My Role: VXD Director
Project Goal: Design an easy to use mobile app that can easily be used by any coffee shop with a few quick modifications and leverage the power of PayPal and its affiliates. This particular app would be branded for the merchant, in this case, a small coffee shop.
Project Description
PayPal’s New York Shopping Showcase is a place where new and innovative projects for brick-and-mortar merchants can be showcased. These particular app screens show how a customer can quickly and easily order their favorite coffee and have related content surfaced in the even that you’d like a pastry to compliment your coffee.
This app leverages technology from a few of PayPals acquired companies that allows the drawing of relevant information on the fly for the consumer’s convenience and/or for a more educated purchase decision. We also wanted to provide an experience that could be branded by the merchant, but retain the UI elements so that we did not need to reinvent the wheel with each merchant.
When I started working with this team, they were stifled and many of them were new to the mobile design space. They had no clear visual direction, but they did have project specs and a ton of ideas, but no idea how to focus and apply them. We started with logo designs for the various merchant vignettes, explored what that merchant’s interior ambiance might look like, (that would also be built for the showcase) came up with ideas for an overall look and feel for each and tried to reflect these elements into the app design. Once there was more clear direction, the designers ran with it and came up with some fun and interesting approaches that even they didn’t think they were capable of doing and the showcase proved to be very successful.
“What else is there to say about Skottie?? His leadership set the tone for the entire design staff and made it easy for smart people to do great things. He cared deeply for his staff and went out of his way to protect, train, and reward his team. Great managers are great communicators and Skottie was no exception. He never let an opportunity pass to inform, encourage, and listen to his team. He was always available.
Skottie’s passion for creating open and honest communication was infectious and a style I try to emulate. He made meeting with us (both corporately and individually) the highest priority. I always looked forward to our weekly 1x1. It’s during our 1x1 sessions that Skottie invested in my professional and personal success. He constantly deflected credit to his team, put his staff in the spotlight and never abused his authority.”
~ Brent Palmer, Lead Visual Designer, PayPal