Portfolio
SiriusXM - Site & Channel Guide
SiriusXM's web platform served millions of subscribers across one of the largest satellite radio networks in the world. As the development liaison and lead CSS3 Designer, the role covered cross-departmental coordination across editorial, interactive, and development teams in both Washington, D.C. and New York, keeping a high-volume content platform consistent, accessible, and performing across CMS-driven content operations at scale.
Key Takeaways
- On-the-ground liaison between D.C. designers and New York engineers, translating between design intent and technical constraints before issues reached production. Cross-Team Collaboration ↓
- Led navigation and channel organization for the full SiriusXM/XM Radio rebrand, helping subscribers from both legacy platforms find their content and trust the new experience. The Merger ↓
- A direct interaction with a sight-impaired customer and self-directed JAWS study became the foundation of a career-long commitment to accessible design. Accessibility ↓
- Designed and styled the channel search and global typeahead end-to-end, surfacing 300+ results across genres, live events, and channels at catalog scale. Channel Search ↓
Cross-Team Collaboration
Serving as the development liaison between the front-end designers and developers based in the Washington, D.C. offices and the engineering team in New York City, the role was built on proximity and trust. Living and working in D.C. meant being the on-the-ground contact for both sides, surfacing issues as they arose, translating between design intent and technical constraints, and providing solutions that could bridge both teams before conflicts reached the production environment.
The Merger: Unifying Two Audiences
The navigation work coincided with the full SiriusXM and XM Radio rebrand, a platform-wide consolidation that required more than a visual refresh. Channels from both legacy services needed to coexist under a single umbrella, and the nav had to make that feel seamless for users who came from either side. For listeners who had built their routines around specific XM channels, the goal was reassurance: nothing you love is going away. The dropdown structure, content panels, and channel organization were all shaped around that UX priority, helping both audiences find their channels and trust the new platform.
Accessibility
This engagement marks the beginning of a personal commitment to accessible design that has carried through every project since. A sight-impaired customer was transferred to a direct line having difficulty navigating the SiriusXM audio player (built in Flash at the time). Rather than escalating without a solution, the response was to get hands-on with the problem: championing internal access to JAWS, the industry's leading screen reader at the time, and learning it through self-directed study until a viable navigation path could be mapped for the customer personally. That single interaction reframed accessibility from a compliance checkbox into something worth advocating for, and from that point forward, all front-end work has been built to meet or exceed WCAG standards. What started as one customer call became the thread running through every accessibility decision across the twenty years and five client engagements that followed.
Channel Search
The Channel Search experience was built to handle the scale of SiriusXM's full catalog - returning results across genres, live events, and individual channels simultaneously. A keyword search for "Rock" surfaces over 300 results, organized by type: a genre channel carousel designed and formatted from scratch, complete with channel artwork, numbers, and smooth navigation controls; contextual live event listings pulled in real time; and direct channel matches in a scannable list below. The global typeahead in the site header was also designed and styled end-to-end - formatting the suggestion dropdown to surface genre and channel matches as the user types, before they ever reach the search page. The challenge was owning the visual design and layout across three distinct result types and keeping the whole experience fast, clear, and consistent at catalog scale. Before this system, finding a channel required already knowing it. The search experience changed that: a listener who could only describe what they wanted could now surface 300+ options across genres, live events, and individual channels and navigate directly. Catalog-scale discovery became possible for the first time.