What’s the secret to a successful product?
MAKE PEOPLE HAPPY
James Tucker, a seasoned UX leader with over 30 years of experience, specializes in guiding businesses through the critical stages of product development. His focus is on defining a clear and actionable product roadmap, ensuring that organizations are equipped to meet both immediate and long-term goals. James can validate the product, execute the plan, build the team, and establish processes for engineering and design teams to flow and grow.
With a deep understanding of design thinking, technology, and customer-centric development, James helps businesses not only outline the steps necessary to create successful products but also implement efficient workflows that drive cross-functional collaboration. By aligning product vision with practical execution, he enables teams to work cohesively and adapt to evolving market demands.
In addition to roadmap and workflow creation, James provides guidance on hiring and team building. He assesses each company's unique needs, budget, and product goals, then formulates a tailored hiring strategy to assemble a product team capable of executing both present and future initiatives. James ensures the right balance of skills and roles within the team, positioning businesses to thrive in a competitive landscape.
the first 100 days of a new design project is essential to prove to stakeholders the value of UX and the design thinking process.
The first days of discovery, the focus is on learning about the user through user interviews, reviewing research, and building a “learning backlog” to identify facts and assumptions. Engaging with colleagues is key to uncover unknowns and build relationships. The next phase centers on achieving quick wins through rapid prototyping - or other impactful projects - that establish credibility. In the final days, the goal is to have something concrete to validate what was learned to give confidence to stakeholders and/or engineers.
B2B2C
AutoFi: Sales & Finance Platform Original Design
Field Research // User Testing // Prototyping // Management // UI Design
James Tucker’s leadership in UX research and UI design was instrumental in transforming AutoFi's platform into a comprehensive digital tool that empowered both dealerships and car buyers.
He identified key issues, such as fragmented sales processes and dealership reluctance to fully adopt digital transactions, and developed a 100-day plan that led to multiple iterations of prototypes, each improving the platform’s functionality. By building relationships with dealerships, conducting in-depth research, and gathering continuous feedback through AutoFi Insiders, James drove significant changes that increased Per Vehicle Retail (PVR) averages, boosted dealership satisfaction, and reduced the time to buy a car by 50% on average. His work resulted in a highly effective platform that required minimal training, revolutionizing the automotive sales process.
INTERNAL TOOLS & B2C
Increased Operational Efficiency and Identified Daily Workflow Malfunctions
Field Research // User Testing // Prototyping // UI Design
Spin's dispatchers relied on five unintegrated tools, making it difficult to manage daily operations, while high turnover in dispatch teams caused revenue losses.
James immersed himself in the field, joining early morning shifts to understand the workflow and identify pain points. He discovered that deployment teams, who often bypassed inefficient tools, had a better grasp on maximizing profits than management. This field research informed his design process, where he focused on creating a future-proof dispatch tool that was intuitive and required minimal training.
His solutions simplified the dispatch workflow, eliminating the need for two other software tools and significantly reducing training time from three days to four hours. Additionally, the improved mobile app allowed field teams to deploy scooters three times faster, reducing daily scooter losses which enhanced productivity and it also led to significant cost savings and operational improvements for Spin.
B2B
research and design new mobile apps for construction industry
Field Research // User Testing // Prototyping // Management // UI Design
At Caterpillar, James Tucker led the research and design of a mobile application aimed at improving operator productivity and job task performance for large-scale construction companies.
Through on-site field research at eight construction sites, James discovered that the primary challenge was not machine tracking but accurately linking job task data to operator performance. He observed how workers logged tasks, tracked materials, and assigned assets, identifying inefficiencies in their current workflows. To address these issues, James developed wireframes and prototypes, which he tested with operators in field conditions to ensure the solution was user-friendly and effective.
James' work involved close collaboration with leadership, product, and engineering teams, where he shared insights from his qualitative research. His findings helped create a tool that allowed construction companies to track tasks and performance in real-time, leading to improved accountability and productivity on job sites.
B2B
Redesign and expand Tenfold UI into crm and call center Platforms
Field Research // User Testing // Prototyping // Management // UI Design
James Tucker was brought in by Tenfold's CEO, Patrick Hogan, to address critical product issues, including a lack of competitive features, low NPS scores, and customer cancellations.
As the newly appointed VP of User Experience, James conducted extensive user research, identifying power users as a key persona whose workflow challenges had to be solved to improve retention and sales. He created a cross-departmental ambassador program to involve sales, support, and marketing teams in the redesign process and proposed a lean innovation strategy to overhaul Tenfold's product. This included building a flexible UI that worked across multiple platforms, addressing the core needs of power users and enabling upsell opportunities.
Within 10 months, his team successfully redesigned the product, reducing user workflow actions by 5.5 clicks per call and improving customer satisfaction. The new design not only retained clients but also justified higher pricing for the improved features, enhancing Tenfold's overall value proposition and competitiveness in the market.
B2B & INTERNAL TOOLS
Connecting Nurses with Hospitals through Modern Methods
Field Research // User Testing // Prototyping // Management // UI Design
James Tucker led the UX research, branding, and design for Cerebro, a platform aimed at improving the hiring process for per diem nurses and hospital administrators.
Tasked with taking the concept from a Google Doc to a fully designed product in six months, James managed a team of three UX designers, conducting nurse interviews and prototyping the nurse mobile app and hospital admin UI. With a presentation at Cedars-Sinai Techstars Accelerator approaching, the team focused on developing UI designs needed for funding and user testing the concept to ensure it resonated with both nurses and hospitals.
Through rapid user testing, James gathered key insights that helped refine the platform’s design and branding. His team uncovered that while nurses were highly receptive to the platform, small onboarding barrier insights helped increase their trust. The designs not only secured funding but also met the needs of both users, resulting in the successful launch of the nurse app and hospital admin UI within the project’s six-month timeframe. James’s strategic approach ensured Cerebro addressed core industry pain points and positioned it for success.
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