Scott Lederer
Capitol AI
Driving the design of a modern data storytelling experience
2022–2023
Capitol AI helps anyone craft modern, data-driven stories, presentations, and reports. As Head of Design, I played a key role in shaping its journey toward product-market fit – from a visualization tool for data storytellers, to automatic insight generation for enterprise data, to an LLM-powered document authoring.
User-centered from the start, and with an early focus on healthcare, we interviewed and observed data analysts, product managers, and software engineers at digital healthcare startups and a leading health insurer, unpacking the nuances of their legacy data reporting practices and evaluating our evolving product in the wild. When ChatGPT exploded, we plugged in and turbocharged our data storytelling innovations for an even larger market.
Some key contributions:
- Product Design Leadership: Directed and contributed to the design of AI copilots, collaborative document editing, data analysis workflows, and elegant data visualization tools.
- Visionary Design Concepts: Created and evangelized design concepts to clarify the evolving product vision and guide team alignment.
- User-Centered Strategy: Workshopped insights about user needs and practices into actionable use cases and feature ideas.
- Organizational Ops: Partnered with product and engineering teams to streamline execution, including ceremonies, communication, issue tracking, and deliverables.
- Design Practice Improvement: Spearheaded changes to our design review process, improving velocity, outcomes, and meeting efficiency.
- Team Stewardship: Cultivated a supportive environment for the design team, driving focus, momentum, and camaraderie while removing obstacles.
- Design System Management: Wrangled our Figma architecture to fit the contours of our design & development lifecycle (and vice versa).
- Trusted Advisor: Served as go-to sounding board across departments, providing strategic feedback to design, product, engineering, data, and executive teams.