Hana (A CBRE Company)

Transforming tech-enabled workspaces with customer-first experience design

Role: Director of Product Design, Customer-centered Design Strategy, Product Design Vision, UX, Creative, and Team Building
Timeline: June 2019 - September 2021
Markets: United States & United Kingdom

The Challenge

When I joined Hana, the company had a compelling vision and beautifully designed physical spaces preparing to launch across Dallas, California, London, and Manchester. However, the digital infrastructure was fragmented, with disconnected touchpoints that failed to match the sophistication of the physical environments.

As a CBRE subsidiary serving everyone from Fortune 500 companies to individual entrepreneurs, Hana needed enterprise-grade digital products that could seamlessly integrate IoT-enabled workspaces, security systems, safety monitoring, logistics, space optimization, and hospitality services into a unified customer experience.

The Opportunity

Create seamless integration between physical and digital systems to deliver exceptional hospitality-led customer experiences guided by the Japanese concept of Omotenashi—anticipating customer needs through thoughtfully crafted, invisible yet indispensable technology.

My Process Overview

• 1. Observe & Collect Data

  What’s working and what’s not. At the start of any project, my approach is to look at every aspect to understand what’s working about the product experience(s), the team dynamics, and the alignments to business goals.
  
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• 2. Customer Deep Dive

  Even though Hana had three physical products lines at Hana, the customer personas were far from simple. I also needed to understand the mental models of all our customers types at every point of the customer journey.

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• 3. Plan Design Strategy

  Hana operated like a startup, so we had to be lean and effective. Hana was set to grow at a rapid pace. Locations were launching almost monthly, so our products needed to not only support this expansion, but also help drive the overall growth. We needed to up level the user experience of our digital products and part of my role to work with all partner teams to make it happen.

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• 4. Build The Team

  Whether it’s working with in-house talent or needing to grow, have a strong team that works well togher is key. At Hana, I built a high-performing distributed design team from 0-5 designers and established best practices for customer-centric product design, user research, and content strategy.

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• 5. Roadmap Product Initiatives

  Working in close partnership with product and engineering teams, we all worked together to ensure we’re working on the right things at the right time, even if that’s working on everything all at once. Working back from the customer experience is always my north star and to ensure the best experience and business outcomes, all players involved in the product development have to work well together. Creating a trusted, truly agile, working relationship between product, design, engineering, and all stakeholders is one of my super powers.

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• 6. Test with Customers

  Validate everything. Don’t assume anything. Even the prior research. At Hana, we tested every part of the customer experience and in creating a culture of learning, we were not afraid to try things and fail. And being able to work in our own spaces, created a lab-like experience, where we could interact and observe with customers directly.

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• 7. Measure the Impact

  Make sure it’s all working. As builders, we were all entrepreneurs and self-starters with a bias towards action and outcomes. We optimized along the way, putting an emphasis on the big moments of the experience to get them right, so we could move on to other parts of the experience we hadn’t tackled yet.

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Then do it again and again…

My Design Process & Impact

1. Observe & Collect Data
Understanding the foundation before building

What I Did:

• Conducted comprehensive audit of existing digital touchpoints already launched or in development

• Evaluated team dynamics and business goal alignment across product, engineering, and operations

• Assessed competitive and comparative landscape and industry best practices for flexible workspace technology

Key Findings:

• No matter the persona type, the user experience navigating across multiple systems, on- and off-platform had to be seamless

• First iteration of marketing website was not performing as intended and required inefficient resource allocations to update and scale not aligning to business rapid growth needs

• Operations platform requirements were not prioritized and customer personas were unclear making the overall experience being built overly complicated

• The basic design system wasn’t scalable to support all digital touchpoints

• Quality of products didn’t match the quality of the workspaces, which created a disjointed customer experience

2. Customer Deep Dive
Mapping complex, multi-faceted user needs

What I Did:

• Expanded upon intial customer research, breaking out more persona types and developed behavioral personas based on workspace usage patterns, not just demographics

• Conducted customer interviews across B2B enterprise, SMB, and individual user segments

• Created detailed journey maps for each customer type across physical and digital touchpoints

• Established user research infrastructure including feedback loops and analytics tracking

Key Findings:

• Enterprise customers (40-50% of revenue): Required robust admin controls, multiple team configurations across locations, usage analytics, security, and seamless integration with existing corporate systems; customer looking for flexible workspaces were most likely not end user

• SMB customers (45-50% of revenue): Needed simple onboarding, flexible billing options, and space availability transparency

• Individual users (15% of revenue): Prioritized mobile-first experience, community features, and straightforward booking/access

Customer Pain Points Identified:

• Customers were confused by product offerings as presented through marketing site

• Customers abondoned conversion funnels due to multi-step user experience that asked for too much upfront information

