I connect user experience, marketing strategy, and performance data to build better websites and customer journeys. My work spans UX, ecommerce, and conversion optimization, from identifying opportunities to designing, launching, and evaluating improvements.
My background combines UX and digital design for skincare brands with conversion strategy for agency clients. I bring those perspectives together to create experiences that serve users and support business goals.
I translate audience needs and business priorities into clear, usable digital experiences. My work spans website structure, responsive design, ecommerce content, and reusable visual systems that keep the experience consistent.
I use research and performance evidence to identify friction, prioritize opportunities, and develop focused experiments. Each recommendation connects a specific user problem to a business objective and a practical way to evaluate the change.
I bring together web analytics, behavioral insights, campaign context, and available CRM outcomes to understand performance. I translate the findings into clear recommendations and next steps for the team.
A useful recommendation connects what the business needs, what users are trying to accomplish, and what the evidence shows. I examine those perspectives together to decide where to focus.
What is the business trying to achieve, and what does the audience need to move forward?
I clarify objectives, audience intent, stakeholder priorities, and the role of the website or campaign. That establishes the problem to solve and what a meaningful improvement would look like.
Where are people encountering confusion, missing information, or unnecessary effort?
I combine user research, behavioral evidence, and UX judgment to evaluate navigation, content, visual hierarchy, and key flows. I turn those findings into focused recommendations for the experience.
What evidence will show whether the change helped users and the business?
I define relevant success measures, review available tracking, and evaluate results in context. Where downstream data is available, I use it to understand lead quality and business outcomes alongside conversion performance.
There is no universal winning layout. The right hierarchy depends on intent, awareness, risk, and the offer—but every element should help visitors understand, trust, or act.
One primary action above the fold, one low-commitment secondary option. Never more than two — extra choices just add friction.
The reasons to believe, stated plainly, above the fold — before the visitor has to scroll to find out why they should care.
The logo banner right after the hero — quick, low-effort proof that real companies already trust you.
What you offer, placed directly below the fold so it's the very next thing a visitor sees.
Proof it works, told through real outcomes — placed toward the middle of the page once interest is already established.
Objection-handling and self-qualification content toward the bottom, for visitors who need more before they'll commit.
One last, unmistakable next step at the very bottom, for everyone who scrolled the whole way down.
Explore work across UX, ecommerce, and conversion optimization, including the business challenge, my contribution, and the evidence behind each decision.
Design System
EltaMD's Design System project involved creating a cohesive and scalable design framework to unify the management of the site. By developing a comprehensive set of design guidelines and UI components, we ensured consistency across all digital touchpoints, enhancing the user experience and reinforcing the EltaMD brand identity.
During the project, we identified several areas for improvement. The site exhibited inconsistencies in visual elements and lacked a unified layout structure, spacing, and sizing guidelines, particularly for mobile screens. This led to inconsistent outcomes from our design partners. Brand assets such as icons and claims had not been fully optimized for web use, resulting in confused messaging from a web perspective.
There was also an opportunity to improve the understanding and application of website user conventions. Addressing these issues was essential for developing a cohesive and scalable design system that would elevate EltaMD's digital credibility.
Knowing we had a quick turn-around, we began by consolidating all content and web assets to build off of what we had. Next, we identified the essential elements required in their simplest form to ensure efficiency and clarity. We then built system components based on these essential needs, avoiding unnecessary complexity. Using the new design system, we constructed priority pages to demonstrate its effectiveness. Finally, we launched these pages on the site.
During the discovery and UX analysis phase, we engaged with key stakeholders to understand their business objectives and user needs. This was complemented by a comprehensive UX heuristic evaluation, where we assessed the current digital presence against established usability principles.
The design system was built on foundational principles that emphasize established user conventions. This allowed for familiarity and an overall comfortable user experience. The goal with each component was to establish an obvious purpose or call-to-action for the user. We did not want any ambiguous sections.
The design system features a comprehensive component library, ensuring visual consistency and usability across all digital touchpoints.
