Portfolio

UX

About Meg

I’m a Senior User Experience (UX) specialist with over five years experience in Human-Centred Design, Design Thinking and Client Experience.

I excel at leading multi-disciplinary teams and collaborating with stakeholders to deliver innovative, evidence-based, human-focused solutions to complex problems. I love to be involved at all stages in the product development process, seeing designs through from sketches on sticky notes to fully functional high fidelity prototypes.

User research is what keeps me obsessed with this industry. I live for the challenge of combining the scientific rigour of various research methods with the chaos of human connection and empathy.

Whether leading end-to-end product design, facilitating workshops, or mentoring junior UX professionals, I create a welcoming and non-judgmental environment that promotes creativity and innovation.

Skills

UX Research

  • Research strategy and creating comprehensive research plans for complex, multi-faceted and high budget projects

  • Product, tool, service, form and process research

  • Creating and running both moderated and unmoderated usability testing remotely and in person

  • Moderating interviews, focus groups, and workshops

  • Persona, journey map, service blueprint & survey creation

  • Qualitative and quantitative data analysis

  • Leading the creation of problem statements and “How Might We” statements

  • Tools: Maze, Optimal Workshop, Miro

UX Design

  • Rapid prototyping and mock-up creation

  • Applying problem statements and leading design through “How Might We” statements

  • Reviewing and providing feedback on designs created by junior designers

  • Running design jams with users, stakeholders and product/service designers

  • Creation of low to high-fidelity, interactive prototypes

  • Ability to interpret research findings to influence future design iterations

  • Tools: Figma, Axure, Miro, Photoshop

Other

Projects

These projects were completed during my employment at the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and as part of my certificate in UX Design from York University.

Understanding the employee experience - CRA’s contact centre

The CRA receives a high amount of calls every month related to the Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA), and most of these calls are related to determining an individuals contribution room, or over-contributing to a TFSA. CRA’s My Account is a tool that taxpayers can use to self-serve, ideally preventing unnecessary calls to the agency. I was asked to lead a team to evaluate the user experience of the TFSA-related pages within My Account, and build a new solution that would enable users to complete TFSA-related tasks accurately and efficiently.

TFSA in My Account - a CRA service

The CRA is in the process of replacing the current software used to handle calls from taxpayers, among other tasks such as scheduling, call recording and monitoring, and statistics monitoring and analysis. I was asked to lead a team to create and execute a research strategy in order to understand the experience of various user groups of the current platform. The final product was a collection of ten user personas that we shared with the project team to develop business requirements for the future solution.

Professional Experience

Senior UX Specialist

Canada Revenue Agency / 2021 - current

I lead a team of researchers and designers to ensure the user perspective is at the heart of product development and redesigns. I craft and execute tailored research plans to uncover insights and deliver creative solutions to complex design challenges.

Business owner

Meg Lilly Photography - 2021- current

In 2021 I began my business as a wedding photographer. It’s an amazing creative outlet for me, but I have also gained experience in branding, marketing, social media management, website design and graphic design.

UX Specialist

Canada Revenue Agency / 2019-2021

I collaborated with cross-functional teams to improve tools and processes for performance management, job classification, and parental leave. I led the development of personas and journey maps and facilitated workshops to align stakeholders around user-centered solutions.

Education

Certificate in User Experience Design

Completed an intensive 8-month program in UX Design at York University, focused on building interactive prototypes in Figma, creating comprehensive research plans, and working within a product team.

Honours Bachelor in History

I am extremely passionate about history and understanding the complexities of the world around us. Through this program at the University of Ottawa I learned valuable research skills, to think critically about complex issues, and the importance of empathy and human-centred thinking.