Began work for Chicago start-up company LendSquare as one of two branding and identity creators, then later joined the team as the product experience and interface designer. Eventually graduated to product manager to continue working on digital communications strategies. Duties include prioritization and creation of information architecture, wireframes, user testing scenarios, and implementation of lean methodologies. Also assisted in crafting marketing materials ranging from print communications to online marketing, ads, and social media content generation.
In alignment with LendSquare's values and culture, the biggest reward is being able to work as a team putting smiles on people's faces and strengthening the fabric of communities.
Small teams do have their advantages, especially when you're captivated by a close-knit, agile group. Worked jointly with engineers to assess scope, prioritization, and scheduling (via Asana) of added features, improvements and application extensions. Got down in the trenches with the code performing front-end development tasks and testing experiments. Edited content and voice by working closely with Communications.
Collaborations often involved whiteboard sketching or wireframing and lean practices were employed so that designs were iterated and published quickly and efficiently using standardized UI style elements. Implemented regular schedules to check metrics, analytics (via Google Analytics, MixPanel), and A/B tests (via Optimizely), to inform future improvements and prioritization.
Using analytics tools and user feedback to uncover patches in the product and marketing strategies, initiations were checked against a KPIs, goals, and objectives. As part of an agile workflow that relies on fast and frequent iterations, A/B tests and analytics provided the proof in numbers if efforts were boosting activity such as increases in requested loans, increases on times successful loan pledges are made, increase in user retention, and more. For example, it was quickly learned that mobile users made up almost 50% of the audience, which informed the decisions to cater the responsive product to a mobile-first approach.
A Gallery of Visual Communications by Gina Andracchio © 2014 | Hand-coded by Gina using a responsive design framework