Hi! I'm Sarah Dzida.

I'm a Senior Product Maker, UX Strategist and Writer with 10 years of award-winning leadership for B2B and B2B2C enterprises as well as government/nonprofit agencies.

I help you when need:

Services

What I Do for You

I offer senior-level domain expertise in product strategy, user experience design, content strategy, and team management. I have a strong track record of leading people and organizations to successful launches regardless of platform or tech.I ensure our outcomes drive sustainable long-term grown. My work is always holistic; I connect the product to the full-experience and vice versa.

My Process & Tool Kit

My track record of success spans all kinds of teams, tech and platforms.

Case Studies

About Me

Contact

DTS powers 2B+ devices globally. As a B2B2C software solutions enterprise, they partner with OEMs to put their audio/sensing codices into cars, homes and movie theaters.

The Problem

Recently acquired by Xperi Corporation for $850 M, the company wanted to:

What I Did

The Xperi CMO referred me to her VP of Brand Marketing to drive the necessary changes through a redesign of DTS.com and other Xperi digital properties.He designated me as the fractional Director of Digital, working remotely and in-person with the Heads of Marketing for DTS and TiVO as well as directing employees on the marketing (7) and creative (4) teams.Over 1 year, I evolved 5 strategic goals, revaluating each per quarter. Here are some process highlights and their results.

Identified user needs and redefined them into 3 types.

Process: In conducting interviews across three teams, I saw they lacked a unified understanding of who their users were and how to target them with product marketing tactics.After my first pass, I spent the following quarters continually refining the personas with data I gathered from the siloed teams: sales, product, etc.

Result: DTS had a new unified understanding of three customer segments: B2B Partners (with 6 subsegments), B2C Users (with 5 subsegments), and Legacy Partners (with 6 subsegments). Each persona highlighted behaviors and needs.

Rebuild the customer experience funnel!

Process: A startling revelation came out of the initial persona work! The marketing team only ran cobranding campaigns! This meant the majority of public content targeted a non-customer and did not mention DTS the brand at all.I wanted this co-branding work to feed B2B sales efforts, continue to serve DTS as a B2B sales tactic, and collect data for future marketing and sales efforts.

Result: In building out and refining the funnel, a lot of stalled initiatives finally got activated. That's because the teams finally understood how their work could serve business goals. Here are a few results:

Redesign the website to validate the funnel through KPIs.

Process: With a new funnel, I could make meaningful website changes that would help the team track B2B and B2C traffic, update the design to match a dormant brand strategy, and rewrite content to tell the story of modern DTS.Using Figma, I created new IA, wireframes and content strategy. I planned a two-part roadmap, using the current structure to create lead-gen funnels.

Result: A lot of weird functionality finally got taken down—pop-up email clients, empty dropbox folders, sunsetted products, etc. DTS also finally had lead-gen funnels to send their B2B customers to whether from email or social media campaigns. And the story of DTS as a modern tech company finally was online—one that differentiated it from other Xperi brands.

Split the brand for two audiences.

Process: The teams now understood the clear difference and needs of each audience, but I needed them to own it.I ran a voice and tone workshop where the teams defined the guidelines for each. Then, we worked through Q1-Q2 to integrate that into campaigns, webcopy and other messaging.

Result: The VP of Brand Marketing wanted to take this work into other Xperi brands. And we also made a roadmap to split the website into a consumer and business experience.

Conclusions

While I helped the team achieve a lot of tangible implementation, I was personally most satisfied in helping them realign around a shared language, vision and understanding of the brand, users, customers and goals.

Back to Case Studies

The $1 B+ Fortune 1000 company funnels customized data services across the real estate, mortgage, insurance industries as well as governments sectors.Basically anyone who decides anything about property ownership, land valuation, and risk assessment uses CoreLogic.