Implementing the design system involved integrating the new components into the existing digital infrastructure and ensuring consistency across all platforms. Comprehensive documentation was created for designers and developers, and team training sessions were conducted to empower the team to use and maintain the system, ensuring its long-term success and adaptability.
With the design system successfully implemented, the next steps focus on ongoing site management and continuous improvement. Regular updates and maintenance will keep the system current and effective. Feedback loops and analytics will be used to identify areas for enhancement, so the site continues to meet user needs and business objectives while maintaining a high standard of usability and design consistency.
Website Build
The PCA SKIN DTC site project aimed to transform an outdated e-commerce platform into a modern, user-centric experience. As a UX consultant, I collaborated with Gorilla Group, the agency responsible for developing the site, to ensure that our design decisions were grounded in comprehensive user research and best practices. The updated site, built on Shopify, provides an intuitive and engaging shopping experience that aligns with contemporary user expectations.
The existing PCA SKIN site was outdated and not user-centric, leading to a subpar user experience and potentially hindering sales. Our goal was to revamp the site to be more visually appealing, easier to navigate, and aligned with the needs and behaviors of its users. By addressing these issues, we aimed to enhance user satisfaction and increase conversion rates.
The project spanned 12 months, with a distinct focus on design, development, and testing. Initially, we conducted a brief but intensive research phase to gather essential user data and insights. This phase included workshops, empathy mapping, card sorting, and creating user personas.
Following the research, the majority of the timeline was dedicated to building the site. We went through several iterative wireframe sprints, continuously refining the design based on user feedback and stakeholder input. The high-fidelity prototype was developed in Figma and extensively tested to ensure functionality, usability, and a seamless user experience. The final phase involved close collaboration with Gorilla Group to implement the design on Shopify, ensuring the end product met all user and business requirements.
To build a user-centric site, we conducted extensive UX research using Optimal Workshop, a suite of tools for gathering user insights. We used it for card sorting and tree testing, which helped us understand how users group information and navigate the site.
We organized several workshops to gather both qualitative and quantitative data. These included an empathy mapping workshop with stakeholders to understand user emotions and experiences, and card sorting exercises with stakeholders to determine the most intuitive way to organize the site's navigation.
We also built detailed user personas based on data from these workshops and insights from the customer service database, which provided information on user pain points and needs that informed our design decisions. This ensured the final product was aligned with user expectations.
Utilizing card sorting, we established an intuitive hierarchy for the navigation and site content, ensuring optimal user accessibility and organization.
Wireframes moved through iterative sprints, with feedback from stakeholders and the Gorilla Group team captured directly on the designs in Figma.
The approved wireframes became a style guide and high-fidelity interface designs, then mockups used to review the experience before the Shopify build.
User research suggested that some paid-search visitors were interested in legal help but not yet ready to book a consultation. A single, high-commitment booking path could leave these visitors without a comfortable next step, contributing to funnel abandonment.
Adding a lower-commitment chatbot option alongside direct booking would better match different levels of user readiness, reduce early funnel drop-off, and increase completed consultations per visitor.
The +46% is a relative lift, not a 46-point increase. Confidence is as reported by the testing platform.
A lower-commitment conversation path helped accommodate visitors who weren’t ready to book immediately, while direct booking remained available. The variant produced a higher completed-consultation booking rate, suggesting that conversion paths should reflect differences in user readiness.
The firm served multiple geographic markets, but its landing-page messaging lacked location-specific relevance. Previous industry testing suggested that localized language could strengthen trust and credibility, presenting an opportunity to personalize the experience for individual visitors.
Dynamically incorporating the visitor’s geographic location into the headline would increase perceived relevance and trust, resulting in a higher consultation conversion rate than generic messaging.
Conversion rate is based on visitors, not page views. Confidence is as reported by the testing platform.
The geolocation headline outperformed generic messaging, supporting the strategy of aligning landing-page copy with visitors’ geographic context. The results are consistent with improved message relevance, although the test did not directly measure perceived trust.
