Workiva UX Design Internship

Overview

During the Spring semester of 2024, I joined Workiva’s Research and Development team to enhance the enterprise platform, contributing to the Automation & Connectivity and Configurable UI organizations. A key focus of my internship was designing solutions aligned with Workiva’s new design system, Unify, which aimed to standardize components, improve scalability, and create a cohesive user experience across the platform.

Roles:

UX Design & Research

Teams:

Automation & Connectivity

Configierable UI

Timeline:

4 Months

Scope:

Chart Live Filtering

Processes Letter Manager

Processes Survey Research

Competitive Analysis for Future Element Types



Projects





Learnings

Data Matters:

A key takeaway was the importance of considering data feasibility in design. My initial concept included pagination to preview multiple letters simultaneously, but an engineering review revealed performance concerns due to data load. Since the feature wasn’t.

Design System Constraints:
You can’t always control every design detail. For instance, a nested multi-select dropdown seemed easy to implement by adjusting padding, but since it wasn’t part of the official design system, I had to navigate several meetings with the UI design systems and engineering teams. Ultimately, we had to put the idea on hold, highlighting the importance of aligning with system constraints and cross-functional collaboration.


Special Thanks To

My internship at Workiva gave me the opportunity to learn and apply my interaction and visual design skills through hands-on enterprise software projects—experience I knew I wouldn’t get in a traditional classroom setting. I’d like to extend a special thanks to those who provided me with invaluable guidance and mentorship:

Patti Smith-Lawrence: UX Manger

Kirsten Baxter-Tjaden: Senior UX Designer

Rosie Streit: Senior UX Designer

Courntey Tintzman: Senior UX researcher

Sawsan Muthana: UX Researcher Intern