With over twenty years of experience as a user experience leader, I have worked on a broad base of projects across a wide range of industries. Valued for my ability to craft impactful research, develop actionable strategy, and define complex functionality, I excel at creating user experiences that are both intuitive and impactful. My work for top NYC agencies has earned recognition, including two IAC Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Internet Advertising.
How I got started
My first job was emptying the garbage cans at a tiny agency in Chelsea. In exchange, they allowed me to use their computers after hours to teach myself what was then called desktop publishing. After a year, I landed an internship at Oracle and I lived in my boss’s spare bedroom. I spent the next 20+ years doing steady freelance with some really amazing people at some of the best companies. There are as many agencies in NYC as there are ways to approach design and I have tried it all.
Things I learned
- There is no one way to do it. I’ve worked for organizations with great process that did mediocre design. I’ve worked for organizations that were pure chaos that did great design.
- Keep an open mind, remember to breathe and know that true emergencies are rare.
- Look your best and make sure the work looks even better.
- Keep your camera on and make time for IRL meetings. It’s harder to fire someone who’s right in front of you.
- Crack a joke when you can and build relationships – When the relationship is right, the work is right.
What I accomplished
• Worked at FCB, Chiat/Day, NBC, Atmosphere, Frog, Hill Holiday, J. Walter Thompson, DDB & Rebellion.
• Built a full service UX department and designed a lean testing product for PureRed.
• Created the largest SharePoint deployment to date for Ernst & Young.
• Designed chatbot POCs for Prudential Insurance.
• Built e-commerce websites for Amex (3), The Dallas Cowboys, Camping Word and more.
• Built marketing sites for NBC, MetLife, Emirates, Samsung, ConEd, Mercury and more.
• Did my time in Pharma, leading UX for Sanofi, Jansen, J&J, Humana, Amjen and more.
Experience
PureRed, Stone Mountain, GA
Senior User Experience Strategy Director, Staff
October 2019 – October 2024
MARKETING STRATEGY / WEB DESIGN
While at PureRed, I established a full-service UX department and managed a team of four designers. I provided UX leadership for dozens of accounts, working across multiple industries. In support of new business efforts, I created UX pitch decks to expand services and deepen client engagements.
- Partnered with client leadership to define project scopes and create estimates. Lead the project discovery process across all projects and collaborated with writers and UI designers to flesh-out design strategies. Integrated workflows with the dev team to elevate deployment and create efficiencies.
- Developed and launched a lean testing product. Designed a scalable, agile research methodology incorporating quantitative taxonomy testing and qualitative low/high fidelity research.
- Led UX services for three lines of business at Charter Communications. Provided content and design support for the customer education group. Maintained and enhanced e-commerce flows for the residential cable and mobile line of business.
- Created sites for: CE / Carrier Enterprise, Coinstar, EcoStyle, Fannie-Mae, Jet Closing, Lightbox, Mercury Financial, RLW Supply and SERC with incremental work for Microsoft, Refinitive, Sharebuilder, Harris Teeter, Lowes Foods, South University, London Stock Exchange and Albuterol.
- Designed templates for UX deliverables and performed the following services: Discovery interviews, heuristic analysis, competitive analysis, user personas, user journeys, site maps, user flows, responsive wires and prototypes.
NBC Universal, New York, NY
User Experience Designer, Freelance
April 2019 – August 2019
APP DESIGN
For my second engagement with NBC, I managed a team of three UX and UI designers for the creation and implementation of a design system for the Peacock platform. We designed a cohesive visual language of styles, icons and components, utilizing team libraries to ensure consistency and enable collaboration.
- Created a “master book” of wireframes, documenting the app download and configuration process.
- Created a flow shape pattern library to enable rapid diagramming. Authored an initial design guide to support consistency between internal contributors and external agencies. Created mid-level process flows detailing the overall product lifecycle, in-bound traffic strategy and user segmentation.
- Developed interactive prototypes to define in-app messaging for TV, web and mobile.
Live Area (Merkle), New York, NY
User Experience Designer, Staff
April 2017 – May 2018
E-COMMERCE DESIGN
While at LiveArea, a high-touch e-commerce design firm, I facilitated discovery workshops, performed requirements gathering and led research initiatives. This informed the creation of custom, responsive design solutions for the Sales Force Commerce Cloud platform. Top clients:
CampingWorld.com
Creation of custom templates to be leveraged across six sites with a highly complex catalog. Development of custom product filters, search, mini cart design and multiple, custom product detail pages.
Shop.DallasCowboys.com
Partnered with the creative team to facilitate discovery and requirements gathering workshops. Performed a full redesign featuring custom one-page checkout and customizable product landing pages. Designed a custom mobile navigation system and product detail variants.
Aarons.com
Did a full redesign to improve the look and feel, clarify how “rent-to-own” works and make pricing more intuitive. We designed and moderated two rounds of in-person usability, analyzed the results and created reports using a lean testing methodology.
Yeti.com
Designed the product category and search filtering system. Redesigned the careers page, integrating with Greenhouse.io.
Originate, New York, NY
Senior Design Director, Freelance
December 2016 – February 2017
PRUDENTIAL INSURANCE, MOBILE INNOVATION LAB
Designed several next generation life insurance product POCs, exploring ways to streamline the application process. Managed several designers in a fast-paced agile environment. Lead requirements gathering and ideation sessions with clients. Oversaw the creation of style guides, journey maps, personas, user flows and clickable prototypes. Created stimuli, moderator guides and recruitment screeners. Self-moderated research sessions, synthesized results and created reports.
- Created a gamified chat bot to facilitate the life insurance application process. After testing the bot for overall user acceptance, a second iteration was tested for personality and tone.
- Designed a wearable app prototype to leverage the iOS native Fitness, Motion and Location Services APIs. The concept was to access the overall physical activity level of the user, enabling them to skip the health assessment questions within the application process.
- Developed an integration app to aggregate data from Fitbit, Apple Health, SoFi and Facebook. The idea was to pull all the required data from 3rd parties, circumventing the need to apply altogether.
Sarankco, New York, NY
Senior User Experience Designer, Freelance
September 2015 – June 2016
AMERICAN EXPRESS: REWARDS.AMERICANEXPRESS.COM
Defined the user experience for a full redesign of the Membership Rewards Portal. Created a highly flexible e-commerce platform for use by multiple vendors. Templates were designed to support basic products as well as products with multiple configurations, options and add-ons. Developed an interactive prototype to demonstrate menu behavior, multi-level sticky navigation and shopping cart interactivity. Created stimuli for end-user research and attended usability sessions. Crafted user flows, sitemaps and high-fidelity, annotated wireframes.
AMERICAN EXPRESS: ONLINE.AMERICANEXPRESS.COM/MYCA
Designed a dashboard for the MYCA Blue Cash Rewards Tracker, a site that allows card members to view their rewards over time and across categories. Produced high-fidelity wireframes as well an interactive demo.
AMERICAN EXPRESS: WHITE LABEL PARTNER APPLICATION
Created functional specifications and a style guide for the American Express modular, white-label credit card application system.
Education
Bachelor of Fine Arts: School of Visual Arts, New York, N.Y.
Art Major with emphasis on contemporary art, theory, visual communication and color science.
AOS Communications: Elisabeth Seton, Yonkers, N.Y.
Studied film, radio, acting, graphic design, psychology and music programming.
Software
Figma, Figjam, Rarchy, Relume, Perplexity, ChatGPT, Sketch, Respondent.io, UserZoom, Adobe CC, Keynote, Google Analytics, Project, Wrike, Basecamp, Smartsheet & Microsoft Office.