People will adapt to your design in unexpected ways to meet their own needs.

Observing people using your product is the only way to truly understand if you have fulfilled a need, a market gap, the opportunity.

Good design always begins with a good question and a well structured experiment. Similar to communication research, design begins with a proper discovery phase, using methods of primary and secondary research, to build the hypotheses and ferret out assumptions. The opposite of solution-first thinking - the human- centered design process is front-loaded with activity to ensure we understand -- are we asking the right questions? And are we asking for the right people -- our end users?

As a design leader, I emphasize the creative process as a collaborative, communicative effort. Using a variety of fundamental scientific research approaches, we begin by inviting discussion through workshops, qualitative observations, and reviewing extant research. We go broad, before digging deep, never losing sight of the full experience, or journey.

We implement a scientific and measurable approach to lean design experimentations. And we are constantly measuring our design against how it impacts the overall experience for the consumer/user.

Design With Reason

Ethos

Keep a child-like curiosity at the center of product design. Always probe, always question, always have fun.

You can not, not design. You can not, not communicate. Do you know what you are communicating? Can you predict and measure the success of your design changes?

Whether you planned for an artful and thoughtful design, or quickly brought a product to life as a one-woman band, every product has been designed. And every product is communicating something about your company values, and your organizational (dis) function.

A poor user experience can often be traced to a siloed organizational structure and poor collaboration between the people who are responsible for funding and driving product scope and delivery.

Luckily, we know that good UX can be driven through the processes by which we approach design. And, that approach is fundamentally tied to how we better communicate and collaborate as a team of contributors, and with our end-users.

Experience

I have more than 15-years experience in the digital design field and am an expert researcher who champions user-centered design. I have proven leadership skills and have developed products and managed teams of usability experts, content managers, visual designers and web developers to produce web sites, mobile applications, IPTV applications and content management systems.

I care about the company I work for, the people I work with, and about the quality of work I produce. Whether I am hands-on design, speaking at a conference, managing a project timeline, writing a thought piece, or mentoring a co-worker; you can be sure I will give all my energy to that moment, to be the best I can be for myself and those around me.

Early Career

Accessibility Analyst
Content Strategist
Human Factors and Usability Testing
Information Architecture
Front End Development

In my early career, I served as an accessibility analyst, human-factors researcher, and information architect at Prodigy Communications. I am most proud of my contributions to the Prodigy tabbed browser. I helped developers code against the UAAG and WCAG guidelines for accessible software and website designs. I also contributed to the usability success for our shopping experience, conducting multiple user interviews, creating lean prototypes, and then testing with users. Skills I acquired and used during this period of my career include: html/css/javascript, interaction design, many research techniques (card-sort, focus group, user interviews, ethnography, usability studies, eye-tracking, a/b testing).

AT&T

Sr. Leader Content Management and Design Systems
Creative Director att.com
Sr. IT Product Manager Emerging Products IPTV (U-verse)

As Creative Director, I led the strategy and design direction the att.com site. With an international team of researchers, visual designers, content writers and information architects, we created compelling and

efficient web site experiences: including two home page redesigns, a redesign of the shopping cart, dozens of advertising campaigns and critical user experience enhancements.

I also let a cross-departmental governance team in charge of vision for the IPTV application suite, engaging with C-level executives across the company to cull requirements, vet features, and create and manage a comprehensive road map for short and long-term goals. I was known to be a level-headed leader during critical transitions (e.g. Cingular & AT&T merger) and during important product launches (e.g. home page redesign, black Friday ad campaigns, complete redesign of shopping experience).

Academia and Leadership Consultant

Assistant Instructor - Organizational Communication Studies
Qualitative Researcher, Author, Public Speaker
Organizational Consultant

As in instructor at the University of Texas at Austin, I taught upper and lower division courses covering a range of communication topics including; public speaking skills, digital communication, virtual leadership, small group dynamics, distributed team communication, and intercultural communication. I published research in textbooks and journals on topics such as virtual leadership, communication dynamics in multi-cultural organizations, and the intersections of time, distance, and virtual presence. In addition, I ran my own consultancy, working with sales teams and teachers to improve their storytelling through narrative structure designed for impact.

Dell Technologies

Product Design Director IT - Multi-cloud and XaaS Product Design
Design Ops and Design Production
Leader Accessibility Center of Excellence

At Dell, I currently lead Design Production and Operations and the Design Product Team focused on our cutting edge multi-cloud subscription experience. The Design Ops and Production Team is responsible for implementing consistent approaches to UX Design processes. Our team of Design Producers, are the first line of advocacy for design-led product experiences. We operationalized design estimations, enabling and empowering global design teams to work as equal partners to our product management and engineering teams.

I also led The Accessibility Center of Excellence, responsible for institutionalizing accessibility best practices in the production of digital products. I helped to create a program with organizational communication processes and procedures that bridged across dozens of various product teams, so that we adhere to the global WCAG standards, through the methods of test, teach, tell. My banner for that program was, "Changing the hearts, minds and skillsets of the people at Dell Technologies to serve people of all abilities."

Organizational Communication Scholar

“Communication is the process whereby one individual stimulates meaning in the mind of another through verbal and/or nonverbal means”

University of Texas at Austin

B.S. Radio, Television Film

With a focus on convergent digital media, I received my degree in digital production. It is during this time that I learned the foundation of hyper-media and effective storytelling in a digital, asynchronous and distributed modality.

University of Texas at Austin

MA, Organizational Communication

My focus during my masters degree was on distributed teams, organizational behavior, and computer-mediated communication. My thesis argument culminated in a theoretical structure called time-stacking, a modern lens to understand how individuals are multi-communicating in several new time structures.

The University of Texas at Austin

PhD, (ABD)

While I did not complete the dissertation, I had completed the course work and had many accomplishments during the journey. My focus for my dissertation was on virtual leadership and new ways of "being" with team members, without physical presence. Some of my research questions were: How can you build team trust across time-zones? What digital cues are most effective in creating a feeling of co-presence?