United States

UI/ Visual Design

Product Design

Interaction Design

UX Research

Doctor of Philosophy - PhD

Master's Degree

MArch

BA (Hons) Architecture

Lai Jing Chu

Design Founder

Usability Testing

Communication

Collaboration

Problem-solving

Critical-thinking

Empathy

Team player

Organisation skills

Presentation skills

Analytical skills

Design systems

Human computer interaction

User research

UserTesting

Webflow

Affinity

Airtable

Amplitude

Asana

Figma

HTML

JavaScript

Jira

Adobe Creative Suite

Autocad

Understanding factors that lead to a motivated team - recognition, communication and more.

Keeping team members motivated

Understand the process of training, motivating and directing your team members.

Managing people

How to create a positive workplace culture that drives collaboration and productivity?

Fostering a good team culture

Steps to building and maintaining a strong, cohesive and effective team.

Building an effective team

Learn the tips to successfully manage a team in a remote environment.

Managing a remote team

How to set up the team for success by defining and measuring team's performance.

Choosing metrics and team goals

Best practices for running productive design critiques.

Running effective design critiques

Methods of prototyping and solution validation. When to use which kind of prototype (eg. Webflow, Notion, etc)

Prototyping methods and tips

Manage team expectations and get the most out of your meetings.

Running effective meetings

Learn how to properly present your work and share ideas and opinions.

Presenting your work with impact

How to work with team members with different skill sets but towards a common goal?

Working cross-functionally

Methods and models of exploring, deciding and delivering design.

Building a design process

Managing being the only designer at your company and working with non-designers.

Being the only designer

Explore different generative and evaluative research techniques. User research synthesis and presentation.

Conducting good user research

Ways and resources to improve your design skills.

Improving design skills

Navigating the working relationship with PM's and engineers as a designer.

Working with product and engineering

How to create personas, and leverage them in design.

Creating and leveraging user personas

Ways to provide constructive feedback to team members.

Giving effective feedback

How to conduct interviews, what to ask, and how to analyze your results? (eg. user interview)

Conducting effective customer interviews

What are design systems and how to work with them?

Building successful design systems

Building an education platform as a design founder.

Currently, I am at Polycam, where we are making light-weight, mobile 3D capture accessible to AEC professionals, AR/VR/XR enthusiasts, and everyday individuals.

Product designer at Series E legal tech company with a mission to make legal resources and support accessible. 

+ Collaborated with SEO team to overhaul 1K+ legal document landing pages for 100K daily visitors, resulting in improved Google search rankings and increased company revenue. 

+ Contributed designs for growth experiments (A/B tests) and improved chances of success by applying insights from UX analytics (Fullstory) and usability testing to variant designs.

+ Initiated and supported reorganization of code base design system within content management system, resulting in improved efficiency for the engineering team and faster deployment of new designs.

Product designer and acting product manager in high-growth virtual interior design and e-commerce company offering custom design proposals and shopping lists. Led end-end design/development of in-house interior designers’ browser-based digital tool, critical to scaling up operational efficiency as caseload increased.

+ Rapidly iterated on wireframes, user flows, prototypes, logic trees, and specs for user testing, cross-functional collaboration, and engineering.

+ Raised in-house interior designers’ mood-boarding efficiency by 3X.

+ Raised in-house interior designers' product list compilation efficiency by 4X. 

+ Defined problems and translated research insights into actionable summaries, service blueprints, journey maps, product backlog, and roadmap. Raised user satisfaction ratings by 30% in 2 months.

+ Supported engineering team and established Agile workflows for shipping. Oversaw hundreds of backlog tickets on Asana and ensured they reach finish line.

Solo product designer and product manager in pre-seed stage startup offering online 1-1 college counseling to high schoolers targeting elite colleges. Created both marketing website and paid customer web-based portal.

Marketing Site
+ Collaborated with marketing team and external consultants to optimize website’s information architecture for SEO optimization. Slashed bounce rate from critical 75% to under 35%, and restored visitor-to-consult conversion to healthy 3%.

Empowerly Score
+ Shipped strategic “chancing calculator” for college admissions that factors in candidates’ “intangible” qualities from scratch. Validated usefulness by testing against 10+ real cases and revealed 85% accuracy rate. Helped secure 12M in fundraising.

As a Teaching Assistant, mentored undergraduate- and masters-level students to assist in their ability to critically reflect on constructed environment through planning and delivering seminars, public lectures, and field trips. At the end of my tenure, received 95% positive reviews on year-end evaluation forms.

With Studio X, led event planning with institutional partners, maintained bilingual social media outlets, and participated in research and conceptual design of urban design project for public exhibition.  Coordinated work with multiple stakeholders across China and the US to manage and deliver a successful exhibition and provided a public forum for Beijing Design Week within a four-month timeline while managing within a $20K budget.

As an Independent Contractor, researched, wrote, and shaped editorial content for a number of professional and academic readership groups. Supervised and organized content and developed copy to be submitted for publication. Within the two years, contributed to six Chinese and international books, magazines, and journals that were published by the MIT Press, Actar, Masthead, among others.

During this Summer Internship, contributed to the concept, design, and visualization of multiple design options for three mixed-use commercial projects in mainland China in a fast-paced environment.

Played a critical role as the only bilingual project team member. Helped guide project communication from design to final construction drawings for plans to build the Bamboo Raft Factory at Mount Wuyi. Drafted architectural detail drawings using a design system and communicated with clients to best understand the building’s functional needs. Liaisoned with structural and MEP engineers translating project needs to all team members. 

Built project was featured on international media platforms such as The Architecture Review and Cooper Hewitt Museum.

Lai Jing Chu🇺🇸