitor, the customer, the client, the patron, etc., so that no part of that experience happens without intent.

that smooth, functional, enjoyable experience is not created from magic, but it is from a special sauce. each ingredient is crucial to a great product.

Discovery

The question is one of the most powerful tools I use, and Discovery always starts with one: what problem are we trying to solve? Learn about the business. Learn about the user. Apply the concepts of The Business Model Generation by Alexander Osterwalder and generate applicable materials.

Product Discovery

check business goals and determine product vision
business analysis on market and product
build roadmap

design Discovery

gathering data with relevant, useful methods of user research
comparative audit
content review

Define/ Strategy

The Discovery data needs application and context. First, I analyze, taking the data apart, and then synthesize, putting it together and drawing insights to find the valuable information. Strategy is the stage where we define and articulate the important things, such as user needs and constraints, and lay out the path to launch.

Activities

determine features and priority
workshop with stakeholders
launch plan

examples of tools

flows and maps such as customer journey mapping, user flows, task analysis, affinity mapping, etc.

information architecture tools

Develop

Or what most people would call "design design." When people think of design, they don't think about the holistic process it actually is. Instead, they think of this stage. Discovery and Define bear the direction, scope, and plan. Develop or Design Design bears specifics and visuals via lo-, mid-, and hi-fidelity wireframes and prototypes to test the product.

ideation

creation

iteration

Deliver

On full teams, I do one of two things to make the design to dev handoff smoother.

thoroughly spec out the CSS rules for every component so that all spacing, type and font, colors, images, etc. are spelt out
score an assist on the stats with an alley oop throw to front-end development, by just building out the foundational HTML & CSS for components

For freelance work, I use no-code or "visually code" strategies to make my designs come to life for both websites and apps (including this portfolio!)

the whole deal

I can do these services à la carte or holistically. I believe in having a strong foundation as a designer so that I can contribute and deliver to every part of the process, not just the part where I make things look pretty. Special shoutout to the skills I've been taught along my journey:

My main girl Empathy
Kindness and fun
Collaboration and communication
User research
Reports writing
Icon design and basic illustration and animation

UX writing
Experience with a multitude of different tools such as Sketch, Adobe Suite products (Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, XD), Axure, Figma, Webflow, Wordpress, Squarespace, Wix, InVision, HubSpot, and more
Business development and sales experience

availability status

8 years experience

10 speaking engagements and published pieces

25+ projects