I’m passionate about the application of human-centered design to product development.
I take responsibility for the impact of my work on the world. A big part of this has been in choice of clients and agencies I've worked for – I have experience in working with healthcare, philanthropies, civic services, and education.
My creative approach is centered on understanding end user needs, validating design whenever possible through user research and analytics, and reducing friction.
I’m capable of leading teams or being a contributing member. When I’ve had direct reports, I function as a coach who helps each individual set goals, achieve them, and improve relationships.
What I do
Design and User Experience
Concepting
Prototyping
User experience flows
Iterative design
Pattern library creation
User Research
User and stakeholder interviews
Card sorting / affinity mapping
User analytics
Journey mapping
Personas / jobs-to-be-done
Product Management
Agile project management
Requirements gathering
Product roadmap planning
User stories, epics, and estimation
KPI measurement and reporting
Consulting
Lead qualification, proposal development and sales presentation
Client and stakeholder management
Project-based planning and recommendations
Contract and proposal writing
What I believe
Trust is the most valuable currency.
In any professional services, consulting, or delivery job, your work and your recommendations are only as good as the relationships you build. Within a job, I earn trust from people the same way I do outside of a job: work hard and contribute to the team, lift people up when they need it, and always do what I say I’m going to do.
The best teams have diverse team members who listen to each other.
Agile practice holds that all teams are self-organizing, and I believe this to be true. To add a bit of my own spice to this formula, I’ve seen the best work come from teams that embrace each team member as a generalist and invite feedback from one another.
Teams learn the most by living with their own decisions.
Steve Jobs famously offered this criticism of consultants: “I think that without owning something over an extended period of time, like a few years, where someone has a chance to take responsibility for one’s recommendations, where one has to see one’s recommendations through all action stages and accumulate some scar tissue for the mistakes … one learns a fraction of what one can.” Most of my career so far has been in consultancies, but I’ve had the opportunity to manage several products for multiple years. Some of my most valuable learnings have come from these projects.
Selected client list
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Tangerine (Scotiabank)
Steve Ballmer’s USAFacts
Seattle Children’s Hospital
Arizona State University
Brown University
Kenyon College
Kellogg School of Management
Kenmore
Obama 2008 Campaign
Public speaking
International Society for Technology in Education
Convey UX
Seattle Design Festival
Swissnex
Confab Higher Ed
High Ed Web
Web Conference at Penn State
Council for Advancement and Support of Education
Guest lecturer at University of Washington
Guest lecturer at Indiana University
Education
Indiana University, Bachelor of Fine Arts in Design
Wharton Business School, currently earning a Business Analytics Certification
Affiliations
Products that Count
Product Collective
American Institute of Graphic Arts
Puget Sound Sigma Chi
Mockingbird Society