Melissa Major Email & Phone Number

New York, Ny, Us

Lead The WNET Group's first digital product team and oversee UX improvements for portfolio of 40+ public media websites and 15 video streaming OTT & mobile apps. Work closely with engineer and design teams to build accessible products. Align with stakeholders across 350+ employee organization on business objectives and user needs. Collaborate closely with design and engineering teams to launch products and features at this intersection. Write product development & UX research sections of high profile grant proposals and reports; hire design firm.Led cross functional teams in user-focused redesign of WNET.org, new homepages for four themed news initiatives (including pbs.org/preservingdemocracy), site launch for the award-winning Jobs Explained initiative, and strategic rollout of WordPress Block editor and training. Identify opportunities for modular iterative development: launch plugins, templates and feature sets across product verticals. Streamline and automate product operations and processes using service design principles. Trained WNET facilitators to run cross-departmental working groups with human-centered design methods. Led interactive presentation on applying design thinking to projects, teams, and careers goals for 100+ PBS Young Professionals. Co-facilitated design thinking workshop to increase brainstorm effectiveness within PBS's 2021 Digital Immersion, a professional development program for public media employees nationwide.For 2+ years, facilitated monthly 100+ person cross-departmental Digital Summit monthly meeting; successfully increased knowledge-sharing and collaboration based on employee survey. Participated in panel, "Silo Busting Through Digital Collaboration," about Digital Summit at national PBS TechCon. Empowered digital & content producers across The WNET group by developing content strategy for new internal documentation library with 75+ multimedia training guides. Created extensive onboarding documentation for digital employees.

New York, Ny, Us

Planned and led WNET's first design sprint, as well as various brainstorms and workshops. Co-hosted interactive UX "game show" at national PBS TechCon conference; ranked #1 presentation by attendees out of 100+ sessions & scored 5 out of 5 engagement. Facilitated multi-day design sprint with new Technology Solutions (IT) team, resulting in team charter & vision creation. Completed year-long PBS Digital Immersion Program fellowship.Collaborated with cross-departmental team to redesign key page templates on THIRTEEN.org, maximizing user value and reaching core business objectives (such as communicating impact). Led website launches of WLIWFM.org (Long Island's only NPR station), NJ Spotlight (njspotlight.org), and Amanpour and Company. Led mobile and OTT app launches for ALL ARTS Roku, Apple TV, iOS, Android.Coordinated digitization of 50 archival films: tracking down physical tapes around the country.

New York, Ny, Us

Product strategy and road-mapping for new ALL ARTS website (allarts.org), as well as NJTV Roku, Apple TV, iOS, Android app launches.

New York, Ny, Us

Led cross-organizational team in implementation of WLIW21 Passport across wliw.org, PBS.org, and PBS mobile and OTT apps. Collaborated with digital/social team, marketing team, membership team to facilitate all aspects of launch. Led redesign of NJTV News website, as well as client project redesign of pbssocal.org, including PBS SoCal Passport implementation. Produced multimedia content for Great Performances website (pbs.org/greatperformances)and launched new Great Performances newsletter (subscriber list 10,000+). Digitized over 50 hours of archival public media shows.

San Francisco, Us

Volunteered more than 150 hours as a UX Researcher on a project in collaboration with the Texas Education Agency (TEA). Worked on team of 3 volunteers to create and implement qualitative research plan, including 1:1 interviews with teachers and instructional coaches. Before wrapping up the engagement, we synthesized key insights and associated recommendations in a presentation for the state agency.

San Francisco, Us

Volunteered more than 125 hours and led a team of two UX researcher volunteers.We collaborated on a project with Seattle City Finance as part of the Seattle by Design initiative. This initiative was a partnership between USDR and the City of Seattle Innovation and Performance team. We created and implemented a research plan, including 1:1 interviews with small business owners and a survey. Before wrapping up the engagement, we synthesized key insights and associated recommendations in a presentation for the government department.

New York, Ny, Us

Strategized and implemented marketing campaigns across digital channels (RandomHouseKids.com, email, video, social ) for picture books, middle grade novels, and young adult novels - including New York Times bestsellers. Analyzed digital and social media insights through Adobe Analytics, Brandwatch, internal tools. Produced Taking Flight with Michaela DePrince video (2.1 million+ FB views). Led marketing department's transition to updated Basecamp version; improved project templates.

New York, Ny, Us

Developed metadata, created multimedia assets, and QA PreK-12 educational media on VITAL, NYC area localization of PBS LearningMedia website. Developed discussion questions for educational video clips.

Arlington, Virginia, Us

Developed metadata, managed media assets, and QA PreK-12 educational media on PBS LearningMedia website. Improved information architecture and UX for teachers by mapping over 600 assets to curriculum topics and creating 11 new digital collections. Managed content contributor stakeholders such as WNET, WGBH, National Geographic, Library of Congress etc.

B.A, Journalism And Psychology

Education record

Organizational Leadership

Course: Principles Of Visual Language - Form And Color