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UX Principal Designer
Elaine Torres
Shaping AI-driven design strategy and complex Customer and Enterprise service design for retail consumers everywhere.
Ask about my work
What would you like to know?
Ask a question about my experience and I'll pull up the projects that answer it.
Looking through Elaine's work…
My Process
Enterprise service design elevates experiences through thoughtful listening, mapping, and user-centric design. Speed to value begins with identifying the correct problems to solve. I work through the 5D process of discover, define, design, develop, and deliver, grounded in data at every step. Here's a peek in how I do just that.
Listen first
Interviews, store visits, support data.
Map the system
Journeys, service blueprints, and the gaps between teams.
Make it real
Prototypes stakeholders and associates can react to.
Ship and measure
Instrument it, then fix what the data shows.
Selected work
Written up end to end: problem, process, outcome.
UX Principal · UX Service Design and Architecture for Enterprise and CX Systems
The Home Depot
I am currently leading future-state UX strategy and enterprise tool integration for The Home Depot. My focus is on leveraging AI-driven research and scalable design to empower store associates and optimize workflows within the CX Order Modifications and Pro Customer ecosystem for Home Depot - Do-it-Yourself customers.
This work heavily involves service design, vision setting, and leading others across complex and cross-functional teams in this UX Manager level role.
Service design
Design strategy
UX leadership
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Great design begins and ends with people.
AI-driven design strategy
Framing where AI belongs in a service, and where it doesn't.
Enterprise service design
Systems that span teams, channels, and years of legacy.
Customer experience
Research-led work on the journeys customers actually take.
UX leadership
Leading designers, agencies, and cross-functional teams from strategy to ship.
Let's talk
Open to principal and staff-level design roles, and to speaking invitations on enterprise and AI-driven design.
Start a conversationWork
Here it is, my work. Put simply, everything I have ever done as a designer has begun with understanding the problems to solve. Great design begins and ends with people.
All work
Enterprise design
Service design
Design strategy
UX leadership
UX Principal · UX Service Design and Architecture for Enterprise and CX Systems
The Home Depot
I am currently leading future-state UX strategy and enterprise tool integration for The Home Depot. My focus is on leveraging AI-driven research and scalable design to empower store associates and optimize workflows within the CX Order Modifications and Pro Customer ecosystem for Home Depot - Do-it-Yourself customers.
This work heavily involves service design, vision setting, and leading others across complex and cross-functional teams in this UX Manager level role.
Role
UX Principal (UX Manager level)
Timeline
2021-Present
Team
Enterprise UX, cross-functional
Scope
CX Order Modifications & Pro Customer
The work · 2021-2026
Five Initiatives, One Home Depot Journey
Below is the work that I have been actively involved in at The Home Depot. From visual design to UX strategy and vision-setting, my work spans complex, highly matrixed horizontal teams.
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Work artifacts
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Internal innovation
Dev Games
A week-long internal hackathon: cross-functional teams of designers, product managers, and engineers tackle a real company problem from scratch. Teams who have never met join forces for one week of intensive research, design, and engineering.
Spotlight · Team Green Data · DevGames 2026
WatchTower: Proactive Order Health
Delivery issues surface only after the customer calls, not when they happen. "Receiving Items" drives 3.1M contacts a year at $11 per call and $7 per chat, more than $20M in annual cost. As the team's User Experience Principal, I helped shape WatchTower, an always-on resolution hub that tracks every order through nine lifecycle stages and flags problems before the customer is impacted.
I started by conducting research from Home Depot's own delivery data and used Claude AI for secondary research on proactive detection. The result was one unified view of the pulse of customer orders.
Delivery Tracker API v3Express BFFVite SPAThreshold detection
Expected impact
40%
faster mean time to detect issues
30%
faster mean time to resolve
+15pt
CSAT on affected orders
20%
fewer failed or late deliveries
Portal walkthrough
80-second walkthrough, no audio.
