The Entrepreneur’s Panel — July 2017

Alexandra Busenitz
Jul 21, 2017 · 4 min read
Design panel at WeWork National Building — Tuesday, July 18, 2017

This month’s workshop featured a panel of four web design and UX experts to give feedback to several volunteer websites. Our panel gave constructive and versatile tips and tricks for the audience and owners of the websites.


Panelist 1: Demetrio P. Cardona-Maguigad

Demetrio is a a strategist and educator in the areas of communication, design, and digital technologies.

As the director of design strategy at LimeRed Studio, Demetrio strives to create experiences that guide people through the complexities of today’s world, so that they can discover new connections, meaning, and possibilities.

Design Advice
Watch the space of everything on your site. It makes it hard for the user to know where to choose from, or where to begin.

What’s the story? Where does the user start and end?

Tell the user how you are better than your competitors.

Panelist 2: Carolyn Chandler

Carolyn has 20 years of UX experience as a consultant and practice leader. As Director of UX for Eight Bit Studios, her specialties include design strategy, workshop facilitation, interaction design, information architecture, and user research and modeling.

She also co-authored A Project Guide to UX Design and Adventures in Experience Design. UX will never get old for her because she’s an experience junky who loves having an excuse to climb into trucks, loiter in hospitals, and play with kids in the name of research.

Design Advice
Make sure the path of “what to do” is clear for the user.

Popping a testimonial or two on the front page will make customers far more likely to read and respond to it versus clicking on a tab that says testimonials.

Panelist 3: Joseph Martin

Joseph Martin is a Chicago-based entrepreneur, speaker, and designer with a love for making things simple. He has served as a mentor & judge for Google Startup Weekend competitions, in addition to running The Entrepreneur’s Workshop — a 900+ person Chicago meetup. He has spoken at conferences, colleges, dev schools, business workshops, and more recently the commencement speaker for The Art Institute Chicago 2017 Graduation Ceremony. His writing has been published online at the New York Observer and Website Magazine, among others.

Design Advice
Start with the UVP! As a rule of thumb be sure your UVP is the first thing your customers see on your website.

Make sure there is a clear path that a consumer can follow as they go through your site. You’re telling a persuasive story.

Panelist 4: Scott Blair

Scott Blair is a freelance Experience Designer & Researcher focused on user-centered solutions for consumer and enterprise digital experiences. He’s also a co-founder and organizer of the UX Strategy Chicago meetup.

passion is discovering how people value the products they use. He enjoy’s that he’s continuously learning about how products can best address people’s needs, how they are actually used and how those experiences are perceived.

Design Advice
Use your testimonials to show a specific feature you have instead of saying “you’re amazing”.

Don’t always assume your customers understand the product — know their level of awareness.

Make sure to highlight how you’re doing it differently.


The Entrepreneur’s Workshop is a Chicago-based meetup group that provides small group sessions to further develop skills in business & marketing. The purpose of these sessions is to help strengthen the entrepreneurial community in Chicago by providing a place to learn and interact.

July’s MeetUp was a joint effort between The Entrepreneur’s Workshop MeetUp and the Windy City Problem Solvers LinkedIn Group, hosted by WeWork National Building.

The Entrepreneur’s Workshop

Chicago-based small group sessions to further develop skills in business & marketing.

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Alexandra Busenitz

Written by

The Entrepreneur’s Workshop

Chicago-based small group sessions to further develop skills in business & marketing.

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