Hi! I'm Tara Smith.
I'm a digital experience design manager who builds human-centered, intuitive products for e-commerce, fundraising, and beyond.
About Me
I've spent the past 10+ years creating digital experiences for various companies and non-profits, such as The University of Texas at Austin, Life Alert Foundation, Texas A&M University, and many small businesses and startups. I currently lead a design team at Best Buy.
As a design leader, I empower my team through coaching and mentorship. I collaborate with partners and stakeholders to build strong relationships. I give quality feedback and recognize great work, big or small.
I use design thinking as my compass to navigate complex problems and build relationships. I coach my team to empathize through customer research, define their problems, ideate opportunities for growth by facilitating workshops with stakeholders, and create low-fidelity prototypes to test and iterate.
I'm based in Texas.
Key Skills
- Experience Design (Master's, MICA)
- Team Management (Certified, UT Austin)
- Design Thinking (Also certified!, IBM)
- AI Strategy (Certified, UC Berkeley)
- Mentoring and Coaching
- User Research
- Experience Strategy
- Web & App Design
- Workshop Facilitation
Favorite Tools
- Miro
- Asana or Monday
- OfficeVibe
- Figma
- UserTesting
- HotJar + Google Analytics
Awards & Notable Facts
Go Bigger Award, UT Austin - 2018
Sunshine Award, Best Buy - 2021
Inclusive Leadership Award, Best Buy - 2021
Top Ten Mentor, ADPList - 2024
Indigenous ERG, Vice Chair, Best Buy - 2022 - Present
Director of Communications, Tyler Little League - 2023 - Present
Selected Case Studies
How Design Optimization Improved ROI & Customer Experience at Best Buy
UT Austin Fundraising: A 300% Donation Boost Through UX Transformation
Nice things my co-workers have said about me.
"Tara leads with curiosity, exploring unknown areas of opportunity with a growth mindset. She demonstrates courage every day as she models and communicates the value of human-centered design to her partners helping mature and transform both the Product Team and the value of Experience Design at Best Buy."
Experience Design Director, Best Buy
"She led strategic thinking and crafted a future depicting a delighting experience for our customers and employees. In addition, she helped create a great storytelling animation to express her vision with full potential.
This vision helped create a shared understanding among leadership, product, and engineering partners and positively impacted the collaboration. Tara has shown courage in exploring unknown work areas with a learning mindset and established an effective partnership with research, product, and engineering partners."
Experience Design Sr. Manager, Best Buy
"Tara impressed me with her methodical approach to understanding my requirements and asking sharp, insightful questions that helped me identify my next steps. Within just ten minutes, I recognized her dedication, her commitment to continuous learning, and her strong advocacy for experiential learning. I highly recommend her to anyone seeking to enhance their career trajectory or needing insightful feedback on design visioning projects"
Product Designer, Mentee
© 2024 Tara Smith
Illustrations by Annie Konst