• Marketing language didn’t match sales language around offerings

3. Plan Design Strategy
Creating scalable solutions for rapid expansion

What I Did:

• Developed comprehensive design strategy aligning customer needs with business objectives

• Created prioritization framework balancing short-term launches with long-term platform scalability

• Established design principles rooted in Omotenashi philosophy of anticipatory hospitality

• Built cross-functional alignment through design thinking workshops and strategy sessions

Strategic Priorities:

1. Unified Customer Acquisition Platform: Streamline discovery-to-onboarding experience

2. Integrated Booking & Access System: Connect physical space technology with digital interfaces

3. Enterprise-Grade Admin Portal: Provide corporate customers with usage analytics and team management

4. Mobile-First Experience: Enable seamless workspace interaction through smartphone app

5. Scalable Design System: Support rapid location expansion while maintaining quality

Design Principles Established:

• Anticipatory: Technology should predict and fulfill needs before customers realize them

• Invisible: Complex systems should feel effortless and intuitive

• Consistent: Every touchpoint should reinforce Hana's premium positioning

• Flexible: Solutions must adapt to diverse customer types and use cases

Impact Metrics:

• Achieved 100% stakeholder alignment on design strategy across 6 departments

• Reduced feature specification time by 60% through strategic framework

• Created 18-month product roadmap supporting 200% location growth plan

4. Build The Team
Establishing design excellence from zero

What I Did:

• Hired and onboarded team of talented designers across product design, visual design, and user research

• Established design operations including tools, processes, and quality standards

Culture & Processes Established:

• Weekly design reviews with customer feedback integration

• Bi-weekly cross-functional planning with product and engineering

• Created more streamlined way of working that was collaborative and broke down walls between siloed teams

Impact Metrics:

• Built 5-person design team in 8 months with 100% retention rate

• Increased design team productivity through streamlined processes

• Achieved 95% design-to-development accuracy through improved collaboration

• Reduced design review cycles from 5 rounds to 2 rounds average

5. Roadmap Product Initiatives
Orchestrating complex, interconnected product development

What I Did:

• Created integrated roadmap connecting mobile app, web platform, billing systems, and IoT infrastructure

• Established agile design process with 2-week sprint cycles aligned to engineering

• Built stakeholder communication framework ensuring design influence on product decisions

• Developed risk mitigation strategies for complex technical integrations

Enterprise Admin & Customer-Facing Portal

Unified Mobile & IoT Experience

Customer Acquisition Platform Redesign

Cross-Platform Design System

6. Test with Customers
Validating solutions through continuous feedback

What I Did:

• Established testing protocols for every customer touchpoint before launch

• Built feedback collection systems integrated into product interfaces

• Developed rapid prototyping process enabling weekly iteration cycles

Testing Methods Implemented:

• Prototype Testing: Weekly sessions with 8-12 customers per product iteration

• A/B Testing: Conversion optimization across booking funnels and onboarding flows

• Analytics Integration: Heat mapping, user flow analysis, and behavioral tracking

• Guerrilla Testing: On-site observations of customers using workspace technology

7. Measure the Impact
Demonstrating business value through design outcomes

What I Did:

• Established KPI tracking for all design initiatives with quarterly business reviews

• Built measurement frameworks for both quantitative performance and qualitative satisfaction

Revenue & Growth Impact:

• 52% business growth attributed to customer acquisition platform improvements

Operational Efficiency Impacy:

• Design team productivity increased through process optimization

• Cross-functional collaboration improved across all departments

• Product development cycle reduced through design system implementation

• Design-to-development handoff accuracy reached 95% reducing rework cycles

Then do it again and again and again…

My Overall Impact

Leading product design at Hana demonstrated how thoughtful, customer-centric design can transform complex B2B/B2C technology platforms into competitive advantages. By establishing design as a strategic business function and creating integrated experiences across physical and digital touchpoints, we not only achieved significant business growth but we also enjoyed our work.

The 52% business growth, improved customer sentiment, and successful team building (0→5 designers) proved that investing in comprehensive design strategy and execution delivers measurable business value while creating experiences that customers genuinely love.

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Director of Product Design
@ Hana (A CBRE Company)
2019-2021


DIGITAL PRODUCT DESIGN TEAM:
Don Eschenauer - Design Strategy, Customer Experience, and Brand Design Direction
Jaime Yong - Design Lead / Visual Design
Rosa Moran - User Experience / Research
Oleh Nedilko - Product Design
Sai Gautam Pulikanti - Product Design

MARKETING TEAM:
Lindsay Wester - Brand Director
Aaron Winston - Brand Content Strategy / Copy
Marissa Netley - Marketing Manager / Design

ARCHITECTURE / INTERIOR DESIGN TEAM:
Andrew Kao, AIA , Rebecca Dale, RA, Pyline Tangsuvanich, RA, Claire Keane

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