Case Studies
The Musician's Story| Finding the Right Fit in a Shifting Market
What happens when your most loyal users aren’t who you thought they were? As a Service Design Consultant, I reframed a usability request into a strategic research initiative. I used jobs-to-be-done to map motivations, segment users, and align the team around what truly mattered. The work clarified key personas, shaped the roadmap, and gave leadership a clear story to rally around, complete with journey maps, user videos, and data-backed recommendations. It also created a shared understanding of the changes the service needs to grow its customer base.
Role: Service Design Consultant, leading UX Research and Service Design Strategy, collaborating with co-founders, engineers, marketers, and the product team from early discovery through final recommendations for a SaaS start-up in the music industry.
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Methods: Research roadmapping, User pool creation, Stakeholder workshops, Business model mapping, Qualitative research, User interviews, custom surveys, Quantitative data analysis, Jobs-to-be-done, Journey mapping, Segment analysis, Persona creation, Co-creation sessions, Executive storytelling
Let's create a brighter future together!
Hi, I'm Amber Swartz
I enjoy bridging employee and customer experiences, building the alignment necessary for strategic change.
I’m a Senior Service Designer who has nearly 10 years of experience in UX Design, Service Design methods, and Customer Experience practices. Serving B2B or B2C startups and mid-sized organizations in SaaS, and GovTech has taught me that how we do the work is just as important as what work is being done. Whether starting from zero understanding of a user group or customer segment, or iterating on improvements to be made to an existing experience, I’m always focused on getting the right people involved early to ensure we are challenging our riskiest assumptions, learning from our users what will help decision makers most, and creating ideas that are feasible, and innovative, meeting the highest priority user needs in a way our business excels at while building and sustaining alignment and shared understanding across the organization. I enjoy tapping into our cross-functional team members' strengths and subject expertise, building bridges between internal teams, and customer understanding. Innovation is a team effort, rooted in understanding people and sustained through a culture of shared growth and ownership. I thrive in a culture that embraces authenticity and leading with humility.
While I’ve worked across industries, I’m drawn to mission-driven spaces like healthcare. I believe each person has a purpose. The profound, positive impact that medical innovation had on my life inspired me to become a designer. I am energized by organizations that exist to improve people's lives and leave the world better than we found it. 🥰
Set up For Success| Surfacing Fit in Onboarding
What happens when you stop asking users to adapt to your service and start adapting the service to them? I led end-to-end UX design of onboarding for a behavior change platform, using jobs-to-be-done thinking to create personalized setup flows based on user goals. The work clarified service fit for users early, delivered value through tailored guides, and allowed the organization to begin learning from behavioral segmentation in real time. It also set the foundation for continued collaboration across divisions.
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Role: Lead UX Designer, working cross-functionally with Development, Customer Support, Engineering, and Product teams from Discovery Research to UI Implementation for a SaaS mid size company in behavior change.
Methods: Front-Line Staff Interviews, Storyboarding, Concept Ideation, Wireframing, User Flows, Prototyping, UI Design, Specifications, Change Management, Visual design
Co-created Journey Mapping | Creating a Remote-First Method for Deep Empathy
When in-person research wasn’t an option, I developed a lightweight, remote-first approach that helped our team uncover meaningful insights in just one week. I led the design and facilitation of the method during a hackathon, focusing on emotional safety, storytelling, and co-creation. The work delivered four documented maps, reusable scripts, and renewed cross-team empathy, proving that meaningful research can be both fast and remote.
Role: Lead Service Designer, co-facilitated with a UX peer; led method design, scripting, and participant flow; collaborated with Designers, Recovery counselors, and Health industry researchers for a SaaS mid-size company in behavior change.
Methods: Journey mapping, Remote Interviews, Co-Creation sessions, Research synthesis, Script design
Replacing our payment system
What happens when you redesign a critical system that can’t afford to go offline? I served as the embedded UX designer on a live product overhaul, mapping workflows, aligning team needs, and shaping a new architecture that untangled backend logic and cross-team friction. The result empowered support staff to resolve more issues on the first call, improved internal trust, and delivered a complex system replacement on time. Along the way, the work built new connective tissue between teams that continued well beyond launch.
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Role: UX Designer embedded in product and engineering; led discovery, architecture mapping, cross-team feedback loops, and design implementation after mid-project team changes.
Methods: Voice of Employee Interviewing, Co-creation sessions, Workflow diagrams, Information architecture, UI mockups, Prototyping, Instructional design, Change management