Jake Childs Email & Phone Number

Los Angeles, Ca, Us

Santa Clara, California, United States

As the design manager for the digital product design team dedicated to a new surgical robotics platform, I was responsible for overseeing the design work and for the career development of a six-person multi-disciplinary team. Our mission was to create the UX & UIs for all digital features towards two business critical milestones: a clinical trial and an FDA submission. On the day-to-day, I was involved in the following:• Collaborated with cross-functional management (engineering, clinical, product marketing) to plan features, prioritize backlogs, and roadmap future developments in a SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) development environment.• Orchestrated and allocated design activities matching projects with skills and strengths of designers.• Established team rituals and working patterns to foster an environment where designers felt trusted, empowered, and challenged to do their best work.• Initiated processes in and evangelized the value of user-centered design within an engineering-centric culture. Part of this involved advocating for an increase in frequency and scale of user testing. The result was in enhancing the Digital Experience teams credibility as user subject matter experts.• Supported the career development of four to six direct reports through J&J’s performance management process.• Led design features with high levels of ambiguity and complexity where the usability stakes were high and deep user research initiatives were needed to reach strategic and insight-driven solutions.• Reviewed visual, UI and UX design output to ensure consistency and that quality standards were achieved.• Advised with in-house legal team on opportunities for IP protection on UX designs.

Santa Clara, California, United States

As the UX Design Lead dedicated to a new surgical robotics platform, I was initially accountable for the tactical execution of the digital UI and UX features against tight timelines for critical business milestones. Then, later, in both shaping the product design practice and establishing the UX conventions and UI systems on a rapidly growing digital experience team. Specifically, I was involved in the following:• Introduced processes and best practices for usability, interactive prototyping with Principle, mapping workflows, user research, and UI/UX documentation for software.• Architected UI frameworks and UX conventions that emphasized consistency across five apps and five digital touch points on the surgical robotics platform.• Key contributor to the creation and roll out of a new design system, in collaboration with the lead visual designer, that brings a consumer product-grade experience to MedTech.• Executed on core design work for UI interactions and layouts, conceptualizing features through to pixel perfect assets, animation specs, and design system components.

Orange County, California Area

As part of an internal design consultancy within J&J, in this role I collaborated with R&D teams at various J&J MedTech companies on their digital experience projects, supervised the work of internal product design teams, and scoped/oversaw projects with external partners in sound design, UX research, and high-fidelity interactive prototyping. The projects I led included the following:• Initial ground up design of core UI/UX features of a new surgical robot for the Silicon Valley startup, Auris Health.• End to end UX design of J&J Vision’s next gen cataract system. This included ethnography to uncover insights, conceptualizing innovation opportunities, touch screen size selection studies, multi-variant simulated use studies with users, interactive prototyping, sound design, and UI design & documentation.• Conceptualized the onboarding UI flow, settings framework, and new digital product innovations for Ethicon’s next generation modular surgical tower platform.• Designed the UI for J&J Vision’s ELITA™ Vision Correction Platform.

Greater Los Angeles Area

In this role, I provided product and UI/UX design consulting with clients that included the following:• Designing the UX of a new hybrid product (physical and digital) for ASP, a Johnson & Johnson MedTech company.• Conceptualizing the web-app digital hub for ASP’s sterilization tracking solution.• Helping ProSearch Strategies visually communicate the eDiscovery process.• Conceptualizing the startup Doppler Labs’ flagship product: a selective sound dampening ear plugs. • Ideating a design language for a line of Belkin computer cables for the Apple Store.• Designing a mobile phone wireless charger for Belkin that retailed at Target.

Pasadena, Ca

Taught Visual Communication 6, a course that emphasizes visual storytelling for Junior and Senior-level industrial design students by utilizing illustration, graphics, sketching, and video work. As the instructor, I crafted a course where I:- Orchestrated assignments that encourage the gathering and sharing of inspiration, sharpening core design skills, and refining a student’s personal design philosophy.- Created targeted guidelines to stimulate the students’ thinking around visual narration and personal design interests.- Challenged the students in reframing their design project stories to communicate succinctly and to maximize the impact of visual communication—illustration, renderings, photography, video, graphics, and iconography.- Encouraged critical thinking through class dialogue, collaboration, brainstorming, feedback, and critiques.- Coordinated critiques with outside design professionals to expose students to a variety of opinions.- Developed a class-specific website as a resource for weekly assignments, guidelines, and content relevant to the concepts taught in the class.

Playa Vista, Ca

Consulted on the use experience, design, and implementation of products in the technology, wearable tech, and consumer electronic accessory space.PROJECTS- Design language for a line of cables and connectors geared specifically for the Apple store.- Development of the design aesthetic for a Qi wireless charging device to work with Samsung Galaxy mobile phones.- Design and implementation of the ClipFit armband + mobile phone case.- Product Appearance strategy for a line of products geared towards activity. Products included a wearable biometric sensor, in-ear headphones, mobile phone armband, and ClipFit armband + mobile phone case.

Greater Los Angeles Area

Continuum (now EPAM Continuum) is a lage-scale, multi-disciplinary design consultancy of strategists, engineers, designers, and makers focused on innovation consulting, design thinking, and physical-digital capabilities. In this role, I contributed to the design of products and projects for clients including Herman Miller, Medtronic, Keurig, Targus, Belkin, Novartis, SC Johnson, and BBVA. My responsibilities included the following:PRACTITIONER ROLE- Collaborated with mechanical, electrical, and software engineers, design researchers, ergonomists, model makers, and marketers towards the end of creating innovative product solutions for clients in a variety of industries.- Managed and directed design programs and teams for clients with project budgets at or around $100k.- Set the creative direction and led design efforts on large scale ($250k-500k), multi-disciplinary programs including guiding the design team, implementing creative concepts, creation of 3D models, directing prototyping efforts, and advising with engineering.- Presented concepts, research insights, project progress, and key milestone presentations to clients on a regular basis.- Awarded seven design awards for two different product designs.OTHER INITIATIVES- Co-coordinated the product design internship program leading to a systematized process of finding design talent and ensuring a positive internship experience. This led to successful recruiting of new hires in the product design group.- Art directed product photo shoots to generate content for marketing and design award entries. - Executed design award entry content, including crafting the product narrative and corresponding graphic layouts, which assisted in garnering several awards.- Contributed thought leadership pieces to the Continuum blog on topics relating to product and interaction design.- Supported sales efforts by assisting in scoping and planning project budgets and timelines for new proposal requests.

Greater Boston Area

See above.

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Created product experiences as a part of a team consisting of mechanical engineers and interaction designers for various clients in the medical, industrial, and consumer electronic spaces.