Bridging the Gap Between Architects and AI

Role: Customer Experience Lead Company: HP (via Nacar) Industry: AEC / AI SaaS Timeframe: Oct 2022 – May 2024

AEC professionals waste valuable hours manually redrawing old architectural plans. HP set out to build an AI tool that converts scanned documents (PDF/TIFF) into editable CAD files. But:

Users didn’t trust full automation.

The AI wasn’t ready for the market.

The business model needed validation.

As Customer Experience Lead, I designed and validated the early MVP experience, from pilot platform to market fit. I led:

Service and UX strategy

Real-user validation

Paid pilot design

Team alignment between AI, product, and UX

✅ Designed a “Wizard of Oz” MVP — simulating AI to test user demand

📈 Ran SEO & Google Ads experiments to target high-intent user segments

💬 Redesigned onboarding flows to guide skeptical users and boost trust

🤝 Bridged AI, UX, and hardware teams to ensure technical feasibility matched user needs

📊 Analyzed weekly data to improve product direction and market messaging

ResultMetricFaster time-to-market🚀 Cut roadmap from 3 years to 1.5Onboarding success📈 +20% increase through better UXConversion rate💡 +10% via UX-led messaging experimentsCustomer acquisition🎯 30% shorter cycle via SEO + targetingMarket validation💰 Real paid users engaged in pilot

🧠 Progressive trust > full automation: Real users preferred tools that let them control outputs.

🤝 Human-in-the-loop UX was critical for adoption.

🎯 Service design accelerated business alignment across AI, product, and sales teams.