A bit about me

I’m a Product Designer passionate about building awesome products. Currently based in Folsom, CA, after enjoying 17-18 wonderful years in San Diego. An avid motorcycle rider, runner, and proud Niner fan, I bring over 18 years of experience creating innovative UX-driven designs for large corporations and agile startups. My skills include building intuitive interfaces, integrating automation, creating refined design systems, and leveraging AI-driven workflows, thriving in collaborative environments to deliver user-centric designs that balance functionality and aesthetics.

Cordial

Audience Builder

Scaling Segmentation for Intuitive Cross-Channel Targeting

Project
Overview

As the lead designer at Cordial, a marketing automation platform for cross-channel campaigns, I spearheaded the Audience Builder project, creating a flexible tool for scalable audience segments across email, SMS, and in-app notifications. Over 10-12 months, I drove the initiative for marketers in e-commerce and beyond, while mentoring newly joined designers, using the project to help foster their growth in our design process.

Contributions: Competitor analysis, user studies, persona creation, wireframes, UI designs/prototypes, and close coordination/collaboration with PMs, SMEs, and backend developers.

Key
Objectives

Enhance audience segmentation with intuitive, canvas-based interactions, enable nesting of saved groups, and optimize backend scalability to improve campaign precision and user efficiency within Cordial's marketing workflows.

Simplify
Segmentation

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Create a visual, dynamic side panel layout to speed up segment creation with drag-and-drop, fast clicks, and flexible repositioning for users of all skill levels.

Enhance
Adaptability

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Introduce non-disruptive nesting of existing saved audiences, empowering advanced layering without affecting originals or requiring relearning.

Accelerate
Engagement

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Scale backend to handle large datasets seamlessly, reducing silos and enabling faster, more accurate targeting across email, SMS, and in-app channels.

Core
Challenges

Marketers struggled to scale with rising data volumes, delaying campaigns for emails, SMS, and in-app alerts. Backward compatibility was key to skip retraining. Users sought greater control over segmentation, but the platform relied on an outdated code modal limited to advanced users proficient in JSON, complicating rule and ruleset creation. This dependency slowed processes and forced frequent customer support requests, highlighting the need for a simpler, faster interface accessible to all without technical barriers.

User
Insights

User interviews & CS support time on manual metrics shaped a visual UI for diverse personas. Wireframes guided it, prototypes validated, testing refined results.

Pain Points
1

Query Scalability

Couldn't handle scaling large queries, leading to delays when segmenting big contact lists.

2

Nesting Absence

No nesting for saved audiences, making advanced campaign logic more complicated.

3

Heavy CS Reliance

Custom metrics were for advanced users with JSON knowledge. Customer support reliance and turnaround time.

These findings shaped personas (e.g., "Jr. Marketer" vs. "Mid-Tier Campaign Analyst" vs. "Senior Marketing Manager") and validated assumptions, ensuring designs addressed real challenges like varying skill levels within Cordial.

Personas

Jr. Marketer (Beginner User)

Demographics: Entry-level marketer, 22-30, recent grad or 1-3 years experience, new to Cordial, manages basic campaigns for small audiences.

Goals/Needs: Quickly create simple segments for promos or abandonments using visual tools, with minimal scripting.

Pain Points: Overwhelmed by complex queries, frequent grouping errors, and heavy reliance on help for adjustments.

Behaviors: Enjoys interactive drag-and-drop features, prefers a more automated approach.

Design Influence: Highlighted user-friendly visual aids and streamlined workflows.

Persona Beginner

Mid-Tier Campaign Analyst (Intermediate User)

Demographics: Mid-career specialist, 30-40, with 4-7 years in digital marketing, average Cordial user, handles mid-scale targeting and group partnerships.

Goals/Needs: Creates moderately layered segments with instant edits and fast previews, blending channels for effective outreach.

Pain Points: Slowdowns from outdated systems, and issues linking without changing campaigns.

Behaviors: Mixes visual tweaks with basic coding, values speed in team edits, tests mergers but seeks reliability.

Design Influence: Shaped hybrid visual and coding tools with error fixes, reducing stress for mid-level tasks.

Persona Intermediate

Senior Marketing Manager (Experienced User)

Demographics: Seasoned marketer, 40-55, 8+ years in marketing ops, heavy Cordial user, manages big campaigns and multi-group targeting.

Goals/Needs: Build and save complex queries with flexible links, ensuring safe edits and smooth channel integration.

Pain Points: Few connection options, campaigns split across platforms, and edits risking existing setups.

Behaviors: Relies on quick keys and shortcuts, focuses on precision and scalability, and frequently links segments for promotions.

Design Influence: Pushed for features like quick linking and real-time hints, boosting overall performance without risking the platform's stability.

