Montana Mellett

Product Designer • UX Designer • User Researcher • Hamilton, ON, CA

UI/UX Design

Journey Mapping

Design Thinking

UX Strategy

Process Improvement

Research

Available for hire fromNegotiable

Contracts

Product designer and researcher known for challenging norms and solving difficult problems

With over four years' experience in user and service design, I'm now seeking meaningful work that fuses my passion for environmental and social justice with product and ux design. I am not afraid of challenging norms or solving difficult problems. Having worked within immigration and community funding systems, I have had to navigate systemic power dynamics as well as solve juicy design challenges.

Projects

Payment Processing

I improved the payment section of a granting software (CSR) by reducing the number of steps from 30 to 10, aligning it with client workflows, and incorporating user feedback gathered through concept testing and contextual walkthroughs. The redesign improved onboarding for new clients and resulted in a faster, more efficient payment process with fewer user errors. See More

Self-serve tools

I led a discovery project to increase operational efficiency and improve client experience in the granting product. Through cross-functional collaboration, the team discovered ways to reduce support requests, increase data integrity, and potentially increase net revenue retention. The outcome was to make onboarding and enhancements to grant programs more efficient, leading to a shorter time to value, decreased duration of implementations, and decreased maintenance burden. See More

Complex Grant Programs

I worked cross-functionally on improving the experience of applying for a grant by enabling a multi-phase application process to minimize wasted effort for charities and decrease the time spent filling out applications or reviewing them. As a result of user research, I illustrated the complexity of the issue by highlighting usability risks.See More

Work History

Product Designer

Freelance-

Product Designer

BenevityNov 2021 - Jan 2023 • 1 yr 3 mosRedesigned critical payment features and shipped the new design to new users successfully reducing the amount of steps users had to take in order to complete a job. Lead accessibility changes and advocacy within the team. Facilitated workshops on empathy building that lead to developers integrating more holistic QA testing on the most used screen readers (JAWS/NVDA) and the product came out with a WCAG compliance score of 97%. Contributed to building culture in the company and awareness for issues around 2SLGBTQIA+ by organizing/hosting Pride month that had a turnout of 80+% of the employees showing up to events.

Design Lead

Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship CanadaJan 2021 - Oct 2021 • 10 mosDelivered production-grade designs for a mobile app and web interface end to end that was then delivered in a proof of concept for alpha release with the temporary resident visa group. Improved the ways of working for the lab design team, migrating the team to Figma for design production and instituting more structure and predictability into the work stream. This was an achievement in the context of the visitor visa lab, which has been struggling as a hybrid team with 3+ separate sources of work. Lead an effort to reorient the lab around a unified vision for the future state, facilitating a structured design sprint and aligning key stakeholders and lab team leadership.

UX Designer

Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship CanadaMay 2020 - Jan 2021 • 9 mosDesigned and helped deliver a minimum viable product within 16 weeks, in contrast to the multi-year development timeline typical of the department. The resulting product has had considerable impact organizationally already, speeding processing by ~80% (from 15 months to 3 months).

Media Designer

FreelanceSep 2017 - May 2019 • 1 yr 9 mosDesigned and developed a Shopify store and branding materials for ABF boutique shop. Directed, produced and published 5 short videos for Wicked Wanda’s body positivity and awareness for people in the adult industry. Designed and developed the Migrant Resource Centre Canada website and some promotional print materials. Designed promotional material for Cloud Forest Coffee to raise awareness around their direct trade program in Ecuador. Directed and shot various boudoir and professional headshot photography.

Education

Algonquin College of Applied Arts and Technology

Media Studies, Interactive Media DesignSep 2017 - Apr 2019

Trent University

International Development Studies, ArtsSep 2011 - Apr 2015

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