Seven years scaling design at Blue Nile

Context

Blue Nile sells one of the most considered purchases people ever make online: a diamond. Buyers are nervous, the product is technical, and the differences between two stones can be invisible in a photo.

I spent seven years there, growing from UI Designer to Senior UX Design Manager. Over that time my job shifted from designing the experience to shaping how design, product, and the business decided what to build.

How I led

• Started the Blue Nile Design System as UX Lead Designer, while leading several high-level projects at once and mentoring my first direct reports.
• Built the design team as UX Design Manager, including interviewing, hiring, and firing.
• Set the team's rhythm: weekly WIP reviews, regular design reviews, and documented guidelines that kept improving.
• Brought research into the agile workflow, with regular interviews and usability testing.
• Created the company's first product roadmap with product owners, tying design work directly to business goals.
• Pitched to executive leadership every week, turning design work into business decisions.

What we built: diamond comparison

The question was simple: how do you help someone find the right diamond in a haystack, and know it's the right one?

Goals

• A consistent way to see real images of diamonds, including 360° views.
• A format every vendor could supply the same way.
• Built-in education, so buyers understand what the images show.

Constraints: a tight deadline for the first release, limited development capacity, and showing relative size honestly on screen.

We mapped where comparison should live in the shopping flow, then took four variants each on mobile and desktop into testing to see which one helped people find the right diamond fastest and understand quality best.

Modernizing the product page

Alongside comparison, we modernized the product page itself: larger imagery with every angle one click away, metal and size choices with stock status right next to them, and price, delivery date, and Add to Cart grouped together so the decision never has to scroll. The prototype is at the top of this page.

Outcome

• Revenue grew from $450M to over $550M during my time leading UX.
• Blue Nile's first product roadmap, which is still the model for how design and product plan together.
• A comparison experience grounded in tested behavior, not opinion.

Reflection

The next step would have been progressive disclosure: start with a simple description, expand to full detail, and make scanning the top priority, with sticky rows on small screens.