Erin Howard
Erin Howard — Executive Director, Product and Design at Charles River Laboratories. Talks and sessions delivered at UXDX.
Executive Director, Product and Design
Erin joined Charles River Laboratories in March 2021, as their Senior Director of UX/UI, tasked with building their first-ever user experience design function. Erin has 15 years of experience in building high-caliber product design teams that deliver world-class design solutions aligned with the user and business goals. She has held leadership roles in business consulting, data analytics and consumer app-based organizations, where she’s transformed design from a service-delivery mind-set to influential and deep rooted within the culture.
Erin enjoys crocheting, gardening, and building her hobby farm. She lives on 20 acres in Central Virginia with her husband, two daughters, two dogs, and ten chickens.
Past talks
4 talks · 3 events
Democratizing Research
The need for organizations to make more user-centered decisions, means that research is less mission critical than making sure company-wide insights are gathered. Our panelists will discuss what productive, responsible, and effective research democratization looks like today including how: - Cross-functional teams can apply research - Researchers can facilitate insights between users, product and marketing teams to be more effective - Undemocratising research, is the time vs value delivered worth it to the organization?
Streamlining Drug Development Through UX
In the highly regulated, rigorous and mature business of pharmaceuticals, Erin created the first-ever design team to establish a user-centered design culture. In this session, Erin will talk through the journey of the design team at Charles River Laboratories they rapidly built and released their MVP in conjunction with building their design systems, through: - Redesigning their internal & client facing platforms and democratising UX; - The biweekly research over-the-shoulders her team conducts with the overall product team; - How they team were able to scale this and; - Any future improvements she foresees.