Elevating UX Maturity as a Group Manager
Driving Organizational Transformation
In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, organizations that excel in user experience don’t just outpace their competitors—they redefine what’s possible for their customers. When I joined Consumer Reports, I saw an opportunity not only to improve the product but to fundamentally transform how design was practiced and valued across the business. This case study details my journey leading a talented team through a multi-phase evolution in UX maturity, shifting from isolated screen design to a deeply integrated, research-driven, and user-centered culture.
When I joined the organization, the UX maturity level was at its lowest—designers approached their work as isolated UI screens assigned through tickets, rarely considering the broader context or user journey. The prevailing mindset was feature-focused, with little emphasis on holistic product experiences. Collaboration between designers, product managers, and engineers was minimal, and there was no standard UX methodology in place. The absence of user research in decision-making led to inconsistent experiences and missed opportunities to address real customer pain points.
Key Challenges at Onboarding:
Design was ticket-driven and siloed
Feature mindset prevailed over user journey thinking
Minimal cross-functional collaboration
No standard UX process or methodology
Lack of user research led to inconsistent and suboptimal experiences
Taking on the role of UX Manager for the Cars squad, I immersed myself in hands-on collaboration with the team. I led by example, modeling a user-centered process and encouraging designers to ask “why” behind every feature. I championed a shift from siloed screen design to user flows, end-to-end journeys, and interconnected experiences.
To make this change tangible, I organized collaborative design workshops, journey mapping sessions, and cross-functional reviews that brought together designers, engineers, and product managers. Designers began to recognize the value of cross-feature connections and started proactively seeking feedback from other teams to break down silos and ensure a seamless user experience.
Actions Taken to Uplift the Team:
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Hands-on leadership and process modeling
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Promoted asking “why” and holistic thinking
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Introduced journey mapping and collaborative workshops
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Fostered cross-functional reviews with product and engineering
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Encouraged team-driven feedback and collaboration
A pivotal change occurred as I fostered a culture of curiosity and evidence-based design. I empowered the team to partner closely with User Research (UXR) on every project, ensuring that design decisions were anchored in real user needs and insights. Importantly, each designer on my team now independently runs an average of 10 user research studies per year—ranging from concept testing, interviews, and Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) studies to other qualitative methods—either without UXR or with only minimal support. In addition, they regularly conduct usability studies, sometimes as many as 5 per month. I also established a practice where designers actively leverage site analytics and collaborate directly with data analysts at the outset of design work. This ensures our solutions are informed by actual user behavior and business data, further strengthening our evidence-based approach. This new standard for integrating research into design workflows lays a foundation for quality, empathy-driven solutions, resulting in measurable improvements in product usability and customer satisfaction.
My promotion to Group Manager over the Buying and Owning organization—encompassing three squads: Cars, Products, and Ownership—allowed me to scale this transformation. I continued to advocate for design thinking, formalizing a UX process that the entire group could rally behind. I actively encouraged and supported team members in attaining their Design Thinking certifications, further embedding a shared language and mindset across squads. I also mentored new managers and senior designers, helping them become champions of the new UX process within their squads, thereby accelerating adoption and cultural change.
Scaling Impact Across the Group:
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Dream it.
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Build it.
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Grow it.
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Sell it.
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Style it.
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Share it.
