Weight Watchers

It began in the 60’s with one woman inviting her friends to her home once a week to talk about how to best lose weight. Today, Weight Watchers has helped educate, support and transform millions of people’s lives all over the world.

My Role: UX Lead

The Team: Me, Product Manager, Project Manager, Lead Engineer, Designer, Developer & QA Lead

The challenge: To update the existing signup process design to be fully responsive and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) compliant , while aligning with new design systems from an external agency. This had to be accomplished within a six-week timeline amidst a broader organizational shift from waterfall to agile product development.

My role & approach: A primary initial task was to educate outside agencies on implementing WCAG 2.0 compliance in both design and development. My team and I created and led training sessions for internal and external teams, even producing introductory videos to make the challenging content more accessible. During the organizational shift, our team adapted by creating a hybrid waterfall/agile process to work within the constraints of our legacy systems. I began by researching the existing system I was unfamiliar with, consulting the previous product owner, and analyzing other systems for consistent patterns to inform my information architecture and wireframes. I collaborated with developers to build quick, responsive prototypes for testing. We conducted multiple forms of user testing, from in-person sessions to online services, to gather rapid feedback and iterate quickly. Simultaneously, we partnered with engineers to integrate the builds into our legacy CMS, which was a major constraint.

The impact: The impact: The hybrid process involved significant trial and error but was invaluable for learning how to work more effectively as a team. After launch, we achieved our primary goal by measuring a significant boost in conversion rates for users entering the signup flow, which was our key performance indicator.