Innovation Consulting
Role
EPAM Continuum is a design and innovation firm best known for products like Swiffer, the Reebok Instapump, and Daisy’s squeezable sour cream. I occasionally moonlight as a tour guide. (Fun facts available upon request.)
My role as an Envisioner straddles strategy and design. It includes:
Strategy 📈 Conducting qualitative research and design strategy through the development of stimuli and discussion guides, interview moderation, workshop facilitation, and analysis of data into themes and insights.
Design ✏️ Developing visually rich stories through illustrations, high-fidelity wireframes, frameworks, and animation to foster empathy and advocate for user needs while gaining alignment across stakeholders.
Duration
2 Years. January 2022 – present.
Key Skills
Design Strategy, Qualitative Research, Workshop Facilitation, UX/UI Design, Storytelling, Illustration
Grounded in process.
My work includes projects ranging from:
Identifying opportunities for teen mental health services for one of the largest employers of physicians in the US
Defining a strategy for the future of a flagship higher education program at a top 10 university
Streamlining onboarding for an FMO with an annual revenue of nearly 150M
While much of this is under NDA, the design process represents a way to navigate and explore this wide range of spaces.
This process includes:
01
Planning
It’s important to ensure everyone’s on the same page. During this portion of a project, we meet with clients to better understand the nature of their brief, organization, and direct competitive set.
Responsibilities
Develop and support kickoff workshops through the creation of decks, activities, and facilitation
Conduct market scans to identify competitors, trends, and analogous sources of inspiration
Craft service blueprints to map existing technology workflows and identify potential pain points
Support stakeholder interviews through note-taking and development of summaries
Design and define project visual identity
✨ Planning Highlights ✨
Enhanced knowledge of existing technology workflows by creating a service blueprint in collaboration with client and internal teams, ensuring accuracy and clarity. This blueprint was subsequently shared internally to augment cross-project knowledge.
Created a contemporary deck template drawing from brand language and motifs leading to client adoption and utilization post-project.
02
Ethnographic Research
Innovation lies at the intersection of unmet functional and emotional needs. To gain a deep understanding of users and their values, we conduct generative research, examining the tensions between what they say, do, and keep in their environment.
Responsibilities
Support the development of screeners and discussion guides for user and expert interviews
Develop pre-work and physical and digital interview stimuli, such as card sorts and ranking, day-in-the-life exercises, circle of trust framework
Design materials for and facilitate current user workshops
Conduct and support semi-structured user interviews tailoring format to accommodate a range of users
Design debrief templates and write debriefs to identify, document, and highlight the key components of each interview
✨ Ethnographic Research Highlights ✨
Collaborated with team members in developing physical pre-work and stimuli for dyad interviews, facilitating discussions on sensitive topics.
Received this review from a co-worker: “All of [Jillian’s] debriefs were completed quickly and flawlessly. Proofreading was not even necessary and they clearly and convincingly articulated key takeways.”
03
Analysis
Analysis separates the relevant from the interesting. Drawing from debriefs and trends, we synthesize data into insights and frameworks.
Responsibilities
Collaborate to analyze data collected into actionable insights, themes, and opportunity areas
Develop frameworks to convey and illuminate findings
Lead creation of newsletters and internal client site for our clients to share internally throughout the project to provide insight into the process and gain support for our work
Synthesized user emotional journey, touchpoints, and identified pain points into journey maps
✨ Analysis Highlights ✨
Client newsletter was circulated within the organization, keeping stakeholders informed and engaged in the process. The client received requests for implementing other newsletters across their projects.
Established a framework that became pivotal for the final strategy, guiding towards an ideal user state.
04
Ideation & Envisioning
Envisioning helps define what an idea does and how it makes us feel.
Responsibilities
Facilitate and support client workshops to share insights and opportunities and initiate ideation project
Lead asynchronous ideation as a way to further engage users, serving as the primary touchpoint for ideation platform
Create envisioned concepts to spark reactions, conveying both emotional and functional roles of each concept
✨ Ideation & Envisioning Highlights ✨
Piloted asynchronous ideation as a means to gain additional feedback from insights, establishing platform, format, and key touchpoints.
Collaborated in developing both physical and virtual artifacts to test a variety of experiences, creating a comprehensive testing protocol across three platforms.
05
Resonance Testing
Before we go all-in, we test the waters. Resonance testing allows us to evaluate what aspects of an envisioned idea resonate with users. It ensures our insights are accurate, concepts are nuanced, and investments in them are worthwhile.
Responsibilities
Develop stimuli to provoke reactions to envisioned concepts, ranging from physical artifacts to digital experiences
Conduct and support evaluative user interviews, both virtually and in context
✨ Resonance Testing Highlights ✨
Conducted in-person testing to evaluate UI/UX experiences and ergonomics, focusing on how they shape interactions within a space.
Refined and implemented stimuli for user testing, aligning with client needs and user expectations to determine appropriate fidelity levels.
06
Refinement
Here’s where we polish things up. This looks different for every project but often visualizes an ideal future state, using backcasting to identify a path forward.
Responsibilities
Develop final shareouts in the form of presentations and microsites
Envision ideal future states through illustrated vignettes, high-fidelity wireframes, and/or animation
✨ Project Highlights ✨
Developed high-fidelity wireframes for succinct function communication, differentiation from previous innovation work, and facilitation of organizational socialization.
Collaborated in designing a microsite to vividly showcase existing client research, utilizing frameworks, illustrations, and emphasizing human elements.