Sheet index · Folio 2026 · Rev. 2026.10

  • A-000Cover
  • A-050Plates
  • A-100Drawing register
  • A-200Leadership ledger
  • A-300Legend
  • A-400Career
  • A-500About
  • A-600Studio
  • A-700Contact
  • A-101Building a design team for four Shopify apps
  • A-102One merchant experience across four Built-for-Shopify apps
  • A-103Virtual care that works for patients, caregivers and clinicians
  • A-104One token system, three product teams
  • A-105Mobile checkout and merchant tools
  • A-106From buildings to products
  • CopyCopy email
  • ViewSwitch theme
  • ViewMore contrast
  • ViewMotion off
  • GShow grid

Folio 2026

Sheet A-000

Richmond, BC

49.17°N 123.14°W

Design leadership · Commerce · Health

Sara Gholamali Poor

Design Lead · player-coach

A floor plan turns into an app screen, then into a design-team org chart. One design lead connected to three product pods and a research and content seat. 1 : 5 N STUDIO 14.4 m² LIVING 22.1 m² ENTRY 9.8 m² UP 01 PLAN · LEVEL 1 · 1:50 Restock alerts Send test Alerts sent 1,284 Revenue CA$9,420 Conversion 11.6% Storefront button Most-requested products Requests 02 APP HOME · RESTOCK ALERTS · 1:1 1:1s CRIT REVIEW Design lead Alerts & pre-orders Memberships &promotions AI assistant Research &content DESIGNER POD CORRIDOR 03 DESIGN TEAM · 2025–26 · 1 : 5

I used to design buildings people move through. Now I design products — and the teams that build them.

See the work How I lead

14 years
in design
9 years
in digital product
6
people on the design team I lead
4
Built-for-Shopify apps
Vancouver, BC
Pacific Time

14 yrs in design · 9 in digital product · Leads a 6-person design team · 4 Built-for-Shopify apps · Vancouver, BC

A-050 · Plates

Twelve plates from the set

Two from every sheet in the register. Open a plate to read its sheet.

  1. Design health dashboard with each app’s HEART scorecard, one at-risk cell bracketed, beside the printed September brief.
    A-101.1Design health and the brief to leadershipLeadership · Commerce. Case study: Building a design team for four Shopify apps
  2. Restock alerts App Home with a four-step setup checklist, beside a phone where a shopper asks to be emailed when a mug is back.
    A-102.1App Home and the shopper’s restock sheetCommerce · Shopify. Case study: One merchant experience across four Built-for-Shopify apps
  3. Patient booking leads with Today, Tomorrow, This week; clinician tablet shows a prescription renewal to approve.
    A-103.1Today-first booking and the approval queueHealthcare · Telehealth. Case study: Virtual care that works for patients, caregivers and clinicians
  4. Exploded isometric of four layers, primitives to a settings screen, with one token chain from blue-600 to Save.
    A-104.1One token chain, blue-600 to the Save buttonSaaS · Design systems. Case study: One token system, three product teams
  5. Checkout with Pay $46.80, a plain-language bank details step, and a wallet whose payout timeline puts a date on every step.
    A-105.1Checkout, payout setup and a dated timelineMobile commerce · Payments. Case study: Mobile checkout and merchant tools
  6. Drawing sheet: Level 1 plan of a five-storey mixed-use building and Section A–A, set out on one 8.4 m grid.
    A-106.1Level 1 plan and Section A–A on one 8.4 m gridArchitecture & planning. Case study: From buildings to products
  7. Hiring board for a product designer role, 240 applied to 4 hired, candidates by initials, each scored on the same written rubric.
    A-101.2Hiring: 240 applied, 4 hired, one rubricLeadership · Commerce. Case study: Building a design team for four Shopify apps
  8. AI assistant review queue: a suggested reply with sources, confidence and rubric checks, and a one-click Hand to a person button.
    A-102.2AI drafts with sources, one click to a personCommerce · Shopify. Case study: One merchant experience across four Built-for-Shopify apps
  9. Three phones: inviting a daughter, her scoped permissions with an access end date, and a log of what she did.
    A-103.2Caregiver access: named, scoped, expiringHealthcare · Telehealth. Case study: Virtual care that works for patients, caregivers and clinicians
  10. Token docs: six colour ramps of eight steps, a theme switcher for three products and a light and dark table.
    A-104.2Three brands on one component setSaaS · Design systems. Case study: One token system, three product teams
  11. Merchant web orders table beside a “Where’s my money?” panel: order paid, in transit for two days, deposited Friday.
    A-105.2“Where’s my money?” answered on the webMobile commerce · Payments. Case study: Mobile checkout and merchant tools
  12. The same grid with an App Home laid on twelve columns: metric cards and panels break on the structural lines.
    A-106.2Same grid: an App Home on 8.4 m baysArchitecture & planning. Case study: From buildings to products

