Heather Shoon is the Senior Director of Product Design, Audience Experience at Vox Media where she leads a team of designers supporting its portfolio of digital brands.
Vox
When Vox migrated to a new platform, we redesigned the website, overhauling the front-end and using our newly-established design system as its foundation. Some of our main goals were:
- Better reflect the balance of Vox’s three main content types: written journalism, video content and podcasts, and encouraged movement and discovery between them.
- Revamp and modernize the visual expression of the Vox brand while adhering to swift timelines and avoiding a formal redesign process.
- Create an expanded article system to allow for greater editorial expression and variety
Eater
As with Vox, when Eater migrated to a new platform, we redesigned the website, overhauling the front-end and using our design system as its foundation. Among our high level goals were to:
- Create a multi-community site design for Eater’s 100+ local communities that serves both city residents and visitors.
- Revamp and modernize the visual expression of their brand while adhering to swift timelines and without embarking on a formal redesign process.
- Reimagine the Eater Maps experience to ease and encourage venue browsing and discovery.
Vox Design System
Role
Design Director
year
2024
We developed a design system, Overtone, to power the front-end redesigns of Vox, Eater, Polygon, The Verge, and SB Nation as they migrated to a new back end. By providing a strong baseline of components, patterns, and page templates paired with token-based styling, Overtone accelerated both the replatforming process and subsequent feature development. It was designed to balance consistency with flexibility, enabling each site to feel distinct and intentional while still benefiting from a shared system.
Birchbox
Role
Design Director
year
2013-18
Birchbox pioneered the monthly beauty subscription, delivering personalized samples and driving full-size purchases through e-commerce. I led the product design team, the team focused on our site experience.We focused on three goals for the site experience.:
- Connect physical and digital by bringing the delight of the physical box online to boost engagement and brand affinity. .
- Educate through context and storytelling to simplify beauty, build trust, create a relatable brand, and encourage purchase.
- Inspire new customers with a compelling top-of-funnel experience that clearly communicated value and encouraged subscriptions.