The Problem

After multiple mergers and steady changes in leadership, the CoreLogic marketing team under a new CMO had finally aligned on a brand vision and strategy. They just didn't know how to activate it across their website and customer experience. And they wanted to do it in a 4-month timeline.

What I Did

The Sr Creative Director pitched my leadership to the CMO as the person who could get it all done. And we were off to the races!Here are some process highlights and results:

4-sprints, 3 months, full-website overhaul.

Process: Time and getting team buy-in was of the essence! So I mapped out four sprints that were each three weeks long.

Result: We had a leaner, cleaner, more user-friendly and beautiful site! Over 68,000 inactive pages got removed. CoreLogic's new brand strategy unified all business unit offerings. Most importantly, we hit the launch deadline, and helped CoreLogic secure $6 B in private investment.

Cross-functional team management achieved!

Process: Within 2 days of onboarding, I was sitting as the SME at a brand research workshop with other C-suite executives. Throughout the 10 months, I was constantly pulled into meetings with third-party vendors and other CoreLogic teams to ensure chatbots, lead generation, SEO, metadata, career pages and brand guides cohered with the fast-moving web strategy.

Result: The chatbot didn't get rushed but instead was set for later in the year. When the dev team had to drop out due to India's Covid surge, I was able to replace them with a trusted partner. All three marketing teams had their work flows transitioned into the new site, and all pages were properly vetted for launch in time. I also worked with the Sr Creative Director to lay the foundation for an future SSO portal by putting all log-ins on one page.

Laying the foundation for future initiatives

Process: In the months following launch, I continued to help the leadership team build out a sustainable roadmap. The website was up, but the rest of the internal processes had to catch up.

Result: I rebuilt the product taxonomy so it was independent of the brand. When a new CMO came in, I was able to onboard her, and she and I worked on building out a campaign product marketing flow to prevent the teams from returning to silos.Since my tenure, the website's visually been updated several times, but the overall architecture, taxonomy and strategy remains strong!

Conclusions

Definitely one of the wildest timelines ever! But it cemented how much I enjoy working and mentoring teams on great process, great design and great experiences.

Back to Case Studies

In 2018, Walmart, the interactive video platform Eko, and the agency Technology Humans and Taste created ToyLab—a interactive toy catalog for kids. Forbes called it, "The best thing Walmart's done all year." It won a lot of awards.In 2019, they decided to see if they could top that, and they asked me to manage the creation and launch of three of them.

The Problem

The teams decided to build a virtual "KidHQ" in which companies like Walmart and Mattel could "rent" floors. Through a "funovator," kids could access three gaming experiences: Toy Lab, Barbie Dream Floor and Meet Santa. There was also a Parents' Only floor where adults could access Christmas wishlists from their kids; mainly, they could see what toys their children loved most!Ultimately, each was product and system unto itself that had to be synced together. We kicked off in the summer with the deadline for launch by Nov 1. for the holidays.

What I Did

THAT designated me as the UX lead and Product designer for the Toy Lab redesign and completely new KidHQ and Grown Ups Only Floor. This meant I:

My Results

See process highlights below.

Watch out for legal requirements!

Process: When building entertainment for children, COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Rule) matters. Ultimately, lawyers wouldn't validate we were safe until after the majority of design work was done. So I needed to be the SME fast.I captured COPPA requirements in documentation like user flows. This helped the design and dev team know what moments needed them.

Result: We not only set the method that all other shows in KidHQ followed to comply with COPPA. But I ended up leading legal walkthroughs myself to onboard attorneys.We also safely navigated the age gate—cutting the ecommerce Grown Ups Only Floor off from the entertaining kid floors.

Maximizing User Research in 1 Day

Process: Fortunately, we had a lot of learnings from the previous ToyLab, but GrownUps Only was new. Would parents even want to access a wishlist? Would they use it to buy Christmas presents for their kids?Every year, Walmart hosts a "Toy Day" at their HQ in Arkansas in which they invite thousands of families to play; this is how Walmart tests new toys. When I found out I was being sent, I immediately worked with the innovation team to come up with some experiments to validate our assumptions.