A-100 · Drawing register

Selected work

Six sheets, newest first. Each one says what I owned and what the team did — about seven minutes each, or sixty seconds if you’re busy.

Filter sheets by sector

  1. Sheet A-101

    Project: Building a design team for four Shopify apps

    Sector: Leadership · Commerce Role: Hands-on design lead Year: 2025–26 Team 2 → 6 · 4 hires · no one has left The design team drawn as a floor plan: three pod rooms, a research seat and a library, joined by crit, review and 1:1 corridors.
  2. Sheet A-102

    Project: One merchant experience across four Built-for-Shopify apps

    Sector: Commerce · Shopify Role: Player-coach Year: 2025–26 Setup steps 8 → 4 · activation +19 pts · second-app installs +14% Four App Home windows in a cascade — Restock alerts, Memberships, Promotions, AI assistant — sharing one header, metrics and setup card.
  3. Sheet A-103

    Project: Virtual care that works for patients, caregivers and clinicians

    Sector: Healthcare · Telehealth Role: Senior UX designer · project lead Year: 2023–24 No-shows −18% · intake 11 → 4 min · SUS 64 → 83 Patient phone on Join visit with Dr. Priya Anand starting in 4 min, beside the edge of the clinician tablet.
  4. Sheet A-104

    Project: One token system, three product teams

    Sector: SaaS · Design systems Role: Senior UX designer · system lead Year: 2021–23 Colour values 212 → 48 · coverage 22% → 78% Isometric stack of three layers, colour primitives, semantic tokens and components, with action-primary marked.
  5. Sheet A-105

    Project: Mobile checkout and merchant tools

    Sector: Mobile commerce · Payments Role: UI/UX designer Year: 2018–20 Checkout 61% → 72% · payout setup 58% → 74% Three overlapping Android phones: a one-page checkout, a payout setup step and a wallet with a dated payout timeline.
  6. Sheet A-106

    Project: From buildings to products

    Sector: Architecture & planning Role: Senior architect (junior to senior) Year: 2011–17 11 projects, concept to construction documents A Level 1 floor plan on the left meets an App Home on the right, both set out on the same column grid.

A-200 · Leadership ledger

I run the team and still do the work.

I’m a hands-on design lead: most of my week is still design work on our apps. Alongside it, I run the team side — who we hire, what we spend, what we measure, and what leadership hears from us. Open any line.

Purpose
Design’s job is to make the next decision easier.
People
I hire for judgement, then get out of the way.
Process
Critique the work, never the person.
Proof
If we can’t tell whether it worked, it isn’t done.
01 Hiring & team building 2 to 6people on the team in 12 months

I grew the team from two of us to six in twelve months: four hires, and no one has left. I wrote the role scorecards before the job posts, designed a paid three-hour exercise that respects candidates’ time, and ran every panel on the same written rubric. Median time-to-hire: 38 days.

Hire for judgement; train for tools.

Hiring funnel · product designers, 2025–26
View as table
LabelValue (candidates)
Applicants240
Portfolio screens28
Paid exercises9
Panels5
Offers4
Hires4

Product designer pipeline, 2025–26. 4 of 4 offers accepted. Median 38 days from application to signed offer.

