Parking is the one part of a night out no one plans for.

Venue parking is an often-overlooked yet crucial part of the concert and live-event experience. Attendees prepare for every other part of a show — except where they're going to park — which turns arrival into something stressful and confusing.

The Double Diamond.

My team worked through four phases — Discover, Define, Develop, Deliver — moving from a wide-open problem space to a focused, shippable solution.

Where we started

We set out to make everyday parking easier.

We began with a broad mission — simplify everyday parking. To pressure-test it, we sent out a survey and ran four in-depth user interviews.

The pivot

Then we noticed something.

A majority of survey responses — and all four interviews — pointed to the same pain point: parking for events and concerts specifically. As a team we asked ourselves: stick to the plan, or follow the signal? The insight was too strong to ignore.

Affinity mapping — top insights

Market research

A competitive analysis of the top three apps our interviewees already used showed that none of them solved event parking directly. The plan changed.

Redefined problem

Locating parking at venues during events and concerts.

Venue parking is the part of the live-event experience attendees are least able to plan for — the goal became clear.

The goal

Enhance the event parking experience by creating a platform that lets users reserve parking spots in advance — reducing the stress and uncertainty of finding a spot, and making the whole night smoother and more enjoyable.

User journey

Every stage, every emotion.

From the redefined goal, I built a user-journey map to illustrate each stage — from searching for parking to securing a spot — and the emotions felt throughout.

Idea brainstorming

What could we do differently?

Collaborative sessions turned user pain points and competitive gaps into ideas, evaluated on feasibility, user impact, and alignment with our goal. We focused on three main areas of improvement.

Paper wireframes

Visualizing the concept, fast.

As the sole designer, I sketched paper wireframes to iterate quickly on layout and flow, then built a clickable prototype to gather early feedback before higher fidelity.

A/B testing

Refining how you pick a spot.

Option A used a detailed map of individual spots; Option B divided lots into simple, modular sections with pricing and availability. Users clearly preferred Option B for its simplicity — a choice that also let us ship an MVP faster.

UI design kit

Accessible, modern, full of movement.

We curated a high-contrast palette meeting AAA compliance, with colors and a logo inspired by street aesthetics to reflect dynamic movement — clean, crisp, and modern throughout.

Park n Go: seamless event parking.

With branding finalized and screens user-tested, I moved into high fidelity. A component-driven Figma process made the jump from mid- to high-fidelity seamless — and produced the final product.

Feature 01 — Venue search

Users quickly find their event with full details, exact location, and the specific parking options tied to that venue.

Feature 02 — Booking your spot

Preview the parking map, check availability, add driving details, and complete the purchase — all in a few taps.

Feature 03 — Reservation receipt

Every booking lives in "My Parking," with upcoming and past reservations, full event and parking details, and the option to cancel — a complete, user-friendly management system.

Future developments

There's always room for improvement.

We were thrilled with what we shipped in three weeks — research to prototyping to dev handoff — but there's more we envisioned. These are some of the future features I explored.

Owning the design-to-dev handoff.

I built a comprehensive PDF guide with development notes, component types, and usage — ensured pixel-perfection in organized layers, and exported every asset with precise naming. That preparation let developers integrate real-time availability, reservations, and receipts efficiently.

Practice makes perfect.

I consistently sought feedback through formal design reviews and presentations. Pitching my work, guiding conversations, and learning when to push back on feedback grew my ability to communicate clearly, remove blockers, and balance deadlines.

Designing for a real community hub.

During a three-week UX design bootcamp, my team partnered with the Hmong Cultural Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota — a pivotal community hub offering everything from traditional embroidery to citizenship courses. Our mission was to redesign their website and strengthen its digital presence for the community.

We set out to revitalize the center's branding, streamline its information architecture, and build a compelling visual identity — ultimately improving access to resources, fostering engagement, and deepening the connection between the center and the people it serves.

My role

I served as the sole prototyper while also leading user research, interviews, testing, finalizing the design screens, and developing the visual identity.

1 · Discovery

• Conduct stakeholder interviews
• Perform user surveys and interviews
• Analyze similar cultural-center websites
• Review existing website content

2 · Strategy

• Develop updated branding guidelines
• Create a new site map and navigation structure
• Develop user personas
• Map out user journeys

3 · Design

• Develop low-fidelity wireframes
• Create high-fidelity prototypes
• Conduct usability tests
• Ensure responsive design

The Double Diamond.

We worked through four phases — Discover, Define, Develop, Deliver — exploring the problem space, synthesizing findings into a focused brief, prototyping solutions, then refining and implementing a design that meets both user needs and the center's goals.

What's already there?