Results: Ultimately, we scraped several methods for the fastest, quickest and easiest way to remove any ambiguity around the GrownUps Only floor. I conducted onsite guerrilla research by approaching parents and asking 1 question: "If you weren't here at Toy Day, how would you know what your kids want?"The results validated the whole concept of the wishlist and helped us design out the functionality across the Barbie and ToyLab floors.

How to Design for Products AND Film

Process: Dev, design, creative, marketing, production, directors, and film crew—from offices in NYC to a stage in Long Beach—they needed a single blueprint to stay aligned. My documentation was the world map for each team, and I updated it daily throughout the two month production process.

Results: We got it all done by Nov. 1. And the goal for engaged views was met by Dec 4th more than 3 weeks before Christmas. The most popular toy had an average play time of 5 minutes.

KidHQ, ToyLab & Grown-Ups Only Floor Press:

Back to Case Studies

In 2018, Walmart invested in a $250 million strategic partnership with Eko to attract shoppers and boost customer engagement through interactive video experiences.

The Problem

With its proprietary platform, Eko then reached out to the XR agency Technology Humans & Taste (THAT) to develop several shows. THAT pitched three winning ideas, and then they brought on dedicated teams to build out each one.I came on as the UX designer for a show that was like the Internet and about “everything” called “Whaddyawannaknow.” Over 8 months, I became the all-round guru of the full-experience.

What I Did

My Results

How do you validate a creative concept?

Process: The teams were advertising and creative experts. They didn't know about product-market fit or the design process. So that was the first thing I did—build out prototypes to test with users on the street and busy moms virtually.

Result: Our testing results validated the overall concept. But more importantly, it encouraged THAT and Eko to test the other shows, too.It also made testing much easier to sell as we moved along. We even ran several focus groups to assess and optimize key features.

Paper prototype unlocks the key experience!

Process: The creative minds wanted our show to be like an internet rabbit hole. So I spent a lot of time assessing the Eko platform and studying the benchmarks of interactive video. At the same time, I ran my team through ideation and design-thinking exercises while the writer collected facts.

Result: I eventually made a paper prototype, and that solidified the concept for all parties. We could now understand the shape, scope and level of effort across the project. This helped production plan filmmaking, and it also helped us plan for custom functionality through a third-party dev.

Emerging technology means YOU make the methodology.

Process: It was so great to work with a group that understood the "rules" weren't set yet for interactive video. So I had to build the infrastructure myself—creating a documentation structure that was useful to writers, designers, devs, marketers, and filmmakers for a new platform like Eko.

Result: My work documented all the unique use cases of the show—coming out to over 30 ft of choicepoints and gaming arcs. But it also set the standard for how THAT and Eko decided to systematize making new shows. They invited me to continue working on upcoming projects. And they asked me to teach incoming designers on how to write the documentation.

Back to Case Studies

Travis County is the fifth most populous county in Texas. It tasked Hunt Development Group who partnered with architecture and design firm Gensler to bring a new Civil and Family Court Facility to life.

The Problem

There were lots of digital aspects to consider in addition to the building itself. Then Covid happened—disrupting the timeline.After three years, the teams were less than 6 months away from bringing people into the building. So it was time to address them all the digital screens that had to exist.

What I Did

Gensler asked me to step in and connect the digital experiences with the new building. My responsibilities included webpages, kiosk screens, display monitors and a digital docket system. I interviewed stakeholders—from judges to clerks to teammates—to reunify the full vision for Gensler, Hunt and Travis County stakeholders moving forward.

Results

In 2022, the $333 M building welcomed county constituents!But most importantly, Travis County lawyers, defendants, and other constituents didn't have to access PDFs to see court schedules, changes and other information anymore! All data was now synced and in real-time.See below for some process highlights.