Before2 people, 4 apps

After3 pods + a research & content seat

02 Budget & resourcing within 3%of plan, FY 2025–26

I own the design budget: contractors, tools and licences, research incentives and learning. My first fiscal year, October to September, landed within 3% of plan. I plan capacity in designer-weeks across the four apps first and dollars second, and rebalance it with product every quarter.

Budget in designer-weeks first, dollars second.

Design budget · FY 2025–26
Design budget · FY 2025–26Contractors 38%; Tools & licences 24%; Research incentives 18%; Learning 12%; Reserve 8%. Centre: CA$180k plan, FY 25–26CA$180kplan, FY 25–26
View as table
SegmentShare
Contractors38%
Tools & licences24%
Research incentives18%
Learning12%
Reserve8%
plan, FY 25–26CA$180k

Plan by category, FY 2025–26 (Oct–Sep), outside salaries. Spend landed within 3% of plan.

Capacity plan · Q3 2026
View as table
LaneItemWhenStatus
Restock alertsSetup in 4 stepsJulDone
Restock alertsPre-order depositsAug → SepActive
MembershipsMember portal v2Jul → AugDone
MembershipsGifted membershipsSepPlanned
PromotionsPromotion calendarJul → SepActive
PromotionsPolaris migrationAug → SepActive
AI assistantHand-off v2Jul → SepActive
AI assistantAnswer auditSepPlanned
Systems & researchLibrary, merchant panelJul → SepActive

64 designer-weeks, planned with product before anything was promised and rebalanced every quarter.

03 Gathering the numbers 4 × 5HEART signals gathered every month

Every month I gather a HEART scorecard for each app — happiness, engagement, adoption, retention and task success — from product analytics, support tags and a standing panel of 40 merchants. The team sees the same numbers leadership does.

I only collect numbers someone will act on.

HEART scorecard · September 2026
View as table
AppHappiness (CSAT)Engagement (weekly active stores)Adoption (set up in 7 days)Retention (90-day)Task success
Restock alerts4.6 / 5 ▲ On track71% ▲ On track60% ▲ On track88% ▬ On track92% setup completed ▲ On track
Memberships4.4 / 5 ▲ On track58% ▬ Watch47% ▲ Watch91% ▲ On track86% renewals set up ▲ On track
Promotions4.3 / 5 ▬ Watch62% ▲ On track52% ▼ At risk84% ▬ Watch89% discount live first try ▲ On track
AI assistant4.1 / 5 ▲ Watch44% ▲ Watch39% ▲ Watch79% ▼ At risk78% resolved without hand-off ▲ On track

One row per app, every month, from product analytics, support tags and a standing panel of 40 merchants. Status is always a word.

04 Reporting up 12 / 12monthly briefs to leadership, on time

Leadership gets one page from me every month — what shipped, what moved, what’s at risk and what I need — twelve for twelve. Each quarter I review design OKRs with the heads of product and engineering, and the asks on that page are how the design budget gets decided.

One page, every month, no surprises.

Monthly brief to leadership · September 2026
Monthly brief to leadership · September 2026

Design · Monthly brief

September 2026

From
Design Lead
To
Leadership team
Period
September 2026

01Shipped

  • Member portal v2 live in Memberships
  • AI assistant hand-off v2 for 30% of stores
  • Restock alerts pre-order deposits in beta

02Moved

  • Activation +19 pts since Q1 (41% → 60%)
  • Design-to-dev handoff −35%
  • AI answers passing our rubric 87% → 91%

03At risk

  • Promotions’ App Home redesign for Polaris web components is two sprints behind on design. Plan: a design contractor for six weeks, paid from the design reserve.

04Asks

  • Approve a CA$2,400 research-incentive top-up for the Q4 merchant panel
  • One engineering pair for two weeks of accessibility fixes in Memberships

05Next

  • Q4 planning inputs due Fri, Oct 2
  • Career-ladder calibration
  • 200-question audit of AI assistant answers
Design budget: 90% spent at 92% of the year · on track to land within 3% of plan

One page every month, two days after the scorecard. Twelve of twelve sent on time.