Designed and built a working and coded product in one week by a team of seven: a product manager, an engineering manager, four engineers and myself as the UX partner.
Work artifacts
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Track Record
My product designs have placed every year I've competed and been implemented in stores and other digital product spaces. I bring the same research rigor and systems thinking to a one-week sprint as I do to a multi-year initiative.
Winning projects go on to be funded initiatives and move into production across the enterprise or stores.
Ex: My 2nd Dev games project In-Aisle Assistance went on to be developed and placed into stores. This has prevented theft of products in stores everywhere.
In-Aisle Assistance
Why it matters
Demonstrates leadership, rapid prototyping, and cross-functional collaboration under real time pressure.
Toolkit
Skills & Tools
A research-driven design practice supported by a broad, current, and ever-evolving toolset.
Beyond the work
Community & Leadership
Investing in people and partnerships outside the day-to-day product work.
Mentorship Program
Mentored junior associates and designers, sharing UX practice and career guidance within the design org.
HBCU Volunteering
Volunteered time supporting HBCU students and programs, helping build pathways into design and tech careers.
VOC Communications Committee Chair
Chaired the Voice of Customer Communications Committee, helping shape how customer feedback is shared and acted on across teams.
Team Depot
Participated in Team Depot, Home Depot's associate-led volunteer program supporting local community improvement projects.
3DE by Junior Achievement
Three years volunteering with 3DE, coaching high school teams through real-world business case challenges. Every team I've coached has won its competition.
3 years3 competition wins
Next
Get in touch
All work
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The problem
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The process
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The outcome
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Next
Get in touch
Art
Creativity is more than just pushing pixels. It also comes in the form of pushing paint across a canvas or drawing on paper.
All art
Traditional Art
Oil, Watercolor, Pen/Ink, Graphite, Charcoal, Pastel
Creativity is more than just pushing pixels. It also comes in the form of pushing paint across a canvas or drawing on paper. Contact for inquiries and commissioned pieces or murals.
Commissions
Inquiries welcome
About
I'm a UX Principal Designer shaping AI-driven design strategy and complex customer and enterprise service design. My approach to design centers on deeply understanding the needs of the people who will use a product or service and tying that understanding to the business needs it must meet.
I lead srategy and design across highly matrixed teams.
Based in Atlanta, GA. Open to Sr. Principal and Managerial design roles, consulting, and UX speaking engagements.
Focus
Design strategy
Service design
AI-driven UX
Research
Design systems
Accessibility
Tools
Figma
FigJam
Claude Design
Miro
Github
FigmaMake
Gemini Agentic Ai
Experience
UX Principal Designer • The Home Depot2021-Present
UX Architect • Cox Automotive2019-2021
UX Visual Designer • 7-Eleven 2017-2019
Speaking
Talks and panels on enterprise service design, design strategy, and where AI belongs in a customer journey.
02
Designer training
Tuesday Toolkit - Flows
The importance of user flows and taskflows in UX design and when to use them.
03
Career development · July 2024
UXing Your Career: Exploring Your Path
A 45-minute session on assessing your career mindset and applying UX thinking to your own next move.
04
Leadership & wellbeing
Emotional Intelligence vs. Emotional Agility
Monitoring our emotions to make smarter, values-based decisions, with a values card sort and an emotional agility self-assessment.
05
UX strategy
The Forest Through the Trees: Understanding Ecosystems
How ecosystem mapping helps teams see the whole system, find gaps and areas for innovation, and build a well-informed, inclusive strategy.
Inviting a speaker?
Send the event, date, and audience and I'll tell you whether
I'm the right fit.
I'm the right fit.
Mission control
Get in touch
Roles, consulting, or speaking. Tell me a little about the problem and I'll reply within two days.
elainetorres36@gmail.comEmail
linkedin.com/in/elainemtorresLinkedIn
469-494-7001Phone
Atlanta, GA · ESTRemote-friendly
Elaine Torres · UX Principal Designer