Nexis+AI notes
Great strategy connects insight to execution. I turn research and business goals into north stars that guide design across product timelines.
Shaping a Clear Product Direction
Trust and Transparancey
1.1. Articulate Data Source
Every AI prediction is based on data, so data sources must be part of the outcome.
1.2. Timing of Explanation
We must set user expectations through several touch points such as marketing, onboarding and importantly features.
1.3. Tie Explanations to User Actions
We can use explinations in situations to define the users mental model.
1.4. Model Confidence
A prediction is not a certainty. Model confidence displays explain how certain the model is in its prediction.
To ensure that the team understood the product assignment, I collaborated with other members to create a vision statement that was used by the whole product team to align on a common goal. Ultimately, the guidelines, feature mapping and vision statement had a significant impact on our speed of delivery.
Vision statement
"To create a seamless and insightful search experience that allows users to effortlessly navigate through news information using natural language."
Aligning Design & Business Goals
To design strategically, I partnered with product leaders to clarify the business objectives like release dates, adoption, and retention. This collaboration ensured that my design work was not only user centered but also aligned with measurable business impact. This collaboration was beneficial both ways, I could also help direct the product team towards what success looks like for our target audience which had the effect of shaping products business goals.
Leading global workshops
Workshops are a way to bring clarity and alignment across teams. A core theme within my workshops is identifying and deeply understanding the use case, what problems our target audience faces and why they matter. By grounding discussions in real user needs, I help developers build with purpose, knowing not just what to build but why. For product managers, this ensures features remain tied to meaningful use cases rather than drifting toward abstract requirements. The result is a shared foundation that keeps the whole team aligned on delivering value where it matters.
Leveraging JTBD to Clarify Consultant Needs
I collaborated closely with our senior researchers who developed the Jobs-to-Be-Done framework for business consultants. This process revealed the core motivations and desired outcomes driving their work. By grounding my designs in these JTBD insights, I was able to create solutions that directly addressed consultants’ real-world needs and priorities.
Immersing in the World of Business Consultants
To design tools that truly worked for business consultants, I needed to understand their world firsthand. I carried out targeted research and spoke directly with consultants, uncovering how they think, work, and make decisions. These insights became the foundation for the product strategy.
As I started to build out behavioural models of business consultants I categorised search actions. Most business consultants search behaviour can be placed into one of these high level actions. Understanding the way they search means I can develop a design that fits their mental model.
Explore topic
Search behaviour is broad and explores in depth a topic.
Chisel away
Investigates different perspectives, using targeted questions to chip away at the topic.
Drill down
Highlighting one specific point and continuously asking questions on it to gain richer information.
Funnel
The user starts their queries broadly and then subsequently narrows their research over a period of follow-ups.
Blank canvas
Conversational search tools are great for getting research going as you just have to articulate what you are wanting to research.
Mapping Scenarios to Design a Seamless Ecosystem
Search is the brains behind the product. Its relationship with the wider ecosystem is integral to the success and growth of Nexis+AI. Poor navigation and an unclear way of moving through the ecosystem, via search, would lead to a insufficient experience with multiple points of friction.
I collaborated with product managers and designers to map out the scenarios and flows, that require search, to visualise the relationship that search has with the product ecosystem.
I then singlehandedly, mapped out the ecosystems information architecture, which presents searches structure back to all product teams informing them of connections and feature structure.
Collaborating Globally to Align on Design Standards
I partnered with our global design system team to ensure our product aligned with LexisNexis’ broader ecosystem. While maintaining consistency across shared patterns, I advocated for flexibility where our target audience had unique needs. This balance allowed us to scale efficiently without sacrificing usability or relevance.
Structuring the Connective Tissue of the Product
I designed the complete information architecture and flow for the product, mapping how content and actions connect across the ecosystem. This structure acted as the connective tissue of the experience, ensuring that users could move fluidly between features while always understanding what they could do at each step.
With each exploration, I focused on all the different variations of how the data can be presented, taking into consideration the use cases and how the data will be interacted with and consumed. Learning quickly, with variants helped me to find new unique ways to solve the audiences problem.
Bellow are just a handful of the hundreds of variations I've created over the past 2 years. As I learn more about the target audience or I uncover a more efficient way to present the data I evolve my designs. This is a continious process that never stops.
I create North Star designs that work across multiple timeframes 3 months for delivery teams to build, 6–12 months for PMs to set priorities, and multi-year visions for executives to align strategy and pitch to potential clients. These artifacts give every level of the business a clear, actionable view of where we’re headed.
Below are previous North Star designs that I used for our product roadmap. I would love to show the designs of where I am directing the product now but as I'm under NDA I am unable to share them.
3 months
6 months
Beyond - sorry, to stay compliant with my NDA I can't show you future designs
