Benjamin S. Email & Phone Number

Seattle, Washington, Us

- Join projects in flight, quickly gaining context and establish tag-team partnership with PMs for presentations and customer interviews.- Collaborate with PMs to define requirements, prioritize deliverables, and map designs to business goals and objectives- Help PMs visualize their data- Create designs that make life easier for users and meet business objectives- Present and advocate for better design decisions among product and engineering leadership- Kickstart team-wide initiatives on User Research data collection, work tracking, Design System modernization, design file standardization, and team efficiency.- Provide and solicit feedback and instruction to/from other designers- Monitor for inefficiencies and provide solutions to save time and effort.- Mentor internally and externally- Assess design, collaboration, communication, and problem solving skills of prospective candidates.

Assessed user needs, develop matching products, and streamline user experiences. Clients include:Real Estate Management and Service Request Phone app- Moved feature set from function-only to polished UI in 2 weeks by embedding withEngineering, representing design team’s work. Advocated Zeplin as the source of truth.- Solicited research data from customer-facing teams, coaching agents on what data tocapture and discussing with product team.- Reduced misclicks by 30% by conducting video-recorded user tests, capturing userconfusion, and advocating findings to the team.Cultural Resource:- Use UX Analytics to assess product performance, boost reach by 15% with Google Tag Manager.- Run user variation tests such as A/B alternatives to quantify user preferences.- Optimize user pathway for visitors from 25+ countries weekly using Google Optimize.Early-stage startups:- Resale of cloud compute products, informing political activism, Machine Learning/Natural Language Processing translation, Music Education platform- Produce wireframes, mid fidelity designs, and helped entrepreneurs prioritize their expansion.

Nashville, Tennessee, Us

Created cohesive product presence, brand identity, and customized client implementations for utilities in Seattle and Tacoma WA, the Midwest, and Northeast.- Increased design output 8x by developing company’s first design system.- Reduced design lead time from 2 weeks to 5 minutes via scalable design library.- Implemented Material-inspired designs for client implementation facelifts.- Created corporate website layout and design for company’s product portfolio update.- Unified disparate product UIs with cohesive, brand-centered design approach.

Greater Boston, Us

Example Projects include:Curriculum Management and Self Publishing Tool:Design- Drove user-centered design consensus between 10 UI designers, engineers, and product managers for 10+ releases for educational self-publishing platform.- Designed 60% of product's user experience, winning 7 SIIA CODIE, AAP Revere, and BESSIE awards.- Reduced wireframe turnaround by 60% by creating reusable design assets in Sketch and Lucidchart.- Saved company 3,000 man hours over 3 years by creating 1,000s of pages of UX wireframes.- Advocated for and implemented Google Analytics for internal and external web products.- Supported and conducted participatory design efforts, contextual interviews, and semi-structured interviews.Product Strategy- Reduce Risk by maximizing reusability of new features, reduce conflicting requests, and prioritizing decisions for longevity.- Optimize design process to provide actionable prototypes as quickly as possible.- Gather and refine estimates from engineers and designers.- Communicate status and outcomes to CEO and stakeholders.Cultural Preparedness- Communicate cultural business, communication, and design norms in target markets.- Propose alternative product names based on linguistic phonemes.Company Merger, Design- Led two companies through design merger by condensing their requirements by a factor of 10, discussing conflicts, and investigating fundamental needs.- Ran weekly client meetings demonstrating designs and requesting feedback.- Delivered 2 presentations to 30+ people and heads of departments.- Delivered finished workflow that meet client’s needs and exceeds expectations. Print to Ebook Conversion- Built high performing team of 11 engineers, delivered a 3-year project in 6 months.- Won client as long term partnership, yielding millions in revenue.- Prevented team burnout and developed trusting relationships with client through transparent discussion of scope, needs, and challenges.

Brighton, Ma, Us

Harvard ManageMentor V12 LaunchOptimized content process, delivering 220 lessons 2 months ahead of deadlines.Coordinated handoffs between 20+ personnel across editorial, design, localization, engineering, and QA groups.Removed data entry bottleneck by writing company manual and training 10 staff.

Warrendale, Pa, Us

Designed product development process, enabling turnkey creation of new titles of SAE's digital Global Technology Library.- Helped narrow scope by conducting field interviews, semi-structured interviews, and writing survey questions for target audience.- Automated content vetting by 90% by developing taxonomic filtration system of 26 content streams.- Sourced 39,350 technical documents by establishing 8 content partnerships across the US and Europe.- Advocated for a subject-agnostic design that allowed for reuse on any topic.- Conducted 20+ product presentations on behalf of Sales team.

Supported Vice President of American Society of Journalists and Authors’ corporate writing- Created background briefs for 21 case studies of enterprise software and hardware solutions- Selected 60+ breaking technology stories for coverage, 90% approved and covered on Inc.com- Researched and contacted experts for 20+ ghost-written posts on ITInsiderOnline.com

Boston, Ma, Us

Assisted growth of Google-funded skills evaluation system. - Recruited and managed 41 freelance writers producing 13,000 questions.- Researched 650 organizations for business development efforts.- Awarded Title of Most Valuable Intern

Bs, Materials Science & Engineering

M.E., Materials Engineering