About me: My path has been circuitous. The democratization of design and elevation of user experience’s value has resulted in a multitude of resources to learn how to empathize with the user, synthesize research, and other popularized user experience tasks. Just as a recipe turns out differently with each cook, the results of these activities vary based on the actor. My personal interests and diverse, hands-on design experience have developed my the ability to embrace uncertainties, analyze and synthesize research, while withholding judgement before the patterns emerge. People who know me consider me to be a unique problem solver/thinker, inordinately helpful, direct in my communication, extremely organized, and full of self-initiative.When I’m not designing, I can be found making functional art at the ceramics studio, solving bouldering problems, and hanging out with my dog, Mo.About my process: Design is about identifying people’s problems and creating effective solutions for them. And the best solutions come from determining the right problem.My process begins with just that: pinpointing the core problem(s), which is usually a societal tension, such as the dynamics between parents and children, or a cultural value, such has trust. When the problem is framed through this lens, the resulting solution is future-proof, as it does not depend on current trends and behaviors, nor a particular response on a particular day from an individual in an artificial setting, who may have a different opinion the next. Once the problem has been accurately diagnosed, I identify areas of research and read everything I can about the societal tension and related topics from pundits and other experts, academics, social critics, sociologists, and more. My role of “researcher” is part new historian, anthropologist, semiotician, critic, and intellectual. Themes and patterns emerge through this analysis and further synthesis reveals the reason for them: the “why” behind user behaviors and beliefs.These often unexpected insights are applied to the goals and values of the client, which then result in actionable recommendations that shape product requirements and guide (my) design and implementation. Specialties: user centered design, design thinking, strategy, storytelling, cultural research, corporate ethnographic methods, design research, moderation, interaction design, mentoring/management
Listed skills include Interaction Design, User Experience, Mobile Applications, Personas, and 20 others.