Brand Experience
Although it's best to have teams of specialists working together, I often find myself on teams that don't have that staff. Fortunately, I have experience as a UX Strategist, UX Researcher and Visual UI Designer too. Yes, I'm one of those "unicorn people". (Really!) We're rare, but we do exist. And we're super handy to have around. ;)
"Turn the website into a mobile app."
"Redesign the core templates used by 300 online medical reference websites."
"Our users say search is awful. Fix it."
* I'd be happy to provide more information in person, but can't give public company details here, because these projects are still in progress.
Additional details about these (and additional) UX Case Studies can be provided through email, as many of them are not yet live..
Business/End-User Requirements Gathering
End User Surveys and Interviews
Analytics Analysis
Competitive UI Analysis
Visual Design
High Fidelity Prototyping (incl. animation)
End User Testing
Design features & Functionality delivered as Agile/Sprint-level User Stories (PBIs)
"Create a website to feature creative film work of BBC Director"
"Turn the book into an app"
"Redesign the core templates of 300 medical journal websites, each with their own branding."
Requirements Gathering
Branding & Visual Design
Low Fidelity Prototyping
Remote End User Testing
"Create a website to feature, and host, the short film."
Competitive UI Analysis
Industry Research
Visual Design
Front-End Development (using Webflow)
Competitive UI Analysis
Industry Research
Visual Design
Front-End Development
Just like a kid with building blocks, UX and UI Designers have an amazing selection of tools to drive product design. Here's a few that I've used:
That's because even senior leadership now knows that Design truly isn't just about the visuals. It's about how the UI works. And thank heavens we have a multitude of tools and processes to measure what we do, to ensure that UX/UI Designers remain officially invited to the "desire, measure, improve" party.
All of your wonderful UX research won't turn into actual dev work, if you can't effectively show management why it matters, and how it helps your users (and the business!)
All of your beautiful UI designs and prototypes will be in lost to the ages, if you can't communicate the logic and vision behind it to your peers (and the wallet-holders).
Being talented and thorough isn't enough! You need to know how to speak the language of business. Only then can you ensure your end users get the best product possible.
Diversity of work makes a person adaptable. And I've done a lot of adapting. ;) In past jobs, I've worked as a German Translator, a Customer Support Manager, a Corporate Trainer, an Event Planner, a Technical Documentation Writer, a Podcast Producer, and even a Mime Wrangler*.
Trained 300 Hostile Salespeople (at one time) on some truly awful in-house Customer Support software
An international software company, because I worked in Corporate Training and Documentation at the time.
Our Sales Team needed to know how to enter bugs for their customers. I was on the training team at the time. And I drew the short straw.
Set up a photography studio in an unused agency broom closet
Campbell's Soup Company, the client of the Agency where I worked.
You can shoot shockingly high quality photos using 3 attic clamp lights from Home Depot, 2 card tables from Target, and 1 big piece of white paper from the Dollar Store.
1) Always keep a local video recording of your demo on your laptop (we lost internet 2 minutes into the presentation)
2) Doing stand-up comedy - while expressing empathy to your audience - is remarkably effective, and
3) You will get wild applause if you end your presentation early to let people get a head start on the lunch buffet.
To take pictures of cans of soup and salsa, of course
Spent 3 days telling construction workers where to park scissor lifts at the Frankfurt Auto Show.
A Lighting Design Company, where I was interning as a Translator during college.
Well who else was going to tell them? The Lighting Designers who the company sent to Germany with me only knew how to say "bier". That wasn't helpful.
1) The German you learn in school doesn't include "drill bit" or "torque converter" or even "scissor lift". Back then I didn't have Google Translate. So that was fun.
2) Driving a scissor lift is actually really easy.
3) Frankfurt is a lot like Cleveland.
* If you want to know about the mimes, you're going to have to talk to me. Writing about it just doesn't do the story justice.
This UX Designer is extremely Jira Friendly, because experience has taught me that more transparency is a good thing. Product teams need to understand what we do. Integrating UX with our Agile boards, and including our UX Roadmaps into Confluence, helps to get that done
I'm also a Creative Technologist, which means I can speak fluent FrontEnd Developer and Programmer. Tech teams like me. I know how to help them out.