Mapping out the full jury experience

Process: I audited the full front- and back-stage jury flow across all government teams. In about 72 hours, I knew more about the jury process than even the Travis County stakeholders.

Result: I uncovered a big blind spot! There was no location in the new building for jurors to congregate! Gensler moved quickly to get alignment and find a solution.In addition, I identified several use cases to enhance the flow, such as:

Digitizing the entire docket and syncing it in real-time.

Process: The original dockets were PDFs, posted once a week on the government website. But lawyers, defendants, and families would only know about changes if they were in the courthouse, talking to one of the clerks.Therefore digitizing the docket was always the plan. But how? To help the County IT figure it out, I diagrammed out how to sync the databases.

Results: The brand-new online docket experience for the county exists! It syncs in real-time across the Travis County website and courthouse displays. View here. Constituents don't need to be in the courthouse to receive timely updates anymore.

Making a cohesive web experience on TravisCountyTX.gov

Process: Government sites are complex and cumbersome. I wanted the experience to be as smooth as possible for constituents navigating from Gensler-designed pages to others. Also, I knew our designs would set the precendence for any future updates by the County team.I made designs in Figma, and a sitemap connected all experiences and platforms together.

Integrating New Pages on TravisCountyTX.gov The new courthouse webpages got updated, as well as informational pages about jury duty and where to find dockets. View here. And continuing updates show how the County team is using our designs to make the rest of the site more usable.

Conclusions

I very much appreciated being part of a project that meant so much to the judges, lawyers, clerks and other county stakeholders. But also to the constituents. So far the Google reviews show it's getting 4 stars!

Back to Case Studies

In 2018, the US removed restrictions on hemp by no longer classifying it as cannabis. It also made it easier to send hemp products and samples across state lines. MCR Labs decided to jump into the $4.75 B blue ocean.

The Problem

L3a Studio was tasked by MCR Labs in launching a laboratory network for the new market nationwide under the new business venture Zera Hemp Labs.
It would include a never-before-seen ecommerce and intake digital platform for the industry.

What I Did

I was the co-collaborator for the end-to-end process—from concept research, prototype testing, building out all wireframes (over 200 pages!), writing marketing copy, ideating a shipping kit, and advising the new C-suite team.Here are some process highlights and results:

Learning the landscape through competitors and legal research.

Process: L3a Studio and I were new to hemp, so we knew we had to onboard fast. We conducted a competitive analysis of over 30 competitors in the hemp testing space. We also kept a running internal wiki of all hemp-related questions—this was key to ensuring we understood any legal state-specific guidelines or complications.

Result: The competitive analysis taught us there was a lot of room for innovation especially with regard to submitting samples, tracking tests and paying for them easily online. We had robust feature list!

So many users need a true portal to manage their hemp!

Process: Our strategy work needed to serve and satisfy a range of users. This included people who cultivated hemp, people who produced hemp products, people who bought them, people who sold them, our client’s employees and future lab partners, and all the federal and different state legal requirements and regulators.Here are some strategic tactics we employed:

Results: Our careful work paid off, and we were able to design out multiple SaaS user flows and edge cases (~300 pages in documentation). This work built out an account portal unlike any other in the marketplace where users can order, pay, track and manage tests for their hemp products all in one place.We designed sitemaps and wireframes for an accounts portal and marketing site. Because of our meticulous work, L3a Studio and I also developed the content strategy, providing guidance for all copy, including UX and support documents.

User research sets the stage for a shipping kit.

Process: We conducted multiple contextual inquiry interviews, testing our designs across all the hemp personas originally identified. They were delighted with the work and eager for the UX.

Results: The user research encouraged MCR Labs to ask us to ideate a shipping kit to help customers in need of quick turnaround to send in their products. Using a service blueprint, we designed the experience, and then worked on everything from email confirmations to ensuring proper mailing print-outs of mailing forms.

Conclusions

I never knew there was just so much to learn about hemp!

Back to Case Studies