Resume
Natalie Heins
UX Research & Design Strategist
Chicago, IL | (224) 600-7581 |
natalieheins@gmail.com |
natalieheins.com |
linkedin.com/in/natalieheins
Summary
I make complex digital ecosystems easier to understand, use, and scale. I bring 20 years of experience across enterprise web, digital products, and design systems, moving comfortably between systems thinking and detailed interaction design. I turn ambiguous business and user problems into clear, scalable experiences, build alignment with stakeholders and engineering teams, and mentor designers to strengthen the work around me.
Professional Experience
Senior Design Expert - SAP
July 2023 – December 2025
- Led end-to-end usability testing and synthesized findings into actionable design direction, translating ambiguous user problems into concrete product and experience decisions across iterations.
- Combined behavioral analytics (Adobe Analytics, Activity Map) with qualitative research to identify friction points and pressure-test assumptions before committing to a design direction.
- Facilitated cross-functional discovery and ideation workshops, aligning design, product, and engineering stakeholders around evidence-based problem framing rather than pre-set solutions.
- Led research and experience design for SAP.com's global homepage, achieving a SUS score of 75.8 compared with the 68 industry benchmark, and defined the direction for consistent messaging, localization, and personalization across the platform.
- Mapped the end-to-end homepage user journey and built a functioning prototype to test it; interviewed users on content needs and navigation behavior, and paired those findings with click-pattern analytics on the navigation and footer to determine what should surface first.
- Set contribution and governance standards for the SAP.com design system as adoption expanded, within a Strategy–Design–Run–Build operating model.
- Unified navigation and footer across seven SAP properties into one scalable model used in more than 100 countries, aligning stakeholders around a single structure.
- Mentored five designers on accessibility, usability testing, and design-system contribution standards, building on WCAG work from the public sector.
Full Stack UX Designer - TEKsystems @ SAP
February 2007 – July 2023
- Led experience design across SAP's global web platform, translating complex business requirements into scalable experiences used across markets, audiences, and product areas.
- Designed SAP's personalization dashboard end to end, establishing patterns that helped users understand and manage interest-based recommendations.
- Extended personalization to locale, using A/B tests on the switcher and syndicated local content to lift engagement 15% for users staying on the U.S. site and 2.5% for users choosing a local experience.
- Redesigned support and live-agent escalation journeys so frustrated users reach the right help in fewer steps.
- Presented research findings and design recommendations to executive stakeholders, resolving competing priorities and building support for platform-wide decisions.
- Created structured, component-based Figma specifications that reduced ambiguity during development and supported more consistent implementation.
- Established reusable Figma components and governance standards adopted across four teams: product, marketing, brand, and engineering.
UX Designer - InfoNXX / kgb
July 2006 – February 2007
- Applied human-centered design principles across web, email, and campaign touchpoints, partnering with brand and marketing to translate identity into consistent UX patterns.
- Conducted ongoing audits and optimized content and layout decisions based on performance insight and observed user behavior.
- Documented UX strategy and design rationale to support cross-team alignment and decision-making.
UX Designer and Developer - City of Richmond, VA
August 2004 – July 2006
- Led UX design across key public-facing journeys, establishing accessibility (WCAG) and usability standards for a diverse audience with no prior design system to build from.
- Conducted usability reviews and iterated based on direct user feedback, translating findings into navigation and task-completion improvements.
Core Strengths
Complex Platforms & Enterprise UX
End-to-End Product Design
Design Systems, Tokens & Governance
AI-Accelerated Design & Prototyping
Personalization & Localization Experience
Data-Driven UX, Analytics & A/B Testing
Accessibility & Inclusive Design (WCAG)
Stakeholder Alignment & Executive Presentation
Design Leadership & Mentoring
AI-Assisted Design Practice
How I move quickly on complex, component-driven work.
- Ideation & rapid prototyping: Use ChatGPT and Claude from early ideation through prototyping to move quickly on the component systems I architect and complex operational workflows.
- Component & documentation: Leverage AI tools to accelerate documentation of design-system components and patterns for developer adoption.
- Research & data synthesis: Synthesize usability findings and behavioral data into decision-ready design direction, cutting the lag between evidence and delivery.
Leadership & Organizational Skills
Board Member - Arlington Heights Youth Athletic Association (AHYAA)
2018 – 2025
- Program leadership & governance: Served a five-year board term overseeing a 28-team, three-division youth sports program for a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
- Cross-group partnership building: Spearheaded a first-of-its-kind partnership bringing four neighboring leagues into the program.
- Community program development: Conceived and led new community events, including Trunk or Treat, parades, and an inaugural Back to Ball Bash, that grew family engagement.
- Volunteer & vendor coordination: Partnered with umpire and field directors on scheduling, assignments, and field maintenance across a full season.
- Conflict resolution & relationship management: Served as point of contact for parent and coach concerns, resolving conflicts and enforcing rules fairly under pressure.
- Long-term relationship retention: Managed and coached the same families across multiple seasons, building durable trust over time.