3. I am a User Experience Designer trained in all things UX, although I focus on
interface design, interaction design, and information architecture. Projects that
I create are user-centered and built upon research with a solid foundation of
design principles.
About
Before pursuing design as a career, I was a ballet dancer with companies in
Omaha, San Diego, and Pittsburgh. Through ballet, I learned at a young age
that hard work and nearly endless hours go into making something look
beautiful and effortless, so it is important to tackle any challenge with an
intelligent strategy. Today, I apply this philosophy to my digital designs to
create products that are usable, functional, and beautifully effortless.
When I’m not working on a design project, you might find me tinkering with
HTML and CSS, stand up paddleboarding, meandering through a museum, or
trying a new vegetarian recipe.
5. Process
I employ a thorough, yet efficient, process that ensures a thoughtful and usable
solution to any project I work on. This process allows me to take a project from
ideating, researching, and strategizing to designing, testing, validating and
delivering. It is important to note that this is a flexible process. Some areas
may be require more focus than others, depending on the project, and I am
always an advocate for iteration.
Background
Research
Interviews
Contextual Inquiry
Competitive Analysis
Heuristic Analysis
Synthesis
& Strategy
Project Scope
Feature Prioritization
Information Architecture
Content Strategy
Design
& Build
Rapid Sketches
Wireframes
Mockups
Prototypes
Validation
& Delivery
Usability Tests
Iteration
Annotations
Test Reports
6. Process
Background Research
Each project begins with a discovery phase. This phase,
depending on the stage the product is in, contains a number of
steps. Typically, background research consists of getting to
know as much about a product and the space it is in as possible.
Interviews with stakeholders and existing or target users are
conducted. It is also important to research how similar products
and companies are implementing their own solutions.
7. Process
Interviews | Contextual Inquiry | Competitive Analysis | Heuristic Analysis
Surveys are sent out to collect initial data and recruit people to interview.
Competitors and comparable products are analysed to find new opportunities
and to understand what people already know how to use.
Trail Search
Results
Trail
Profile
Photo
Feed
User
Profile
Trail
Reviews
Trails
AllTrails
MyMapHike
Yonder
Survey takeaways and interviewing a user
Competitor feature and layout analyses
8. Process
Synthesis & Strategy
With the initial research completed, it is time to digest all of the
information. Thoroughly synthesizing and organizing the amount of data
that comes out of the research phase can be daunting, but it is incredibly
important to fully understand the information. This allows for more
intelligent decisions to be made about the scope of the project and strategy
moving forward.
9. Process
Project Scope | Feature Prioritization | Information Architecture | Content Strategy
Personas are created to help keep the focus on the research instead of
assumptions when making design decisions. Based on the personas,
features are prioritized to help them best meet their goals.
10. Process
Design & Build
In the design & build stage it is time to bring the research to
life by thinking through how the product will actually look and
function. Ideally, this is a highly collaborative stage so that
many ideas can be fleshed out as quickly as possible. Core,
prioritized features and flows are worked through first at
various levels of fidelity which are then turned into prototypes.
11. Process
Rapid Sketches | Wireframes | Mockups | Prototypes
Collaborative design studios are
conducted to produce rapid sketches or
whiteboard sessions of core pages.
Paper prototypes are then sometimes
built to test general element
arrangement and flows. Afterwards,
higher fidelity wireframes are built to
create clickable prototypes for testing.
Both the visual and copy fidelity of this page increased throughout the design process.
12. Process
Validate & Deliver
Getting designs in front of real people is the best way to
validate decisions. Findings from usability tests reveal so
much that is then able to be iterated upon. These findings
are delivered with annotations and test reports.
13. Process
Usability Tests | Iterations | Annotations | Test Reports
Test plans help to keep each test’s data as unbiased as possible by
facilitating tasks for testers in the same format each time. Notes can quickly
be taken during each stage of the test. Annotations are used to synthesize
test findings and deliver them in a clear manner. Annotations are also used
to describe features, elements, and interactions in an interface.