Persona Experienced
Competitive Analysis

During the research and exploration phases

I examined leading competitors in audience segmentation for marketing automation platforms like Cordial, including Mailchimp, Marketo, Braze, and Iterable. This analysis uncovered notable gaps in scalability and nesting capabilities that Audience Builder was designed to address.

1

Market Dominance

Mailchimp had roughly 60% market share in small-business email automation with its accessible UI, yet it struggled with advanced segmentation scalability for larger audiences.

2

Enterprise Preferences

Marketo, a preferred choice for mid/large B2B companies, offered robust capabilities but featured a clunky UI for non-technical users and limited real-time nesting, while Braze, known as a cross-channel leader, came with higher costs and a steeper learning curve.

3

Scalability Gaps

Tools like Braze and Iterable provided timely multi-channel targeting but had restrictions on nested audience groups and backend performance for larger datasets.

4

User Feedback

Many users, especially non-technical users favored Mailchimp for simplicity but wanted better nesting capabilities for dynamic campaigns. They also favored a more visual, hands-on experience, highlighting the need for drag-and-drop functionality and the ability to quickly reorder segments.

Image 1

Braze

Image 2

Iterable

Image 3

Marketo

Image 4

Mailchimp

Empathy Mapping

Understanding The User

We performed an empathy map exercise to deeply explore the diverse needs, frustrations, and motivations of our three persona types, ensuring the Audience Builder design aligned with their authentic, real-world experiences.

Empathy Map

User empathy map for the 3 persona types

Wireframes

Early Wireframes for User Validation and feedback

During the initial exploration phase, we collaborated with stakeholders and clients to present low-fidelity wireframes, gathering valuable feedback on the drag and drop concepts which helped refine and guide the eventual high-fidelity designs.

Image 1

Audience Builder entry point

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Adding a second include rule

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Adding a third include rule

Multiple rules added to canvas area

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Reorder rules in canvas by drag and drop

Image 6

Advanced JSON editor option

Testing and Outcomes
1

Approaches

Iterative testing with internal teams and client groups (4-5 participants), plus live reviews for UI tweaks.

2

Findings

Strong approval. Testers praised the "smooth yet powerful" setup, with quick simple builds. Reduced support tickets by enabling self-service.

3

Figures

Increased adoption post-launch; positive feedback on nesting capabilities and interactive UI.

4

Challenges Overcome

More individual control over segmentations with less reliance on CS support.

TestingOutcomes
Prototype

Drag and Drop User Interaction Validation

This prototype was used to monitor how users would interact with the new drag and drop UI. Users were asked a series of questions below during recorded sessions.

  1. 1What is your initial impression of the interface layout and how intuitive does it feel to navigate?
  2. 2Can you walk me through how you would create a new audience segment using this prototype?
  3. 3Did the drag-and-drop functionality feel clear and responsive? If not, what felt confusing or difficult?
  4. 4If you add multiple rules and want to reorder them, how would you accomplish that?
  5. 5Was the placement indicator clear where you would place the item you were reordering?
  6. 6How easy was it to find and select specific rules or saved audiences from the right panel?
  7. 7How easy was it to find and select specific rules or saved audiences from the right panel?
  8. 8Were the labels 'Include Audience' and 'Exclude Audience' clear and descriptive?
  9. 9How would you create a Rule Set? Was it clear that you could create a rule set in two ways? Now that you know, do you feel both ways are easily discoverable?
  10. 10How would you save a segment? Did anything feel missing or unclear?
  11. 11If you could change one thing about this prototype to improve it, what would it be?

Reflections &
Learnings

This project reinforced the value of iterative UX refinement, balancing scalability and user intuition for effective cross-channel targeting. Working closely with backend developers to tackle outdated components, compatibility issues, and nesting challenges not only resolved these technical hurdles but also sparked innovative canvas interactions that minimized modal disruptions.

In retrospect, I'd emphasize broader A/B testing early on to measure UI effects on campaign speed. Ultimately, Audience Builder shows how empathetic design turns segmentation tools into seamless assets for marketers.

Project
Success Metrics

The final Audience Builder project transformed segmentation by boosting efficiency and effectiveness, opening the feature to all skill levels from its original JSON syntax editor for advanced users. This user-focused redesign spurred a significant rise in audience segment creation, enhancing adoption across Cordial’s platform.

User Efficiency

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Cut segment creation time by roughly 40%, enabling marketers to build audiences much faster and more efficiently.

Support Dependency

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Reduced support ticket volume by roughly 55%, empowering self-service and cutting custom segmentation delays.

Campaign Accuracy

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Boosted targeting accuracy by 30%, enhancing conversion rates for email, SMS, and in-app campaigns with greater impact.

Other Case Studies

Blending creativity with thoughtful execution, I craft intuitive designs through collaboration and innovation.

Design Systems, User Research, AI-Driven Design, UX Strategy, SaaS UX Design, Mobile Design, Brand Identity, Rapid Prototyping, Cross-Functional Leadership

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