ArisGlobal

By the time ArisGlobal entered its third decade, they had established themselves as a household name in the Life Science software category. In 2017, new leadership brought upon a period of rapid expansion and acquisition. With this growth, came entirely new products and features to add to their already large suite. Although the products had grown in volume during the transition, the look and feel wasn’t consistent. On a micro level, this led to confusion for the end-user who was regularly switching from one product to another. On a macro level, the product was noticeably inconsistent when showcasing to clients, which in turn steered them to design-focused competitors. In 2017, I was brought on to establish a design team that would unify 12 disparate products, generate a long-term product strategy, set the vision and drive the overall growth of the business.

First, we looked at the org chart and decided to restructured design owners to better fit within the product teams. This strategy helped to streamline product development and give credibility to design. We then built a user research team to support the client and internal product decisions. The majority of our work was to create a design system that would unify the products visually and functionally across 12 product frontends and 5 separate backends. Communication between design and engineering was incredibly important and integrating modern tools such as Invision into the workflow improved collaboration and increased productivity. We iterated and tested with industry experts within the organization and then took those learnings to clients to make sure their needs were addressed. At the end of 2019, we accomplished our goals and the design system was successfully integrated across all products, ultimately creating a unified vision across the entire product suite.

Over my year and a half as ArisGlobal's AVP of Product Design, our team accomplished a great deal. The second half of my time was primarily spent supporting the executive team with an acquisition that was focused on the continued evolution of the design and user research efforts. Some key metrics achieved during my time leading up to the acquisition:

・The client base doubled for the first time in their 30 year history.
・Year over year revenue increased by ~20%
・Design productivity and collaboration increased by 1,800%