Understanding Key Demographics

I started off at Captain creating user personas for both guides and adventurers to get a better understanding of their needs, concerns, and goals. To gain accurate quantitative and qualitative data on both ends I interviewed Guide success and adventurer success managers on key background information such as age, gender, behaviors, and occupation. The goal was to focus on a singular individual to understand their needs and better empathize with their problems.

Establishing A Design System

After designing and revamping the first few pages on the site, I quickly realized that the current website does not allow for easy design and development work to be replicated quickly and at scale - there was no standardization of common components such as buttons, colors, typography and more. I saw this as an opportunity to clarify and simplify Captain’s branding.

Homepage Redesign

Immediately after implementing the design system, the team and I managed to roll out higher fidelity mockups and still have it implemented into the production site much faster than before. After a couple months of diving head first into the website and updating brand collateral, we decided it was time to focus on rebranding our homepage and general brand identity - sending a clear message to adventures and guide alike that Captain is evolving to focus even more on customer experience while still keeping our core beliefs at heart.

The main focus of the redesign was to funnel users to the SERP page thus increasing conversation and retention rate. To achieve this goal, we would have to invoke a sense of trust and reliability on the homepage. I worked closely with Captain’s founders and employees to further define our mission, problem statement, and goals before we dove into our user research.

After synthesizing and presenting our findings from the stakeholder interviews, I wireframed, mocked up, and presented my designs to stakeholders and the team. I was able to run several usability tests and iterate upon the design.

What I Learned

I really loved my time here at Captain. I learned that I work best on a team, but that being on a team doesn’t keep me from asking questions, taking initiative, and taking on responsibility. I also love solving problems and will get very invested in the success of my coworkers and the company im working at. I enjoy working at a faster pace, and am especially productive when I set focus times for myself. I further honed my skills in user experience design, front end development skills, design thinking, and most of all - I learned how to communicate the importance of these things to people with different backgrounds. Working directly with my team pushed me to stand up for my ideas and pitch them to people with different values, expectations, and assumptions.