05 Design ops & rituals −35%design-to-dev handoff time

A weekly crit, two design-review slots a week with engineering, one shared library and a written definition of ready cut the time from “design done” to “in development” by 35%. If a ritual stops producing decisions, we cancel it.

Rituals light enough to keep.

The design week
View as table
RhythmWhenWhatLength
WeeklyTue 10:00Crit60 min
WeeklyWed 14:00Design review with engineering45 min
WeeklyThu, every 2 weeks1:1s
WeeklyFri 11:00Design review with engineering45 min
WeeklyFri 15:00Library office hours30 min

Under four hours of shared time per designer. If a ritual stops producing decisions, we cancel it.

06 Roadmap partnership 4 apps, 1 planquarterly planning with product and engineering

I sit in quarterly planning with the product and engineering leads for all four apps. Design writes the problem statement before anyone writes a ticket, and every bet is sized in designer-weeks before it’s promised.

Design shows up before the tickets exist.

Design roadmap · Q4 2025 → Q3 2026
View as table
LaneItemWhenStatus
Restock alertsSetup in 4 stepsQ1 2026 → Q3 2026Done
Restock alertsPre-order depositsQ3 2026Active
MembershipsMember portal v2Q1 2026 → Q3 2026Done
MembershipsGifted membershipsQ3 2026Planned
PromotionsStacked discountsQ4 2025 → Q1 2026Done
PromotionsPromotion calendarQ2 2026 → Q3 2026Active
AI assistantReview queueQ4 2025Done
AI assistantHand-off v2Q1 2026 → Q3 2026Active
AI assistantMultilingual answersQ3 2026Planned
PlatformShared App HomeQ4 2025 → Q2 2026Done
PlatformPolaris web components: 2 of 4 appsQ2 2026 → Q3 2026Active

Planned with the product and engineering leads. Design writes the problem statement before anyone writes a ticket.

07 Mentoring & growth 2designers now run crit without me

Every designer has a bi-weekly 1:1, a written growth plan and a place on a four-level career ladder we wrote together. Two designers now run crit on their own, and one took over the AI assistant’s design after I led its first release.

My job is to make myself less necessary every quarter.

Design career ladder v1.2
View as table
LevelCraftProduct thinkingCollaborationLeadershipPeople
Product designerShips polished flows on the shared libraryFrames the problem before drawing screensWorks daily with one PM and their engineersGives clear, specific critD2, D4, D5
Senior product designerSets the quality bar for a whole appShapes a roadmap with research and dataAligns product, engineering and supportRuns crit and mentors one designerD1 (D1 ↑ Senior, Q1 2026), D3
Lead designerOwns patterns across all four appsTurns strategy into a sequenced planPartners with product and engineering leadsLeads a pod and grows its designers
Design leadHolds the bar across the suiteSets design strategy with leadershipRepresents design to leadershipHires, budgets and builds the team

Four levels, four tracks, written with the team. Five designers; one promotion this year.

Operating cadence

Operating cadence
View as table
RhythmWhenWhatLength
WeeklyCrit
Weekly2 design reviews
WeeklyLibrary office hours
Every 2 weeks1:1s with every designer
Monthly1st working MondayHEART scorecard in
MonthlyWednesday afterLeadership brief out
MonthlyPortfolio review
QuarterlyPlanning with product and engineering
QuarterlyOKR review
QuarterlyCapacity rebalance
QuarterlyLadder check-ins

How the year runs. Reports come in on the first working Monday and go up that Wednesday.

Read the full sheet: Building a design team for four Shopify apps

A-300 · Legend

From buildings to products

The vocabulary changed in 2017. The job didn’t: read the site, set out a grid, keep people moving, check the work.

How one way of working reads on site, in the product and in the team.
On siteIn the productIn the team
Site analysis Discovery research A listening tour in my first 30 days
The brief Jobs to be done A team charter and a hiring plan
Circulation User flows Rituals: crit, review, 1:1s
Structural grid Tokens and layout grid A career ladder and clear roles
Building code WCAG 2.2 and Built-for-Shopify requirements A hiring rubric and review standards
Cost plan Scope and sequencing A design budget within 3% of plan
Site visits Usability tests and design QA The monthly scorecard
As-built drawings Release notes and docs The leadership brief

A-400 · Section A–A · Career

Fourteen years, built floor by floor.