Google Ads search-term and downstream deal analysis revealed that valuable customers weren’t limited to branded searches. Competitor, local-provider, and solar cost queries also generated deals, suggesting that comparison-stage visitors represented a meaningful acquisition opportunity.
Reframing the landing page around provider comparisons and competitive differentiators would better align with visitors evaluating solar options, increasing form conversion rates.
The variant changed both the messaging and the chart, so the lift is not attributable to the chart alone. Confidence is as reported by the testing platform.
The comparison-focused experience outperformed the brand-focused control, supporting a strategy built around users’ evaluation intent. Search-term and CRM analysis helped identify the opportunity, while A/B testing provided evidence that comparison-oriented messaging could improve landing-page conversion performance.
The existing hero messaging presented an opportunity to explain the product’s value more clearly. Visitors needed to quickly understand what the cybersecurity platform protects against and why its solutions matter before exploring deeper product content.
Replacing the hero headline and supporting copy with a clearer, more explicit value proposition would help visitors understand the solution within the first few seconds and increase form-fill leads.
Confidence is as reported by the testing platform.
Clearer, benefit-driven hero messaging increased form-fill leads. The experiment supports prioritizing value-proposition clarity in B2B website experiences, without assuming that the additional form fills were more qualified or produced more revenue.
I build resources that make performance questions easier to explore. The A/B Test Win Rate Calculator helps teams review testing progress, compare scenarios, and discuss what their results mean.
Review completed tests and win rate against a target.
Explore how future test outcomes could affect overall results.
Bring testing activity and conversion trends into the same discussion.
“Alex is the optimal balance of right-brained creativity and left-brained analyticity. His expertise in UI/UX has added immeasurable value to our team and all three of the Colgate-Palmolive skin health brands. He single-handedly executed a full site redesign for EltaMD, and builds conversion-driving Amazon product pages, Amazon A+ content, and emails for all three brands on a regular basis. He is efficient, flexible, detail-oriented, and excels across multiple creative mediums.”
“I had the pleasure of designing alongside Alex at Colgate-Palmolive Skin Health Group for several years. He was our team sounding board and excelled at keeping brand standards consistent across all mediums. With a strong eye for detail he was always who I would ask for feedback with projects I worked on. Skilled in all things design with a focus on UX-UI, Alex is a tremendous asset and an all around joy to work with.”
“Alex's commitment to his craft, ability to quickly adapt, and user-centric design approach truly set him apart. Alex has proven to be quite nimble throughout the creative process. At times projects have had to quickly pivot and he never gets unnerved. He consistently produces high-quality work and brings a fresh perspective to our projects. His proactive approach and dedication make him a great addition to any team.”
How I connect strategy, user needs, and performance evidence to move work forward.
My experience spans brand websites, ecommerce, B2B websites, and lead-generation landing pages. I’ve worked across UX, ecommerce content, digital campaigns, and brand systems, alongside experimentation, conversion strategy, and landing-page optimization across multiple industries.
I clarify the objective, review the current experience, and use available research and performance data to identify opportunities. From there, I prioritize recommendations, shape the content and UX, and define how we’ll evaluate the change.
CRO connects my design background with performance analysis. It gives me a structured way to investigate user friction, test ideas, and measure outcomes. I apply that thinking across messaging, content hierarchy, forms, and customer journeys.
I stay involved from analysis through execution, including CRO strategy, design, technical and sales copywriting, final builds, and QA. Throughout the process, I collaborate with MarTech and PPC analysts to align the experience, tracking, and campaign goals.
I work with PPC, creative, account management, and MarTech teams to align campaign goals, messaging, tracking, and the website experience. I translate findings into clear recommendations and support shared learning through workshops and experimentation practices.
I use GA4, heatmaps, ad platform data, and available CRM data to understand performance and guide optimization. I partner with PPC specialists to align the experience after the click with audience intent and campaign messaging.
I'm interested in opportunities across web strategy, digital experience, and optimization where I can combine analytical thinking with hands-on execution. Get in touch to discuss a role or walk through my work.
alexd.com
