Resume

OVERVIEW

  • Design Researcher with 10+ years working in Enterprise Software
  • Topic Lead for Conversational UX at SAP 
  • Past Expertise in validating and driving collaborative innovative solutions for Service Lifecycle Management and Product Lifecycle Management software.

EXPERIENCE

SAP LABS (2017-2023) Palo Alto, California

 

UX Design and Research Expert, Product Design Director, AI Practice (2022-2023)

Founding member of AI platforms team focused on alignment of AI strategies across the SAP ecosystem through top use cases and education.
  • Initiated and drove vision for the Digital Assistant which united product owners towards the “One Digital Assistant” strategy. Resulted in a more engaging and intuitive experience for transactional use cases.
  • Received praise from the board on concept integrating the Digital Assistant into search.
  • Drove education initiative up-skilling UX designers to enable confidence when designing for/with AI. Set up internal partnerships to scale efforts across SAP.
 

Senior Product Designer, Research Lead, Conversation Design (CxD) Lead (2018-2022)

Transformed the CxD experience from purely text based interactions, to a more intelligent and engaging experience. Partnered with Product Solutions to ensure consistency while continuously envisioning how to grow the CxD experience at SAP, impacting 100+ products.
  • Lead a team of 7-9 designers on CxD topics. Guided team by providing structure, plan, direction, and clarity on the path forward.
  • Aligned drastically different approaches to teaching CxD into one accepted and utilized process resulting in more productivity and efficiency.
  • Shifted team culture towards a trusted and collaborative environment, by asking questions and ensuring that team members had a voice, resulting in less rework by 50%
  • Implemented culture-change initiatives for SAP UX Palo Alto location to enhance employee retention resulting in minimized attrition by 10%
 

Senior User Experience Specialist, Global Design Team (2017-2018)

Developed methodology to streamline the teaching of Design Thinking within the confines of the Fiori Design system. Delivered methodology and training to external clients.

PTC, Research and Development (2011-2015) Needham, MA

 

Senior User Experience (UX) Engineer, Enterprise User Experience Team, (2013-2015)

Contributed to InService TM and Windchill TM products, new product vision demos, and new product-proof-of-concepts to enable further funding and company direction. Collaborated with product managers and teams on idea generation, refining targets for new application expansion. Validated proposed designs by understanding user needs. Partnered with developers and served as a front-end developer to implement workflows and ideas.
  • Informed requirements for the design of various plugins and products to minimize non-essential work. Accomplished by conducting surveys, interviews, usability testing, and contextual inquiries.
  • Provided UX language and consistency across product lines by establishing common processes and vocabulary for product owners during new product development.
 

Visual Interaction & User Experience Designer, Product Definition Team (2011 – 2013)

Redesigned complex legacy information structures into usable interfaces, increasing process flow transparency and enabling intuitive actions for end users. Worked on Creo 2, and Creo 3, Creo View, Creo Sketch, Layout, and Mathcad products. Created UX/UI patterns leading to the creation of an internal pattern library for developers and QA analysts.

Contract UI/UX Design Consultant, (2010 – 2011)

Worked with Product Definition Team to improve legacy information structures. This resulted in a full-time employment offer.
 

CONSULTANT

 

Design Research Consultant (2017, 2023)
UI/UX Consultant (2010-2015)
Industrial Design Consultant (Part Time, 2006-2009)
Graphic Design Consultant (Part Time, 2006-2009)

  Focus on UX/UI/strategy, venture design and service design engagements for early-stage startups to multi national companies doing business in the on healthcare, enterprise software and financial apps space.
  • Managed client project performance through close interactions with stakeholders to consistently deliver projects on time, on budget, and within established scope.
  • Contributed to seed-funding pitch presentation, by defining context, direction, market viability, and initial business plan for early startup companies.
  • Solved critical, time-sensitive issues by developing project plans, identifying key issues, approaches, and performance metrics.
  • Doubled sales for an online marketing company by redesigning the product checkout page.
  • Enabled startups to achieve needed funding by developing websites utilized as sales tools.

SKILLS

Research:

  • Fundamental Research through Exploratory/ Generative methods
  • Qualitative Focused
  • Workshop Design & Facilitation
  • Participatory Workshops
  • Methodology Design

Design:

  • Product Direction and Validation
  • System Level Design
  • Service Design
  • Org Design
  • Design Experiments

 

Professional:

  • Enterprise Software Development
  • Agile Methodologies
  • Early Stage Product Development

AI

  • NLP/NLU
  • Intelligent Agents

EDUCATION

Carnegie Mellon University MDes Candidate, Interaction Design

Rhode Island School of Design BFA, Industrial Design

Harvard Extension School Project Management

PUBLICATIONS

Boni, Arthur A., and Sarah-Marie Foley. “Challenges for Transformative Innovation in Emerging Digital Health Organizations: Advocating Service Design to Address the Multifaceted Healthcare Ecosystem.” Journal of Commercial Biotechnology, no. 4, thinkBiotech, LLC, Dec. 2020. doi:10.5912/jcb957.

Lockton, Dan, et al. “New Metaphors: A Workshop Method for Generating Ideas and Reframing Problems in Design and Beyond.” Proceedings of the 2019 on Creativity and Cognition, ACM, June 2019. doi:10.1145/3325480.3326570.

Foley, Sarah-Marie, and Dan Lockton. “Service Fictions Through Actant Switching.” DRS2018: Catalyst, Design Research Society, June 2018. doi:10.21606/drs.2018.486.

Boni, Arthur and Sarah-Marie Foley “Service Design for Delivery of User Centered Products and Services in Healthcare.” Journal of Commercial Biotechnology, no. 1, thinkBiotech, LLC, June 2018. doi:10.5912/jcb855.

Foley, Sarah-Marie. “Service Fictions as a Method in Problem-Finding Research in the Field of Sleep.” CMU Masters Thesis, Advisor: Dan Lockton, 2017

Ng, Rachel S., et al. “Expressing Intent.” Proceedings of the TEI ’16: Tenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, ACM, Feb. 2016. doi:10.1145/2839462.2856526.  

HONORS

SAP Spotlight Award (2018,2020)
Given for work done on Fiori Templates.

Microsoft Design Expo Finalist, Seattle (June, 2016)
Opus: Adaptive storytelling Selected to represent CMU at the Microsoft’s Design Expo.
Awarded “Most Engaging”

Rotman Design Challenge, Rotman School of Business, University of Toronto (2016, 2017)
Selected for presentation in Toronto as a case competition.

Award of Excellence PTC (June, 2013)
Given for work on Field Service Vision Demo which illustrated company’s strategic trajectory.
Demo allowed PTC to win a large contract with Philips.

OTHERS

Design Coach, Legal Design Lab, Stanford D-School (2018)

Design and Business Club, CMU (2016-2017)
Cofounder and Design Chair worked to cross-pollinate topics of Design and Business to Masters Students in both departments.

Imaginaries Lab, CMU (2017)

Corporate startup lab, CMU (2017)
Studied Intrepreneurship in large companies.