Karen Vanhouten Email & Phone Number

Grand Rapids, Mi, Us

A sample of my talks and workshopsTaming the Enterprise: the story of building and scaling an enterprise design team.Why Do We All Suck at Collaboration: introducing a code of conduct framework for working with others.A Method for the Madness: how to push through fear and resistance and break out of your comfort zone.Healthier Teams by Design: a workshop for leaders, employing the tools of design to develop better ways of working.How We Get Wicked Good: how to not just survive but thrive in wicked hard environments.

Greater Grand Rapids, Michigan Area

Product & Experience Strategy, Discovery & Research, Service Design, Project & Client LeadershipManage product and project strategy for multiple Fortune 500/100 organizations. Advise clients on evolving business models, develop digital strategies aligned to organizational outcomes, and facilitate change management through service design.Act as a member of the strategic business layer, collaborating with and gathering insights from sales, delivery (design, development, project management), and executive leadership to inform business goals and metrics of success.Support organizational innovation and growth through research, experiments, and strategic client engagements and business development.

Teaching Design, People, and Society as part of CCA's MDes in Interaction Design program. This course centers on the qualitative research process, methods, and principles, with an emphasis on ethics and design justice.

Design & Research Leadership, Client Relationship Management, Project LeadershipUse the tools of discovery and design to successfully lead digital public sector projects, guiding teams through the policy, procedural, and cultural challenges in public sector work.Introduce user research and usability testing into highly technical infrastructure projects, helping developers design better tools for other developers.Support the growth of the design team and the product practice as the organization doubles in size.Manage the growth and professional development of direct reports.Evolve the hiring process for a more inclusive candidate experience.

Greater Grand Rapids, Michigan Area

Research & Design LeadershipProvide a holistic, human-centered approach to product, service, and organizational design.Lead research & design projects in the manufacturing, education, and financial industries.Educate and coach product teams in the human-centered design process through project-based learning.Help teams use qualitative and quantitative data to inform decision-making and reduce risk.

Experience Strategy, Project & Team Leadership, Practice Design & DevelopmentEvolve an enterprise product experience team from an initial 4 designers to a department of over 100 designers, researchers, developers, and product managers.Work closely with executive leadership to align team skills and growth areas with business goals.Manage hiring and professional development for the product experience team.Help define the structure and appropriate resourcing for cross-functional squads aligned to strategic business lines.Establish a consistent practice of qualitative user research for the team, with a strong focus on contextual inquiry for generative research.Lead the design system team, employing generative and evaluative research to improve both the end-user experience of Infor products as well as the utility and adoption of the system by product teams.

Experience Strategy, Design Operations, Design LeadershipDesign leadership and experience strategy across all verticals and product lines.Created platform-agnostic design systems used by dozens of product teams located across the globe.Coached product teams on foundations of human-centered design. Introduced role-based design to reduce complexity of user experience.Led high-profile customer-facing projects.

Technical Writing, Instructional Design, Content Strategy, UX Design, UX Strategy

Ba, English

Ma, English