As a Lead Designer, I led the long-term vision for LinkedIn’s Settings, driving both strategic and tactical design efforts. I was instrumental in shaping the product strategy by creating and presenting a compelling design vision that aligned with business goals while meeting members’ expectations. I collaborated closely with cross-functional partners to define a clear roadmap, made critical design decisions, and delivered end-to-end design solutions.

While I can’t share the complete long-term vision due to confidentiality, two key initiatives that stemmed from the long-term vision and shipped are detailed below.

LinkedIn had 300+ settings; they were overwhelming, looked dated and had poor discoverability and often lacked clarity and comprehension. They were also built on multiple tech stacks which made it challenging to ship faster.

Settings might not be the star of the show, but they play a critical backstage role in shaping the quality of our members’ experiences. Think about it–LinkedIn is where people build their professional network, search for opportunities, and showcase their reputation. The key to a successful settings experience is simple: help them optimize and personalize their LinkedIn experience, laying the foundation for a trustworthy experience. They empower members to control their privacy, tailor notifications, and optimize their LinkedIn experience.

During the design phase, I worked closely with product and engineering stakeholders from the start, along with partnering with UX research in running multiple rounds of usability testing to gain deeper insights into the member journey. My process of collaboration and communication ensured that my design decisions were informed by real user data. My main focus for this initiative was simplifying information, prioritizing the most critical information and enhancing the visual hierarchy.

The new navigation improved consistency and discoverability leading to 20% time a member spends in finding a specific settings, making them intuitive and accessible. A few design decisions included:

I designed settings reflow and breakpoints to meet WCAG standards and work seamlessly on tablets and mobile. Designing one-experience that works on all platforms not only created a consistent member experience, but also unified the platform reducing engineering update time from 3 weeks to 2 days.

LinkedIn had hundreds of notification settings under “Communications” category of Settings, and most members were unable to navigate through the poor IA.

So, I created prototypes of that experience and our research team conducted a quick test with 50 participants over UserZoom, with a set of tasks to change their settings for managing notifications. We realized a few things:

First, let’s just change the setting tab “Communications” to “Notifications”. This was the first thing we shipped! 
The new IA for Communications/Notification Settings was a different approach than the settings that existed: instead of a “nested doll” flow that ends in granular individual settings, we’re grouping by intent and type. That means defining a new taxonomy (how terms relate to one another; their hierarchy) and semantics (the meaning behind terms we use).

We formed a core team—PM, writer, UX researcher, and myself—and defined a clear product brief with key rituals, including twice-weekly brainstorming, internal card-sorting, and bi-weekly user testing. Through numerous rounds of iteration, testing, and stakeholder reviews, we developed a JTBD-based navigation structure that aligned seamlessly with members’ mental models, improving usability and discoverability across the Notifications Settings.

The redesign of Notification settings itself led to ~70% reduction in the number of settings on the platform and reduced engineering time for new settings updates, from 3 weeks to just 2 days.

The redesign of LinkedIn’s Settings had a meaningful impact across the product were part of a broader vision to make member controls more intuitive for members. The long-term concepts I developed sparked valuable conversations among stakeholders, helping drive a shift toward a more user-centered approach. Along the way, I learnt a few things: