What organizations hire me to do
Product design
Well-built products are ones that are able to build a
healthy relationship between the business and the
consumer. Ethics should be the grounding point of
product design, but we can easily observe how striving
to consistently profit off of users is a poor ethical
practice and an even poorer business strategy.
We meet users where they're at to identify and
understand their needs to come up with a sustainable
solution for both them and the business. I do this by
working closely with business stakeholders, product
management, user research, customer service, engineering
teams, and when possible, customers, to create the best
experience possible. If our design hinges on exploiting
the user, then we have failed.
Design systems
Systems can only be measured by what they enable. In
product design, software that can scale well are ones
that can iterate and innovate unencumbered by a bespoke
design process. That’s not to say bespoke design doesn’t
have its place, but you cannot design anything at scale
efficiently without enabling consistency when producing
or maintaining a product. But this isn't a silver bullet
for scalability or really any fundamental issues we see
today in product design; it's just another tool for
creating consistency, trust, and most importantly,
equity.
What good is a system if doesn't enable the inclusion of
all users. Accessiblity of your product must be thought
of at the conception of new features, not after. Design
systems enable designers to think through those
challenges in a consistent manner so we don't leave
people out – intentionally or not.
Bridging the gap
I've worn many hats in my career – designer, engineer,
researcher, product owner, marketer. Designing and
developing high-fidelity prototypes using HTML, CSS, and
JavaScript allow me to present functional prototypes and
ship production-level code. Being multidisciplinary
allows me make better design decisions, explore the cost
of ideas quickly, and work more effectively with
engineers. I like to serve as the bridge between
business & design needs and development feasibility.
I have experience with everything from CSS to modern JS
and even some PHP, but even though I don't develop
front-end experiences anymore, I still keep up-to-date
with my knowledge on software engineering and web
development (and use this website as practice).