Work Experience

I have 8 years of work experience as a UX designer. Throughout these years I’ve worked on projects for large tech companies and small startups in a variety of industries. I love solving tough challenges and driving impact.

UX Designer 3 & Product Owner, Adobe Spark  –  March 2016 – current

Adobe Spark is a suite of web and mobile apps designed to easily create and share stories online. I worked on an incubation project to create a next-gen website creation tool for small businesses, non-profits, and students. My goal was to help them leverage the power of websites to make their organizations more successful.

Working on a small team, I had a dual role as designer and product owner of the features I worked on. As a designer I was responsible for the end-to-end design of the feature, including both the interaction design, visual design, and user research.
As a product owner, I was responsible for managing the roadmap and backlog of my feature areas and leading the feature team throughout the development process. This included defining the scope and requirements (with input from the engineering team and PM), organizing and driving feature team meetings, and making sure that the features were delivered on time and according to spec.

Some of the most important feature areas I owned include:

  • Onboarding and Guidance across the app to ensure customer success
  • Real-time Collaboration among multiple users (we were the first product at Adobe to implement this!)
  • Use Cases and Templates – deciding which types of websites we would support based on our target audience and feature capabilities
  • Edu Research & Strategy – exploratory research to understand how websites are used in Edu and what features we’d need to add to be successful in this market and a roadmap to make this happen

UX Designer 2, Adobe Muse  –  April 2015 – March 2016

Adobe Muse was a desktop program for professional designers to create custom websites without writing any code. I was the lead designer for the web companion that allowed small business owners to easily update their Muse website. I drove a complete redesign of the application to modernize it and make it more intuitive for our users.

Interaction Designer, Blink UX  –  January 2013 – April 2015

Blink is a user experience research and design firm specializing in digital products. Blink follows a user-centered design approach that integrates research, interaction design, visual design, and usability testing.

As a UX designer I created wireframes, prototypes, detailed specs, and presented my design to clients. I also conducted user research and worked on visual design.

I worked with clients in a variety of industries, including travel, health care, e-commerce, and advertising. A few of my clients include Holland America Line, Amazon, Intel, Duluth Trading Company, Fluke, Viverae, and Mixpo.

Freelance UX Designer, Sagewire Research  –  August 2012 – December 2012

Sagewire Research compiled publicly available data about companies. I redesigned their desktop and mobile sites. Tasks included conducting UX reviews to identify areas of improvement, creating wireframes and visual design comps.

Interaction Design Intern, Blink UX  –  April 2012 – August 2012

As an intern at Blink I became a subject matter expert on Windows 8 design. As part of this, I worked with Rhapsody to design their Windows 8 music app. I also published an article on UX Booth and worked with evangelists at Microsoft to organize events targeted at Windows 8 developers – I gave a presentation on design at the Microsoft Store in Bellevue, WA, and was a judge and a coach at Windows 8 hackathons organized by Microsoft.
As part of my internship I also conducted an audit of the new Costco.com website prior to launch to identify any potential usability issues.

UI Designer, MAQ Software  –  September 2011 – March 2012

Worked as a UI designer on a variety of projects for Microsoft, including a search engine to find volunteer opportunities, a Windows 8 calendar app specifically for Microsoft executives (before Windows 8 had even been released), and many mobile apps for Windows Phone.

Education

Product Management Studio Certificate
University of Berkeley,  Haas School of Business – 2018

I completed an 8-week course on product management basics, including business models, storytelling, identifying target customers and their needs, and pricing strategy. This course helped me perform better in my role of Product Owner on the Adobe Spark Site team.

    Master of Science in Human Centered Design & Engineering
    University of Washington, College of Engineering –     2011 – 2013

    Master’s program focused on product development with a focus on user research and user experience design.

    Bachelor of Science in Informatics (Human Computer Interaction)
    with College Honors, Summa Cum Laude
    University of Washington, Information School –     2008 – 2011

    An interdisciplinary program at the intersection of user experience design and research and software development. Courses included user-centered design, information architecture, data structures & algorithms.