CORE COMPETENCIES

Strategy – Clarification of business goals, concept testing, competitive analysis
Research & Discovery – Contextual inquiry, heuristic evaluation, interviews, user persona development, card sorting, journey mapping, data analysis, and synthesis
Design Ideation – Brainstorming, affinity diagramming, whiteboarding, paper-based sketching Wireframing & Interaction design – Paper prototyping, low to high fidelity wireframes, interactive prototypes, test & learn design process
Usability studies – Screener creation, participant recruiting, writing test plans, moderated/unmoderated and remote testing
Team Building – Encouraging a team learning mindset, aligning team around goals, communicating the value of design, steering projects (PM/Ops), building team trust and helping all see the “big picture”
Curiosity – Joy in design thinking, reading research & design books/articles, attending webinars and taking online classes to keep my skillset current

TECHNICAL SKILLS

Sketch, Axure, Balsamiq, Omnigraffle InVision, Zeplin, Slack, Google Docs, UserTesting.com, Camtasia, Keynote, Adobe CC, Morae, WordPress, TextWrangler, JIRA, Confluence, basic HTML/CSS, InDesign, Illustrator

Experience

Senior User Experience Designer & Researcher      Paciolan—Irvine, CA                                9/17-6/18
In an enterprise ticketing software company transitioning to a SAAS responsive application, supported two agile product dev teams with user-centered design activities. Helped to define products, planned and conducted design research, wireframing, prototyping, usability testing, conducted UX workshops and developed personas.

UX Designer & Researcher     VCA-Veterinary Centers of America    Santa Monica, CA            9/16-9/17
I conduct user research and am responsible for the UX design of Patient Treatment Management (PTM)—a new web-based feature for WOOFware, VCA’s enterprise medical records software. It’s game-changing tools allow doctors and technicians to order, schedule and complete treatments from their desktop and iOS tablets to provide cage side patient care. We have begun piloting with specialty hospitals.

UX Designer & Marketing Manager     Verisurf Software     Anaheim, CA                                  11/15-9/16
Wearing multiple hats within an established metrology software development company I work with developers and marketing to implement the evolution of the software and growth of the company.

User Experience Designer | Researcher      ALEKS/McGraw Hill Education     Irvine, CA           1/14-1/15
Design lead and researcher for students of all levels. Solved interface design problems; responsible for researching issues, creating solutions and delivering to developers. Worked with content managers, technical product managers, UX manager, researchers, and developers. In dual role also developed and established best practice research processes that informed the UX team. Tools: Axure, PowerPoint, CS Suite, MS Office, WebEx, Morae, Survey monkey.

UXPALA Board Member     Director of special projects & Social media                                     11/12-11/14
Helped grow new Los Angeles area chapter: with 4-6 activities a year grew from a few hundred members to several thousand. Responsible for the website, social media, recruiting volunteers, recording minutes, and event activities.

Web & Software Interaction Designer         Extron Electronics     Anaheim, CA                   10/12-12/13
Led new UX efforts as the first UX hire in the web marketing department, and later moved to the software UX design team. Planned, recruited and conducted user research, analyzed the data, collaborated with product managers, and created annotated wireframes for developers to create user-centered design solutions. Tools: Balsamiq, PowerPoint, CS Suite, MS Office, Join.me, Camtasia

UX Researcher          Hilary User Experience      Los Angeles, CA                                                 2011-2012
Assisted with qualitative user research projects, activities included brainstorming/ideation, In-depth interviews, usability testing, and research synthesis. Clients included mobile navigation, mobile bank, collaboration software, and online real estate. Tools: PowerPoint, CS Suite, MS Office, WebEx, Morae, Camtasia, Survey monkey

User Experience | Project Management | Marketing     UCLA Marketing & Special Events  2011-2012
Conducted remote usability studies of the beta video portal. Performed client management, planned task-based research, screened and recruited prospective students, conducted remote usability tests, edited session videos, analyzed the data and delivered findings report.

UX Researcher          508 Communications, Inc.      Los Angeles, CA                                            2011-2012
Conducted user research for a startup fitness company website including; competitive analysis, survey design and reporting, and synthesis of existing research.

Marketing                 Titansan Engineering, Inc.       Newport Beach, CA                                       2009-2012
Worked closely with the CEO, product manager, and developer of technology startup that created iPhone apps for the metrology industry. Responsible for all print and web materials and app visual design; helped guide usability and user experience. Tools: PowerPoint, CS Suite, MS Office, Basic HTML tools-Dreamweaver, WordPress

Production Art Director        N Magazine     Sacramento, CA                                                         2005-2008

Managed production and produced layouts for startup community magazine. Responsibilities also included ad creation, scheduling/tracking & file management, budgeting/billing, photography, website updating, and community communications. Tools: PowerPoint, CS Suite, MS Office, Basic HTML tools-Dreamweaver

Senior Information Developer        Gateway Computer Company     N. Sioux City, SD             1997-1999

As a member of the user experience team, created award-winning (STC) startup documentation. Paired with technical writer, worked closely with human factor engineers and marketers to create content and graphics. Iterated designs by understanding users with OOBE studies.

Education

UX Training / Teaching Assistant
Ithakai – Irvine, CA

Interaction Design Workshop
Cooper U workshop – San Francisco, CA

User Experience & Usability Testing Certificate
California State University – Fullerton, CA

Bachelor of Industrial Design 
Pratt Institute   Brooklyn, NY