Hi, i’m lauren.
I’m an Experience Design Leader and UX Content Strategist.
I’ve led UX teams that work on financial products, conversational AI, and eCommerce sites–and the platforms, systems, and tools that support these experiences. Simplifying the language and visualization of complex ideas and clearly presenting data in an engaging, understandable way is what my teams are all about.
Say hello! You can find me on Twitter as @laurenlookayz, and can connect with me here on LinkedIn.
Experience
cars.com, sr. design manager
September 2018 - Present
I joined Cars.com to establish and scale a content strategy, data integrity, and UX research practice. I lead a team of content & UX designers, data analysts, and researchers who work across projects to inform how we structure and communicate information throughout our digital experiences.
Our team is currently leading the design and research work for a major site re-platforming, which includes the design and build of internal tools and systems that are instrumental to our ability to successfully manage and interpret data as a company.
capital one, head of ai content design
March 2017 - August 2018
As Head of AI Content Design at Capital One, I built a team of AI Content Designers responsible for architecting the conversation flows for the Capital One skill on Alexa and Cortana, and for Eno, Capital One’s gender-neutral intelligent assistant. My team of designers partnered closely with our product and tech teams to work at the systems level, designing not only the language in the conversations but also informing how the AI makes conversational decisions by inputting contextual data back to the system.
If you’re interested in learning more about my team’s approach to designing Eno, here’s an article I co-authored with our VP of Conversational AI + Integrated Experiences, Steph Hay. For more details on the AI Content Design practice, here’s an interview with Vinish Garag, creator of the “Content Conversations” blog on Medium.
capital one, lead ux content strategist
May 2015 - March 2017
As the lead UX Content Strategist for the Card Partnerships line of business at Capital One, my main objective was to simplify the language of complex ideas so that customers felt empowered and confident when it came to managing their money. My team leveraged low-fidelity content prototypes to test concepts and define content architecture before wireframing, so that we could solve for understandability at the outset. We partnered with product managers, engineers, operations, and marketing to adopt this content-first UX design approach and create dynamic, tailored experiences that felt like personalized conversations. Through this work, I positioned content design as a core part of the design process, and influenced the way that entire cross-functional teams delivered on their portfolio of work.
billups design, CONTENT STRATEGY & IA ASSOCIATE
June 2014 - September 2014
While I was in grad school, I worked for Billups Design as their first content strategist and information architect. In this role, I focused on improving their agency’s online presence and defining their overarching content and communication strategy.
chicago tribune, digital news editor
August 2011 - May 2014
If you ever read the Chicago Tribune online from 2011-2013, you might have seen my work; I was the morning Digital News Editor for the homepage. In this role, I was responsible for choosing which stories to feature on chicagotribune.com, editing the content, writing compelling headlines, and choosing supplementary videos and photos to add color and context. I loved the storytelling aspect of the work, and equally enjoyed studying how users were interacting with our content.
I followed my curiosity and took this interest in dynamic, interactive communication one step further to earn a master’s in Human-Computer Interaction from DePaul University in Chicago. There, I learned that no design can win as a truly beneficial experience for someone if it fails to tell the right story or communicate the right message.