Auditing the current site.

We began by reviewing the current HCC website and running a heuristic analysis of its functionality, aesthetics, and accessibility. Because the center is unique in its area, we analyzed sites serving similar markets and goals rather than direct competitors.

Listening to users

We distributed a survey to people who engage with nonprofit sites or seek community connection, and had users react to the original HCC site through interview questions. Together these sessions gave us the skeleton of what a successful new-user experience needed to feel like.

User persona

Meet Mai Yer Xiong.

A 29-year-old first-generation immigrant from Laos living in Saint Paul. She has limited English proficiency and a deep desire to connect with her Hmong community while integrating into broader society. Frustrated by dense, text-heavy sites, she often relies on her children to translate, and needs clear pathways to citizenship and English classes.

Empathy map

To serve Mai Yer, the site needs to prominently feature easy-to-find links for citizenship and English classes, showcase community resources, and offer a friendly, low-text interface — with hyperlinks placed to guide her through an intuitive journey toward confidence, jobs, and social connection.

Problem statement

Information architecture

Information overload.

The old site map was the biggest problem for our users: too much information. Links were redundant or unnecessary, and the most important resources were buried several clicks deep — a frustrating journey, especially for English-language learners.

User flow

One question, answered fast.

Our guiding user question was simple — "How do I sign up for language classes?" — and we mapped a flow that gets Mai Yer there quickly, with minimal visual noise.

Paper & mid-fidelity wireframes

Modular design, fast.

I sketched paper prototypes, then moved to mid-fidelity after user testing. On a one-day deadline, I prioritized interaction design and modular patterns to keep the experience consistent, centered, and intuitive despite the rapid turnaround.

UI design kit — vibrant clarity

We built a vibrant palette of fluorescent greens, pinks, and blacks for striking contrast, inspired by traditional color schemes. Our logo drew on the elephant's foot — a symbol of community and family — and we chose the Outfit typeface for its clean, uniform, and bold appearance.

Mid- to high-fidelity in three days.

I translated the mid-fidelity mobile wireframes into polished, pixel-perfect mockups for both mobile and desktop — keeping the simplicity of the wireframes while adding the detailed visual elements that bring the center's vision to life.

Feature 01 — ESL & citizenship

A hero built for signup.

A centralized hero image routes users with limited English proficiency straight to ESL and citizenship signup — eliminating menu navigation and streamlining the whole journey.

Feature 02 — Navigation

Simplified & color-coded.

A cohesive menu system for mobile and desktop organizes items intuitively, with a distinct color per page to reinforce the brand. Navigation is central and brightly highlighted, making key sections — especially English classes — far easier to find.

Feature 03 — Branded headers

Focused section banners.

Header banners built from the brand palette and a triangular frame draw focus to each section's content — improving readability and helping users identify where they are.

Future developments

The journey continues.

We were thrilled with what we achieved in three weeks — from research to prototyping — but there's more we'd love to build. These are some of the future features and designs I explored for the next chapter.

Strong design systems = success.

A robust design system — consistent color, typography, and layout — kept the site cohesive and genuinely usable for English-language learners, while weaving Hmong cultural elements into the visual identity and surfacing key offerings like ESL and citizenship classes.

Sprint to success.

Delivering a full redesign in three weeks demanded tight workload management. By prioritizing tasks, setting achievable milestones, and using agile techniques — with lots of collaborative planning — I kept the team aligned and shipped a high-fidelity prototype for both mobile and desktop.

A complex platform that wasn't landing.

HelloSpoke is an AI-powered resident-communication platform that keeps property teams connected — from first call to completed request. The challenge: a broad, technical product whose website didn't clearly communicate its value, with overlapping features that made it hard for prospects to understand what was on offer. They needed a modern marketing site that could support sales and onboarding, and scale as the product line grew.

Turning a technical product into a clear story.

Help visitors understand the product — fast.

Rather than simply redesigning the site, I set clear goals to make a complex platform legible and actionable.

Understanding the business first.

I got up to speed on the communications industry, mapped customer personas, and reviewed competitors to identify where HelloSpoke could differentiate. Working closely with stakeholders, I surfaced the real pain points and the questions every visitor was trying to answer.

From a tangle of services to a clear path.

I restructured navigation and page hierarchy so each product had a home and each user journey had a clear route — reducing cognitive load for non-technical buyers.

Every page answers one question.

I anchored the whole site around the five questions a buyer asks — and made sure each page answered one of them clearly.

Consistency that scales.

I built a reusable system — typography, color, buttons, cards, spacing, icons, illustration, and responsive rules — so new product pages could be assembled quickly and stay on-brand.

