Photo of Julia Nelson

Hey there, I'm Julia

Product Designer with 10+ years of experience crafting end-to-end experiences across digital interfaces and real-world interactions.

Boston / Greater Boston
Julia Nelson Career Timeline

Experience

Principal User Experience Designer

Product Insight August 2024 - Present

At Product Insight, I lead the design of end-to-end product ecosystems that span digital interfaces, physical interactions, and automated robotic systems. I apply systems thinking and strategic clarity to define how complex technologies should work for real people—and partner closely with engineering to ensure they actually do.

For one of my client projects, my focus is on reducing cognitive load for delivery drivers through an assistive on-the-road technology. Another centers on defining the human–robot interaction strategy for an automated storage and retrieval system across physical, spatial, and digital touchpoints.

As the senior designer on a small consulting team of two, I balance leadership with hands-on execution—mentoring a junior designer while managing multiple product, hardware, and research workstreams simultaneously.

One of my core strengths is bringing order to complexity. In a major robotics program, I created the end-to-end user flow that unified 25+ engineers, PMs, and stakeholders and became the product's source of truth—clarifying decisions, eliminating ambiguity, and accelerating the team's path forward.

Focus: The future of automated delivery ecosystems

Principal Product Designer

Motional March 2021 - July 2024 · 3 yrs 5 mos

At Motional, I helped define the future of autonomous vehicle operations. Working closely with Product, Engineering, and Operations, I redesigned the fleet monitoring platform (8× increase in users) and built new tools for remote vehicle operators, reducing vehicle downtime with 98% of cases resolved in under 45 seconds.

Focus: Autonomous vehicle experience design

Design Consultant

Accenture Digital Products June 2018 - March 2021 · 2 yrs 10 mos

While consulting at Accenture I mentored junior designers through an apprentice program, co-hosted Practice Makes (a design meetup), and led design teams in designing accessible products across various industries:

Finance Insurance Consumer Electronics Consumer Goods Education E-Commerce Small Business Public Sector Healthcare Aerospace
Focus: Consulting for various clients
Community & Leadership Community & Leadership

Community & Leadership

🎨

Design Community

At Accenture, I was a co-host of Practice Makes, a bi-monthly design meetup connecting designers, artists and fostering community.

🎲

Company Culture

At Motional, I was part of the social committee, organizing and planning new company events. I also started hosting monthly board game nights at my past two companies and regularly host craft nights.

Meetups Meetups

Continuous Learning

  • 🤖
    AI Tools for Design & Development — Experimenting with Cursor, Lovable, V0, Claude, ChatGPT, and other AI tools for UX research, design ideation, and development workflows
  • 🎓
    Leadership Essentials Certificate — Enrolled in a 4 month online course through Cornell University (eCornell) while working at Motional to become a stronger leader and mentor (2023).
  • 💡
    CLEAR Leadership Program — Selected to participate in Ali Levin's leadership and coaching program at Motional (2023).
  • 👥
    Management Training — Participated in a week-long in-person course at Motional (October 2022)
  • 👩‍💻
    New Programs — Recently learned ProtoPie for complex multi-device prototyping, continuing to learn Blender for 3D modeling.
  • 💻
    Front-End Development — HTML, CSS, JavaScript through One Month and General Assembly and have continued enhancing my skills with new frameworks and tools.

Outside of Work

I'm always up for a new adventure or learning something new. Here are a few of my favorite things to do:

  • 🚴Biking
  • 🛼Skating
  • 🏍️Riding my motorcycle
  • 🛴E-Scooting
  • 🎶Going to Concerts
  • 🧶Learning new crafts
  • 🎲Board games
  • 🎮Video games
  • 🎬Watching thrillers
  • 🎧Audiobooks
  • 🎨Painting
  • 🌱Gardening
  • 🥗Plant-based cooking
  • 🏋️Weightlifting
  • 📷Photography
  • 🗺️Planning trips
Outside of Work - Hobbies and Interests Outside of Work - Hobbies and Interests

Let's Connect

If you're interested in collaborating or simply want to connect, don't hesitate to reach out!