Contributions
During my internship, I had the opportunity to immerse in diverse domains encompassing 3M's global healthcare, home improvement and care, consumer healthcare, and personal safety divisions.
Synthesizing and designing compelling narratives
Living at the intersection of design, research, facilitation, and business strategy, I spearheaded a project focused on designing interactive storytelling experiences to bring clarity to complex information, and strategic communication of novel platform opportunities. This involved synthesizing complex qualitative research and weaving together expansive bodies of work to:
- Identify and inspire exploration of macro trend opportunity spaces
- Envision consumer-centric design opportunities leveraging existing 3M brands and technologies
- Define unaddressed problem spaces and propose purpose-driven, holistic objectives driven by primary user research and secondary literature
- Illustrate complex consumer motivations, pain points, conflicts, and perspectives through user journeys, scenarios, personas, cognitive mapping, and testimonials
Interactive communication of innovation platforms
I presented my work to 50+ 3Mers across multiple teams, including senior managers and designers, researchers, engineers, product managers, and C-suite executives. My work has been disseminated across the Consumer Business Group to inspire various product teams, with findings and recommendations informing brand extensions and new product development.
Exploratory workshop and research support
As the only design research intern, I collaborated with other teams across the company to provide support and help define research phases. In particular, work on the heuristic review of an internal scheduling app helped that business team make better decisions regarding the scope of work that lay ahead of them, and contributed to more intuitive, straightforward space reservation processes for employees.
I supported the design, facilitation, and documentation of workshops across multidisciplinary teams. Highlights included designing and facilitating a workshop to help representatives from various divisions re-envision the Future of Healthcare, live-sketching and visual mapping to clarify and create a mutual point of reference. Outcomes from this workshop directly informed allocations and decision-making around the upcoming health-care spinoff unit.
Design thinking and leadership
I also led an end-to-end design thinking project addressing stigma and barriers to caring for aging skin. I helped ensure continued focus on the most salient aspects of the project, driving ideation, concept development, and project management amongst a diverse intern cohort of UX, graphic, and industrial designers.
Final proposals were presented to an audience of 30+ 3Mers, including senior management, designers, engineers, marketing and sustainability leadership, and C-suite executives, inspiring new ways to highlight 3M brands, communicate product experiences, experiment with 3M technologies, and engage with consumers.
