Meet Nicole Forsythe, Manager of User Experience

Tell us about your role as Manager of User Experience. How does this position allow you to continue to innovate professionally?

As a User Experience (UX) Manager, I manage a team of exceptional designers. My team and I handle the UX, user interface (UI) and research practice at Igloo. I work with my team to create standards and common approaches/practices to solve design problems, as well as work with internal and external stakeholders to ensure we have the correct inputs, direction, and feedback to solve those problems. I also work with my leadership to create UX strategy and vision and ensure that it aligns with and informs the product vision.

Igloo as a company is dedicated to professional development. We have an excellent Professional Development Fund that each employee can use towards achieving their goals that are set each year. Within our team, we collaborate to advance our professional development and to stay up to date on the UX landscape. For example, every Wednesday, we share podcasts, articles, or books we’ve read or listened to. It leads to some great discussion!

What is your favorite part of working with Igloo’s customers? How are you helping them improve their employee’s digital workplace experience?

I have a background and passion for user research. From Discovery to Usability testing, my favorite thing about my UX job is forming connections with Igloo users, asking them questions, and trying to understand how they think. We are currently developing a research program to better include our end-users in our end-to-end design process. This is very exciting and will make our digital workplace product even better.

Can you share an example of how your team effectively and creatively solved a customer’s user experience challenge?

While no project is the same, we utilize a flexible UX process to approach problem-solving at Igloo. We pick and choose research methodologies and design activities depending on the goal of the project.

For example, we are currently working on an initiative to better serve our deskless workers. Because we did not fully understand the specific challenges our end-users faced, we conducted discovery interviews to uncover their primary pain points and jobs-to-be-done. This gave us the critical information we need to determine the overall structure of our solution and the use cases it would need to support. Designs are currently underway and will be iterated based on future testing.?

How does your team make Igloo's digital workplace solution so successful for employees across the globe?

Our product space is interesting and timely, given the effects of the pandemic on remote work. It’s brought about new challenges and problems to solve in the digital workplace space, and that’s where we contribute our research and design skills. Here’s an example: answers to simple research questions like, “How do you start your day?” have shifted drastically from pre-pandemic times. Those answers shed light on how work has changed and how our users perceive that change.

In a nutshell, research helps us avoid building something just because it’s cool, and our UX expertise contributes to good, scalable designs. Our sweet spot is the intersection between usefulness and usability – and both are critical to the success of a product.

What excites you most about building your Igloo User Experience team?

We are currently growing our team! We are hiring UX/UI Designers. I am excited about building on our team culture and introducing more voices and perspectives to our practice.

Personally, I love my team and culture is very important. We have a level of trust that is critical to sharing our thoughts, concepts, and feedback with one another. I believe the best experiences come from teams that can communicate freely and openly and take feedback to heart. To do that, you need trust and to be able to check your ego.

Are you an innovative designer who fits the bill? Join us!

What led you to join Igloo Software? What do you enjoy the most about working at Igloo?

I was referred to Igloo by a close friend who spoke highly of the product and the workplace culture. And he was right – the work is challenging and rewarding, and the people are extremely talented and fun. Working with my team is something I look forward to every day.