Resume/CV
Samantha Howes
Experienced product leader crafting accessible, intuitive experiences & design systems.
Summary
I am a highly experienced Senior Product Designer with over 9 years in the field, 3 of which were in a Team Lead role. I have a proven ability to lead end-to-end digital product design processes for multiple products, establish and evolve design systems, and foster strong collaboration with cross-functional teams. My expertise lies in user research (including user interviews, user testing, and feedback synthesis), design systems, accessibility compliance (WCAG, EN 301 549, EAA), as well as driving and contributing to product strategy.
Note: Due to protected and private IP from my previous employer, my current portfolio includes 2 written case studies (more coming soon) with a few, public visuals.
Experience
Q4 Inc | Product Design Team Lead | Feb 2022 - Apr 2025
As a Product Design Team Lead, I managed a team of three reports, providing mentorship and performance development. In this role, I oversaw team growth through daily check-ins, regular 1:1s, and quarterly/annual performance reviews. During my tenure, I successfully advocated for the promotion of one report to a Senior position.
In addition to duties as team lead, I contributed as an individual contributor by spearheading a new design system aligned with the company’s rebrand. I built core tokens, components, variables, and patterns in Figma to ensure a consistent user experience across a range of products. I also served on the cross-functional Design System committee, collaborating closely with development leadership and teams to build and evolve the system.
Strategically, I collaborated on the evolution of our Investor Relations Website product towards a SaaS model, which resulted in a 50% automation rate for customer-submitted website updates, reducing support intervention and cost. I embraced a customer obsessed approach to research through CSAT analysis, conducting regular customer interviews to gather usability feedback. Reporting the findings to key stakeholders, I used storytelling to influence leadership, driving product improvements and roadmap initiatives. Most recently, I led accessibility improvements to website templates, providing key documentation to our Engineering & QA teams to meet WCAG 2.2 (AODA, ADA) and EN 301 549 (EAA) standards.
Q4 Inc | Senior Product Designer | Mar 2021 - Feb 2022
I played an integral part in the end-to-end product design process for multiple products, including the successful launch of the company's first iteration of a self-serve Platform experience, which enables customers to manage critical updates to their website content. I was also part of a small team involved in crafting a mobile native app for our CRM, Q4 Go, offering core functionality to Investor Relations officers on the go. I collaborated extensively with the Director of Design on a new strategic vision for the Q4 Platform to bring disparate products together in a unifi ed experience, and worked closely with cross
Think Research | Senior Product Designer | Oct 2019 - March 2021
I led end-to-end UX design for multiple healthcare products, most notably Progress Notes and Form Designer, achieving significant impact in the healthcare space through go-lives in Ireland and Canada.In addition, I worked on a core team developing the Virtual Care mobile native and web application experiences for iOS and Android I championed the implementation of the Storybook living design system to support a consistent user experience across multiple web and mobile native products, and developed accessibility strategies, including internal workshops and training initiatives for Accessibility in Design and Development. My role also involved brainstorming and implementing improvements to team and company processes and actively contributing to development projects using Git, CSS, HTML, React, and Javascript..
Think Research | UXUI Designer | Apr 2016 - Oct 2019
In this role, I delivered end-to-end user experience design on key healthcare products like Order Sets and Virtual Care (desktop, tablet, responsive, and mobile native). I established the company’s first design system by building over 20 UI components to significantly improve the Design team’s workflow and efficiency. I enhanced team dynamics by working with the entire UX team to implement our own stable UX design process.
Skills
- User experience design
- Discovery Research (qual, quant)
- Product Strategy
- Design Systems
- Accessibility
- Workshop Design & Facilitation
- Stakeholder Engagement
- Team Leadership & Mentoring
- Cross-functional Collaboration
- HTML & CSS, understanding of JS and React
Tools
- Figma
- FigJam / Miro
- Maze
- Pendo, Posthog, WalkMe
- Dovetail
- Jira
- CodePen/Visual Studio
Speaking
Ecobee - Accessibility Initiative
Keynote speaker, April 2021
Blue Umbrella Design - UX research plans & moderator guides
Guest Speaker, Jul 2020
Awards
Q4 Inc., May 2024
Values Champion - Customer Obsessed
Education
George Brown College
New Media Design, Apr 2004
Brock University
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Apr 2001
Certificates
CNIB
Accessibility for Web and Print, July 2014
MIT xPro Certificate
Designing and Building AI Products and Services (currently enrolled and studying)