My journey

 
 
 
 

Experience

20+ years work experience spanning

  • Design and Design Leadership - 10+ years

  • Project Management - 5

  • Software development - 7 years

Because of my well-rounded education and experience, I design projects that are technically feasible, code solutions that solve the design need, and plan projects / resources / dependencies to deliver projects on time and within budget.

Industries : Collaboration, Email, Filesharing, Enterprise Social, Travel, Hospitality, Open Source, Cloud based technology and retail

I believe in

  • Early and frequent research to collect customer feedback

  • Active and frequent sharing to validate and collaborate with stakeholders

  • Whiteboarding / sketching / flowcharting / mindmapping to validate and gain consensus before jumping into design

  • Growing designers by asking them thought-provoking questions to independently solve problems, providing helpful feedback in a safe and trusting environment, providing them opportunities to lead and yes, sometimes, fail and helping them learn from their falls.

Skills

  • Sketch / Figma / Invision / Adobe XD / Illustrator / Photoshop / Dreamweaver

  • Visio / Balsamiq

  • Flash / HTML / CSS / javascript

  • Design artifacts and methods - Mind map / Storyboards / Affinity Map / Flow chart / Wireframes / Key frames / Sketch measures / Heuristic Evaluation / Design thinking exercises

  • Basic Accessibility / System Design

  • Logo Design / Prototyping / Illustration

  • Programming background - lays the foundation to quickly grasp and implement most technologies

  • Project management background - helps with planning projects, proactively spotting risks, identifying and scheduling interdependencies

Education

University of California at Santa Cruz Extension
Certificate in Web Design and Development, 2010-2012

Knox College, Galesburg, IL
Bachelor's in Computer Science, 1995-1999

Personal

I have two rambunctious little girls that use their antics to keep me quite busy (and entertained). In my spare time, I volunteer (Project Cornerstone, Art in Action), travel (pre pandemic), read (post pandemic), go running and help out with production for a local Community Theater group (Naatak).