Knowledge. Experience. Wisdom.
My Focus
Being a co-founder and principal of a design agency, professional “focus” can be hard to define. Whether product designer or UX strategist, investigative researcher or information architect, individual contributor or design leader, I have worn a lot of hats over the years. My experience is both deep and broad, incorporating a number of complex skill sets spanning many different roles and responsibilities. These can be broken down into three distinct areas of specialization:
Craft Leadership
From my history and education, I’m a designer at heart. Over time, my experiences have broadened into design leadership, incorporating strategic, educational and managerial aspects of the craft and processes of UX design.
- Strategic visioning
- UX and visual design
- UX research
- Methodology and program development
- Workshop planning and facilitation
- Project planning and
- Artifacts and documentation
People Leadership
Each relationship is unique, promoting personal growth and a deeper understanding of the human condition. Whether team member or target audience, I thrive on building relationships and leading people and participants in the practice of UX design.
- Resource management
- Skills assessment
- Career development
- Client relationship management
- Team relationship management
- Organizational evaluation
- Crisis intervention
Operations Leadership
Managing a UX practice is more than design chops and people skills. It requires clear communication, a deep understanding of effective tools, methods and techniques, and direct experience operationalizing and executing complex processes.
- Ways of working (methods/techniques)
- Team/project communications
- Data management/storage/access
- Budgeting and estimations
- UX program development
- Tools, software, licensing
- Research planning/recruiting
Guiding Principles
My professional philosophy is centered around a series of guiding principles. Separate from universal principles of design, these particular concepts apply across all aspects of my work, shaping my worldview and informing my approach.
- CURIOSITY: Investigate, ask questions and become experts in the problems you are trying to solve. The more we learn the deeper we understand, helping to motivate stakeholders and trigger the imagination.
- EMPATHY: Listen carefully, directly observe and walk a mile in your customer’s shoes. Having team members engage with customers helps to bring challenges to life and and enables more targeted solutions.
- INCLUSIVITY: Encourage design solutions that represent and account for the complexities of our human diversity. Be an advocate for accessibility and equitability in the design process, promoting solutions that apply to the broadest audience possible.
- RELATIONSHIPS: Invest time developing honest, respectful relationships with team members, extended stakeholders and customers themselves. The result is a solid foundation of trust, mutual understanding and a desire to help one another be successful.
- COLLABORATION: Promote cross-functional collaboration and customer participation at various stages of the design process. Working together fosters inclusivity, strengthens relationships, builds consensus and broadens opportunities.
- COMMUNICATION: Be clear and transparent in your communication, whether in-person or in writing. Doing so maintains alignment by removing ambiguity, builds confidence amongst stakeholders, and keeps the team informed and prepared for the unexpected.
- ALIGNMENT: Make the effort fully research and align business objectives with customer needs, as these are often in conflict. Document assumed outcomes at the beginning, validate along the way and continually realign as information and expectations evolve.
- SIMPLE IS HARD: Less of a principle, more of a truism. Complex design challenges require a process that allows for the expansion and contraction of ideas, trial and error, mistakes and corrections. This is rigorous work with few shortcuts.