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Bio

About Me

Kristin Currier Ludlow holding up the Grid Systems book

It started with retail.

I worked as a clerk in the first Home Depot that opened in the Boston area in the early 90’s. Big box home improvement was new then. People loved the idea but were bewildered by the giant, dirty warehouse filled with boxes and beeping trucks. They were intimidated and lost.

Excuse me, where do I find…

People didn’t know how to find things, and when they did find them, couldn’t see how much that thing was. Price signage was inconsistent and there were no aisle wayfinders to speak of. I took a marker set and a stack of orange sign paper and signed every product, every bulk stack, and every end cap.

I designed a DIY wayfinder system made of painted plywood and chains and worked a week of overnights using an orderpicker to lift me 25′ feet in the air to hang them. I even painted a map of the store on the front entrance.

Results? Less questions. Happier customers. More sales.

And I had a new full-time job.

It was the start of a long and rewarding career of empowering customers — in physical and digital retail spaces.

Print design & visual merchandising

I designed catalogs for Home Depot. I also held multiple department head positions, leading 4 teams. I then moved onto CompUSA and started creating planograms and flooring plans. I soon became a regional manager with a visual merchandising company and managed 60 contractors in CompUSA and BooksaMillion stores in 4 states of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Puerto Rico. I then joined another company and led demolition and remodel teams in CompUSA stores nationwide.

On to eCommerce

My first job in eCommerce was as a digital photography retoucher for an exclusive catalog retailer in Delray Beach, FL. Levenger had multiple complaints from customers because its expensive products would arrive to homes looking nothing like how they appeared on web. I retouched thousands of product images for web, resulting in fewer complaints and less returns.

I soon taught myself WordPress, HTML, CSS and started designing and developing emails and web pages.

 

Baptism by Fire

I was tasked to redesign the entire Levenger site UI, from homepage to shopping cart. I realized I was in over my head. I printed out every page of the site, taped them on a wall, had the entire team mark it up with notes and stickies, and researched multiple articles on Nielsen Norman Group. It was baptism by fire, but it worked.

 

Office Depot Years

I left Levenger to work for Office Depot. I redesigned and recoded all their email templates. I was promoted to Sr Designer, and eventually, Creative Manager, where I helped mentor a team of 14 designers. I started working with the UX team creating the UI layers for homepages, microsites and shopping carts, and started integrating basic usability practices into our team’s largely promotional workflow.

 

Current State

I am currently with City Furniture addressing the UX / UI of their email templates. I am a frequent contributor to Lean inspired problem-solving challenges called Quality Circles, which involve identifying problems, gathering data, interviewing, field observation (Gemba), defining root causes and generating solutions. Read all about that in this tweet here.

I also organize Lunch & Learns for our growing design team. I’ve been instrumental in our move to a cloud based network, reorganizing our file structure, evangelizing accessibility, and implementing a Sketch design & library system for email.

My Podcast Guest Appearance

I had the pleasure of chatting with UX Consultant, Author and Speaker
Joe Natoli on his podcast Making UX Work.

Joe Natoli Making UX Work Episode 10 with Kristin Currier Ludlow

Personal

I am married to my high school sweetheart—a fellow New Englander, and Gulf War Navy veteran. We enjoy travel and our rescued dog and cats. Fitness is a big part of my life, I’m in the gym 5-6 days a week at 530 am. I’m also a fine artist and work in acrylics, ink and scratch medium.

I’m available for career, business and volunteer opportunities.

Let me know how I can help.

 

Kristin Currier Ludlow deadlifting