Accelerating activation for merchants
In fall 2021, I worked as a Design Intern on the Shopify Growth Team, specifically in the Signup Pod. As part of a complex and high-priority project, I designed and shipped a crucial user flow of an improved signup experiment.
MY IMPACT
The experiment produced positive results and my designs were consequently shipped 100%, effectively increasing signup conversion.
Project Type
Internship
Team Makeup
Design & Engineering Manager, 5 developers, 1 Data Scientist, 1 Designer (me!)
Duration
3 months
Responsibilities
Growth Design, Competitive Research, Wireframing, Data Analysis, & Prototyping
DESIGN CHALLENGE
How might we simplify the signup process to help get merchants started on Shopify?
WHAT I DID
Roles & responsibilities
When I onboarded onto my team, the project already had a validated problem space, formulated hypothesis, and stakeholder approval. I joined at the beginning of the Design phase. My work is under NDA but here were some of my responsibilities.
01
Gathering Context
To better understand the problem, I explored existing data and research internally, conducted a competitive analysis, and researched evidence-based best practices.
02
Designing & Sharing
I used Figma and Shopify’s Polaris design system to craft 4 clickable prototypes for each variant of a user flow. I consistently shared my work with my cross-functional team, design team, and design leadership.
03
Handoff
I created the appropriate documentation and engaged in several 1:1s with developers for smooth handoff. I also collaborated with a data scientist to define UX metrics to track in the experiment.
04
Handling
During handoff, technical issues with teams from adjacent product areas arose. I assisted in resolving these issues by advocating for UX and designing workarounds.
My Impact
After resolving technical bugs and cross-organization concerns, the experiment results showed promising results — confirming our initial hypothesis. The new proposed flow has now fully shipped, simplifying the signup experience for prospective merchants and increasing overall signup completion.
I also identified and fixed several UI bugs that were pushed out to Shopify’s +2M merchants.
OTHER INTERNSHIP HIGHLIGHTS
My lightning talk ⚡️
As the only intern on the growth team, I created and presented a 5-minute talk on the power of experimentation and how the growth team operates to my intern class.
Asian ERG Newsletter 📰
I was actively involved in the Asian ERG as a founding member of the newsletter committee where I assisted in the design and content creation of the first few newsletters.
CONCLUSION
Key Learnings
01
Communication is king
Major roadblocks arose during the implementation phase due to a lack of communication with adjacent teams. It was essential to be vocal about my work, defend my design choices to others, and habitually share information widely both within and beyond my immediate team.
02
Document everything
Given the complexity of the project, formal and informal documentation of my process was a valuable asset. This allowed my team and I to track, organize and deliver our thoughts to stakeholders and align on the direction of the project.
03
Don’t understand? Just ask!
Working with a much larger engineering team than in previous experiences, I initially struggled with following the technical side of discussions. Throughout the internship, I developed more courage to ask for clarification in order for myself and other non-technical team members to understand the full story.
My team and I playing around on Shopify Party (Shopify’s internal game world)!