Homepage

Explain the product in seconds.

A strong value proposition, a clear product overview, trust indicators, and obvious calls to action — so visitors immediately grasp what HelloSpoke does.

Core Platform

Feature organization led with benefits over features, visual explanations, and a clear hierarchy that makes a broad platform feel simple.

Assist & Dialtone

Assist communicates automation and AI in terms of user benefit; Dialtone translates a technical product into language non-technical buyers can act on.

Pricing

One of the strongest UX problems — solved with comparison tables, transparency, and decision support that reduces friction on the path to signup.

Resources & About

Resources drives educational content, SEO, and lead nurturing; About builds credibility with company story, team, and trust signals.

Research to shipped site.

I ran the full workflow — research → wireframes → mid-fidelity → high-fidelity → client feedback → iteration → development → QA — collaborating with the client at each step. The site was built in Divi on WordPress, with responsive implementation, consistent components, and performance in mind.

A clearer, scalable presence.

The redesign delivered clearer product messaging, improved navigation, a modern visual identity, and a scalable website architecture that's easier to manage and better supports sales conversations.

Most of all, this project sharpened how I design for enterprise audiences — translating technical language into accessible experiences, building systems that scale, and designing for both marketing and product communication at once.

Many programs, one brand.

As Wellness in the Woods expanded its programs and statewide reach, communications became increasingly fragmented. Virtual peer support, fundraising campaigns, conferences, podcasts, newsletters, educational programming, and community events all needed to feel like they belonged to one recognizable brand.

The organization needed a design system that balanced professionalism with warmth — ensuring every interaction reflected its recovery-centered values of hope, inclusion, dignity, and support. Those values, documented in the brand standards, became the foundation for everything I created.

A cohesive communications ecosystem.

Build a system, not one-offs.

Instead of treating each request as an isolated project, I built an integrated brand system. Every piece — newsletters, presentations, social graphics, event materials — followed shared principles of typography, color, photography, hierarchy, and tone, emphasizing authentic imagery, accessible layouts, and hopeful language aligned with the organization's recovery philosophy.

Across every channel.

Virtual Peer Support Network (VPSN).

One of the largest recurring initiatives involved reusable social-media templates for the Virtual Peer Support Network. Rather than designing each post individually, I developed standardized monthly, weekly, and daily templates that staff could update quickly while keeping a consistent visual identity and messaging structure.

Warm, accessible, unmistakable.

The system pairs color, typography, iconography, photography, and graphic treatments into a recognizable, recovery-centered look — drawn directly from the organization's brand guide.

A communications framework, not just materials.

Rather than producing isolated marketing pieces, this project established a communications framework supporting the organization across fundraising, education, peer support, conferences, podcasts, newsletters, and community engagement. The result made future content creation faster, strengthened visual consistency across departments, and helped present Wellness in the Woods as a unified, trustworthy organization.

This project reinforced that successful nonprofit branding isn't about making individual graphics look good — it's about building systems that let organizations communicate consistently at scale. By creating reusable templates, clear visual standards, and flexible assets, I helped establish a communications ecosystem that staff can keep using long after any single campaign ends.

A craft community with deep roots.

Since 1972, the Needlework Guild of Minnesota has fostered the highest standard of excellence in needlework through education and study — classes, retreats, and a passionate community of members. Its digital presence needed to feel as warm and inviting as the craft itself, and make it easy for new and returning members to find classes, retreats, and how to join.

Heritage that was hard to reach.

The existing site made it difficult to find the things members care about most — classes, retreats, and membership — and the identity didn't reflect the warmth of the craft or invite newcomers in. The Guild needed a refresh that honored its history while lowering the barrier for the next generation of stitchers.

Refresh the identity, restructure the site.

I refreshed the Guild's identity and reorganized the site around what members actually need — joining, learning, and gathering — so the most important pages are the easiest to reach. Warm, traditional colors and classic type honor the craft, while a cleaner structure makes the whole experience feel current and approachable.

Classic, warm, and welcoming.

A heritage-inspired palette of forest, gold, and wine on cream, paired with a classic serif — timeless enough to honor the craft, warm enough to invite newcomers.

Membership & joining

A clear path to become a member, with the value of the Guild front and center for newcomers.

Classes & retreats

Programs, classes, and the Guild's signature retreats surfaced and easy to browse and register for.

A warmer front door.

The refresh gave the Guild a clearer, friendlier presence — easier navigation to classes, retreats, and membership, and an identity that honors a 50-year legacy while opening the door to new members.

Designing for a heritage community reinforced how to honor the past while lowering the barrier for newcomers — small, respectful changes that make a longstanding organization feel current and welcoming.