15. Overview
Texts.com Case Study
2.5 weeks 3 designers
Timeline Team
Managed the project
Prepared survey and interview questions
Prepared test plan for existing site
Developed and tested new sitemap
Built medium fidelity wireframes
Built a clickable prototype
Prepared test plan for my team’s design
Conducted usability testing
My Responsibilities
Research Report
Interview findings
Usability takeaways
Competitive analysis
Suggested features
Design
Sitemap
User Flows
Wireframes
Clickable Prototype
Deliverables
Texts.com facilitates textbook buying and selling between students
on campus and between students and online vendors. Textbook
prices have increased a whopping 812% in the past 30 years and
80% of the market is controlled by just four publishers. They are
determined to keep prices high, so Texts.com offers a cheaper
alternative to college students.
The Opportunity
16. Research
Texts.com Case Study
Our UX team was brought on board after Texts.com was fully
functional, but had not gone through any research or usability
processes, so the first task was to understand the existing product.
We conducted interviews with stakeholders and also watched college
students interact with Texts.com. This allowed us to define the scope
and strategy for how our team would approach this project.
The Challenge
Initial Research Takeaways
Increase sign-ups and click-throughs to affiliate buyers
Improve Texts.com’s learnability and recall
Discover new features that could be implemented
Stakeholders
Buy books and cheaply as possible
Sell books as conveniently to themselves as possible
Didn’t understand the dual marketplace that Texts.com provides
College Students
17. Strategy
Texts.com Case Study
Research findings, partnered with takeaways from competitive analysis, led our
team to focus on restructuring Texts.com’s information architecture.
Texts.com’s previous sitemap. Almost every action
was accessible from every page which may sound
convenient in theory, but actually confused users.
They would get lost or frustrated within a flow
and want to leave the site.
My team’s sitemap as of the end of this project. By
splitting up the website’s main features (buying
and selling) right from the primary navigation,
users began to work through the site at a much
quicker and more successful rate.
Part of this process was to visualize Texts.com’s current sitemap and userflows.
The final proposals were informed by findings from testing the current site and
analyses of competitive and comparitive services.
18. Strategy Cont’d.
Texts.com Case Study
Texts.com’s existing user flow for buying a book from another student. This flow was
convoluted and even forced the user to search for the same book at two different points.
Proposed flow for buying a book from another student. This flow enables a user (who
isn’t signed in, at first) to go from searching for a book from the homepage to contacting
a student who is selling the book in four (4) less steps than before.
19. Design & Iterate
Texts.com Case Study
Once the group was comfortable with the new user flows and information
architecture at a conceptual level, it was time to begin the wireframing process
which would help reveal any holes and enable us to test whether our proposed
structure would help students complete their goals on Texts.com.
One of the more central pages on Texts.com is the product page for the
textbooks, so my team made sure to focus heavily on this page.
Before: Students did not realize that they
could login to see if any students were
selling at their school (red). They also didn’t
know that they could interact with the
chevron icons (green) to reveal more
information about a particular listing.
Perhaps the biggest issue in this version was
that student’s didn’t know what to expect
when selecting “open” (blue).
After: The split modules were made into one
module that students no longer glanced over
(red). The “more info” buttons made it clear to
students that more information was available
(green). Finally, more appropriate terminology
replaced the vague “open” buttons (blue) that
helped students understand what they were
interacting with when clicking there.
20. Reflection
Texts.com Case Study
This was an amazing opportunity to get to work with a real client. Texts.com
developers immediately began implementing my team’s findings and I have
even joined the Texts.com team on a freelance basis to continue working on
their products.
If I had the opportunity to start this project all over again, I would involve the
Text.com team in our process more (and more often). As a designer, it is
incredibly beneficial to have a product’s developers working alongside you.
I also learned that giving context to users is equivalent to giving power to
them. Your team may design the most intuitive flows and interfaces, but if there
is an absence of context your users are going to struggle.
My team with the CEO and developers of Texts.com
