Rachelyn Collins

| product manager | developer | ux/ui designer |

Nice to meet you!

Hi, I'm Rachelyn. I'm a co-op student in Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo.

DESIGN

Sketch
Figma
Sketch
SolidWorks
Autodesk Inventor
Marvel
Zepplin

METHODS

Product Requirement Documents
User Journey Maps
Design Sprint Methodology
Persona Development
User Interviews
Heuristic Evaluation

TECHNOLOGY

Bootstrap
Arduino
Git
Velocity XPath
Javascript
Python
SQL
Jira
Java
C++

Experience

PRODUCT MANAGER – ECOBEE

  • Iterated on the design of a new ecobee hardware product through rapid 3D print prototyping, user testing and employee field trials
  • Designed a Product Analytics Dashboard to be used internally for data-driven product decisions, outlining user stories, success benchmarks and a plan for implementation
  • Organized and executed customer field trials for unreleased products, ensuring reliable FUSS and Net Promotor Scores of >65%

    • PRODUCT MANAGER – VEEVA SYSTEMS

  • Responsible for defining the features of the Veeva Network product, outlining its business need and ultimate solution
  • Pitched five unique feature designs to the Product Management team over the course of the co-op term
  • Worked with UX designers and developers to bring each feature to production

    • JUNIOR WEB DEVELOPER – AGF MANAGEMENT LTD.

  • Designed, developed and presented an investment quiz generator, involving an interface for an XML to JSON translator, to be used by other teams with no coding knowledge
  • Automated parsing of XML content into Excel spreadsheet (cut a 4 hour process down to 15 minutes)
  • Creating elements to be used throughout 3 AGF sites using Cascade’s CMS
  • Communicated directly with marketing and studio for website specifications and redesign changes

    • UX/UI DESIGNER – TD LABS

  • Developed the user interface of a new financial literacy app from single function to feature complete as part of an Agile team
  • Conducted extensive user testing using master-apprentice interview and guerilla testing techniques
  • Proposed UX design decisions and presented analysis of user testing results to top board-level executives from TD Canada Trust at the Communitech Innovation Hub

    • What I've been up to...

    Here are some projects I've been working on in my spare time!

    Secure-Safe

    Arduino project for a button-operated safe, including a LED light display.

    This Website

    Created to serve as a portfolio, this website is constantly under construction.

    Design WorkK

    A compilation of some designs I've been working on using Sketch and Figma.

    Investment Quiz Generator

    Involves an XML to JSON translator interface and complete redesign.

    ×

    Secure-Safe

    With some complex coding and circuitry, a friend and I set out to make a safe complete with a passcode, motorized locking mechanism and LED light show.

    The wiring on the inside allowed for the arduino to connect to the LED grid, buttons (passcode, lock and unlock), red indicator and the servo motor to open the lock.

    A self-created timing function was used to lock out the user if they took too long to enter a code, and would automatically reset the password as needed.

    Upon opening, the user would specify which 'slot' was now taken up by an item in the safe, which would toggle that spot of the LED grid and relock the safe.

    ×

    Personal Rebrand

    This website started as a fun project to do something with my 'rachelyn.com' domain. I quickly realized that it was also a great learning experience in how to go from a conceptual design into something I could show off to employers, friends and family.

    Initially I started out with a bootstrap template, but quickly realized that my creativity felt restricted. The more I edited the template, the more I realized I had ideas that would be better created from scratch.

    I focused on logo design and theming initially.

    After gaining inspiration, I designed some wireframes using Figma, and then set out creating the website from scratch, importing small open-source libraries as needed.

    The simulated chatbot was a particularly fun section to implement. I started with several iterations of flowcharts to ensure there would be no loopholes in the conversation. The chat was implemented by dynamically creating each text node through jquery, such that there is nothing but an empty section in the HTML.

    Some small easter eggs are hidden throughout the site and are continuously being added!

    ×

    FIGMA DESIGNS

    amfhjaskldmghaskldmgh

    ×

    INVESTMENT QUIZ GENERATOR

    My team and I were provided with an investment quiz created in Java with no documentation and were tasked with recreating it using modern frontend technologies.

    I took the original flash quiz (left), played around with some wireframes (centre) and a couple iterations of design mockups (right) and presented my designs to the rest of the team.

    The coolest part of the project was how we decided to make the quiz run mainly through a sigular JSON file, containing questions, answers, point values of each question and all of the stock information given by the company.

    This allowed me to go in later using the Cascade CMS and create a template for users from other departments without any coding knowledge (think marketing or studio) to get into the quiz and change data on a regular basis.

    Since the data definition in Cascade exported an unorganized XML file, I used XPath tool extensively to generate and format a JSON file from the inputted content. Taking into account content types and exception cases, I was able to dynamically create a JSON file to work with the quiz template.