CASE STUDY — WELBILT
“While I was on maternity leave, Sharone stepped up and led the design team on his own. He managed the projects, the team, and multiple deadlines independently, and he did an amazing job.”
— Nour Daghstani, Lead UX/UI Designer, Welbilt — KitchenConnect
UX/UI Designer II
ROLE
Welbilt Inc. (KitchenConnect)
COMPANY
March 2025 – November 2025
TIMELINE
Web & mobile
PLATFORM
Design team of four (led for several months)
TEAM
OVERVIEW
THE CHALLENGE
A commercial kitchen runs on connected equipment — ovens, fryers, refrigeration — and every machine produces data somebody has to act on. KitchenConnect’s users are not one audience: operators watching performance across locations, managers responsible for uptime and cost, and service teams who need to know what is failing before it fails. The design problem was density without chaos: complex, data-heavy workflows that several different roles had to read at a glance, on web and mobile, and an experience that had to meet WCAG 2.1 AA and Section 508 accessibility requirements throughout — not as an audit at the end, but as a condition of every screen.
WHAT I DID
Dashboards & data-dense workflows — Designed the core monitoring dashboards and multi-role workflows, carrying each feature from research and journey mapping through testing to developer-ready specs.
Design system — Built and maintained a reusable Figma component library with Auto Layout and Variables, so a growing platform could ship consistent, accessible interfaces faster.
Automation program — Designed an IFTTT-style automation experience that lets operators set rules across connected equipment instead of reacting to problems one machine at a time.
Connected-device interfaces — Designed the device-level interfaces that tie physical equipment to the platform: status, alerts, and control surfaces for the machines themselves.
Research & verification — Ran UX research and usability testing, documented findings, and translated them into design decisions the product and engineering teams could build from.
Accessibility as a standard — Held every deliverable to WCAG 2.1 AA and Section 508, designing for the requirement up front rather than remediating later.
LEADING THE TEAM
For several months I served as lead designer for a team of four — setting direction, running design reviews, and mentoring across the dashboard, automation, and device-interface work. When my manager went on maternity leave, I ran the design team on my own: the projects, the team, and multiple deadlines, end to end, until she returned.
ILLUSTRATIONS, MADE UP DATA
Welbilt does not allow product screens to be shared. These are redrawn from scratch to show how I think, with made up numbers. They are not the product.
AUTOMATION RULE
One rule, not twelve alerts
IF fryer 3 oil temperature stays above its limit for 10 minutes
THEN alert the kitchen manager on their phone
AND open a service note for the equipment team
The operator sets the rule once. The platform watches every machine.
DENSE DASHBOARD
Status first, detail on tap
Before: every machine shows every number at the same weight.
After: each location shows one plain status, working, needs attention, or down. Tap a location to open its machines, then a machine to open its numbers.
Each role reads the top level at a glance and goes deeper only when it needs to.
THE OUTCOME
The platform’s design system and core product surfaces shipped to the operators who run on KitchenConnect every day — a single, consistent design language across web, mobile, and device interfaces, an accessibility standard held across the product, and a design function that kept delivering at full pace through a leadership gap. The work is best described by the person who led the team:
WHAT MY MANAGER SAID
“He brings a rare combination of strong research skills, solid UX/UI capabilities, and a genuine focus on the people who will actually use the product. What always stood out to me was how deeply he cared about understanding user needs… He consistently documented findings and translated them into meaningful design decisions, which is one of his strongest skills.”
“While I was on maternity leave, Sharone stepped up and led the design team on his own. He managed the projects, the team, and multiple deadlines independently, and he did an amazing job.”
— Nour Daghstani, Lead UX/UI Designer, Welbilt — KitchenConnect
Designing a complex product your team has to ship? That’s the work I do. Let’s talk.
Welbilt did not allow product screens to be shared, so none are shown here. Client information and unreleased work are not displayed.
GET IN TOUCH
studio.sharonepoole@gmail.com
linkedin.com/in/sharone-poole