I worked with a lead designer (Kris Aubuchon) to help lead the design process on our recent changes to the category creation interface. Our previous category setup interface overloaded new users with options and information that is not relevant to them. We wanted to explore ways to remove any barriers a user may face when setting up this important structure of their forum.

Horizon is a theme I led alongside our lead designer (Charlie Portier), product manager (Lindsey Fogle), and engineers from multiple teams. It was our answer to longstanding feedback that Discourse was too bland & confusing for non technical forum administrators. Over six months, I ran weekly collaborative design sessions, pushed for all progress to be shared transparently on our internal forum, and worked iteratively. We tested our work first on our own site, then with beta customers before a public launch.

I led the IC work behind this improvement in the Discourse admin section around theme selection & it's settings editor. While simple, our changes were met with lots of enthusiasm from the community and admin users.

I created this presentation for our company meetup in Tokyo of 2024. Drawing insights from the book Discussing Design, I laid out a framework to transform how our team and organization approaches design, feedback, critique and collaboration.