  1. ▽ ±0.00 Foundation

    2000–05 · 2009–11

    B.Sc. Architectural Engineering · M.Sc. Urban & Regional Planning and Design

    Structure, cities, and how people move through both.

  2. ▽ +3.60 L1

    2011–17 · A construction and architecture practice

    Architect, junior to senior

    Residential and mixed-use buildings from concept to construction documents. I learned to keep engineers, clients and contractors moving in one direction.

  3. ▽ +7.20 L2

    2017–20 · A mobile-commerce SaaS company

    UI/UX Designer

    Web and mobile tools for merchants: user research, usability testing and UX strategy — and the first time I measured a design with real users.

  4. ▽ +10.80 L3

    2020–24 · A software studio building SaaS

    Senior UX Designer

    I led UX on client products — research, wireframes and prototypes with PMs and engineers — including a token design system and a virtual-care platform.

  5. ▽ +14.40 L4

    2025–now · A Vancouver company building Shopify apps

    Design Lead

    Hands-on design across four Built-for-Shopify apps, leading a team of six. Most of my week is design work; I also run hiring, the design budget and a monthly report to leadership.

  6. ▽ +18.00 Roof

    Next level

    Growing the team I lead while most of my week stays in the files: more designers running crit on their own.

  7. Annex

    Studio · ongoing

    Painting, after hours. Oil and acrylic, mostly light on water. Visit the studio

Sara Gholamali Poor smiling at her phone, in a dark denim jacket and mustard shirt, with autumn leaves behind her.
S.G.P. · Richmond, BC

A-500 · About

Hello, I’m Sara.

I trained as an architect and practised for six years: plans at 1:50, site meetings at 7 a.m., and a lot of people to keep moving in one direction.

In 2017 I moved the same craft onto screens — merchant tools, SaaS products, a design system and a virtual-care platform for patients over 60 and the people who care for them.

Today I’m a hands-on design lead in Vancouver, designing Shopify apps with a team of six. Most of my week is design work; I also help hire, plan the design budget, gather the numbers and report them up. At night, I paint.

Based in
Richmond, BC (Greater Vancouver)
Role
Design Lead · player-coach
Team
6 people · 4 apps
Experience
14 years in design · 9 in digital product
Education
M.Sc. Urban & Regional Planning and Design · B.Sc. Architectural Engineering
Focus
Design leadership · commerce · healthcare · SaaS

Get in touch

A-600 · Studio

After hours, I paint.

Mostly oil, mostly light on water. Painted after hours.

Detail of an oil painting: broken strokes of light on water. App home setup checklist from sheet A-102, with optional settings moved to a Later panel.
Same hand. Painting taught me where the eye goes first. Product design taught me to prove it with a usability test. Left: painting (detail) · Right: A-102 App HomeA-102 App Home → painting (detail), as you scroll
  • Low Tide, Steveston: wet sand flats in ochre under a pale sky.
    Title
    Low Tide, Steveston
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Size
    76 × 102 cm (30 × 40 in)
  • Fog over the Fraser: a river dissolving into blue-grey fog.
    Title
    Fog over the Fraser
    Medium
    Oil on linen
    Size
    61 × 76 cm (24 × 30 in)
  • Courtyard at Noon: warm white walls and terracotta in hard midday light.
    Title
    Courtyard at Noon
    Medium
    Acrylic on canvas
    Size
    90 × 90 cm (35 × 35 in)
  • Garry Point, After Rain: slate sky over green-gold marsh grass.
    Title
    Garry Point, After Rain
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Size
    51 × 61 cm (20 × 24 in)

1 / 4

A-700 · Contact

Let’s build something together.

Design leadership, a product problem worth solving, or a painting for your wall — write to me. I read everything and reply within two working days.

sarah.gh60@gmail.com
Local time
Based in
Richmond, BC · Greater Vancouver
Paintings
Inquire by email