Turn your complex ideas into clear, usable experiences
UX research, design, and content strategy for mission-driven startups
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Clarifying the product vision and roadmap for a climate tech startup via user research
Conducted user research to identify and understand beachhead market segment and determine highest value Jobs To Be Done (JTBD)
Coached UX interns through analysis of research findings and presentations to key stakeholders
Research insights informed the product vision & roadmap for a platform to help project developers working on climate positive projects scale faster and operate better
UX research
startup
climate tech
Reducing support agent case load with improved navigation and information architecture
Conducted interviews with internal SMEs and facilitated workshops to reach alignment on business goals, user needs, and project scope
Defined a content model and redesigned navigation, collaborating with a visual designer to create design system patterns and AEM components
Collaborated with web optimization team to run a series of A/B tests and iterate on solutions
10% increase in aggregate CES, 92% average increase in CTR on navigational links, and 53% average decrease in support case creation from those pages
UX design
UX research
design system
B2B
“
It's great to collaborate on projects with Rebecca as she continually focuses on minimizing complexity while striving for simplicity (and always keeps the customer/audience at the center of what we're working on). Bravo!
Rich Schwerin
Senior Content Strategist, Bay Area Content Marketing Meetup
Empowering industrial design students with contextual in-product learning
Collaborated with content strategy to audit existing help & learning content
Conducted a competitive analysis of existing learning panels and software tutorials for a variety of design tools
Interviewed users to learn about desired features, existing pain pointsDesigned a modularized framework intended to scale across devices and platforms
"I hope they put more work into this because it's really good if you're a beginner!" —customer feedback
UX design
product design
SaaS
B2B
“
You had the courage to ask hard questions. You showed empathy for customer needs. You asked why? Or why not? I am grateful for your collaboration and your patience with a complicated process and your ability to pivot with changing conditions.
Renee Anderson
Design Research and Strategy
Supporting sustainable textile practices with service design mapping
Facilitated discovery and research synthesis workshops with TRW leadership and investors
Contextual inquiry at the TRW factory, interviewing employees and documenting pain points in the textile renewal and ecommerce flows
Created service maps and RFP requirements for a bespoke inventory management solution
TRW continued to grow their business, partnering with major outdoor brands and was acquired by supply chain experts Bleckmann to enable scaling their textile renewal services
UX research
service design
startup
sustainability
Shorebird Design is a UX design & research studio based in Berkeley, CA.
Founder Rebecca Hathaway has 13 years of experience making sense of complex problems across a range of industries, from enterprise software to climate and sustainability startups.
She co-leads the Making Sense of Content + Design discussion group at The Sensemakers Club with friend and content marketer Stephanie Lottridge. With a BA in English and MFA in Design, the experience of the written word will always be core to her design philosophy.
More details coming soon. Sign up to receive very occasional musings on design and design-adjacent topics!