Katherine McAdoo

Building a Smarter, More Reliable Automation Platform

HubSpot’s automation tools empower businesses to scale efficiently—but complexity, limited visibility, and testing uncertainty prevent users from unlocking their full potential. Since joining in 2022, I've worked across our group to reimagine how users build, test, and refine workflows with enhanced guidance, better data accessibility, and improved system reliability—giving them the confidence to automate with precision.

Background

Businesses struggle with automation due to complexity, limited visibility, and testing uncertainty, preventing them from confidently building and scaling workflows.

Goal

Decrease primary CSAT detractors while eliminating primary function roadblocks

Timeline

With research stemming from 2022, work has been completed in 2023 and 2024.

PRoblem

Businesses recognize the power of automation, but many struggle with uncertainty when building workflows. Research revealed that users:

Lack confidence in how actions will behave once executed, leading to hesitation.

Have limited visibility into automation performance before launch, increasing the risk of failure.

Struggle with data access, often resorting to messy workarounds that reduce efficiency.

Design Process Improvements

Coming into the organization, the team had recently switched to Agile processes in JIRA. The team had training in JIRA but was going through the motions without truly using JIRA to plan sprints, track velocity, and get a real understanding of the work done. Tickets were large and not broken down into attainable chunks and the team didn't grasp why certain items were important.

I worked with the dev ops team to gain admin permissions and start working on improving the processes from the design perspective. Key gains I made were in splitting up tickets. I also created a 5 part training for designers to learn essential workflows specific to RingCentral.

As a lead, I also lead grooming sessions with product managers and assign work based on capacity of the team.

Addressing NPS Concerns

Working closely with a senior product manager to identify key detractors that could be solved by a junior developer in a single sprint, I've helped deliver three features that were added as stretch goals for the development team. Here is one example.

Background

Product, design, and development working together to address a complaint from a major customer and NPS comments.

Goal

To address complaints around the size of the GIPHY dialog used in messaging and introduce responsive design into the modal which was previously a fixed size.

Timeline

Interaction and visual design with sign-off completed in 1 sprint (reduction from the typical process with 4-5 sprints). Development ready in 1 release.

I worked with the GIPHY integration in React to determine feasibility for the design. Working with the team, we reviewed options for amount of columns based on breakpoints and different usage scenarios.

Component and Guideline Creation

Coming into an organization with a semi-complete design system, I worked within the guidelines looking for key areas to add or improve components. Here are some of the achievements I have made with the design system.

Data Table Updates

One of my first features required an update for the data table being used in the RingCentral app. This update also would make way for additional planned updates and allow for more flexibility. Working closely with a lead developer, I established guidelines and patterns for the new data table while constantly working to check feasibility within the selected framework.

Extended Guidelines

Our design system was worked backwards from an existing application. The guidelines for using components were either bare or non-existent. I worked to develop a new template for component guidelines, working on two examples. I then brought on an intern to work through bringing in existing guidelines and improving them.

Outcomes

A scalable automation future with:

📈 Higher confidence in automation → Increased publish rates for tested workflows.

📊 Expanded feature adoption → Greater use of actions and tools due to improved guidance.

📉 Fewer support tickets → Fewer CSAT complaints related for object access.

More to Come

Want to see how these upgrades transformed HubSpot's automation?
This is just a preview of the full picture.
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KATHERINE McADOO

KM

HubSpot

Case STudy

Building a Smarter, More Reliable Automation Platform

Background

Goal

Timeline

PRoblem

Design Process Improvements

Addressing NPS Concerns

Background

Goal

Timeline

Component and Guideline Creation

Data Table Updates

Extended Guidelines

Outcomes

More to Come

More portfolio work

NextEra Energy

RingCentral

Let’s Build Something
Incredible Together

HubSpot

Case STudy

Building a Smarter, More Reliable Automation Platform

Background

Goal

Timeline

PRoblem

Design Process Improvements

Addressing NPS Concerns

Background

Goal

Timeline

Component and Guideline Creation

Data Table Updates

Extended Guidelines

Outcomes

More to Come

More portfolio work

NextEra Energy

RingCentral

Let’s Build Something Incredible Together

Let’s Build Something
Incredible Together