Career Timeline

 

I’ve had the fortunate ability to work for some amazing organizations over my career. Each spot has given me the opportunity to learn how different sectors work from agencies to local government to financial services.

 
 
 
 
 
 
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Lakana


May 2014 - May 2016

Overview

  • Designed various wireframes and prototypes for external facing websites, apps, and smart watch interfaces

  • Worked with a UX mentor to learn best practices for being a professional UX designer after earning a bachelor's degree

  • Learned the value of attending team meetings and participating by providing design input

  • Collaborated with product managers to design ideas for local news station administrators across the countries regarding customizing election widgets and displaying their results

  • Worked with the entire organization to process making the move from multiple physical offices and an organizational merger with two other corporations

  • Collaborated with front end developers to ensure designs resulted in accurate front end code to match the provided mockups

  • Generated personas based off of customer data and information to inform future design decisions

  • Assisted in the setup of a physical UX space in which wireframes and user flows could be posted on a wall for colleagues to walk through and provide feedback

  • Participated in multiple social groups around the organization to build a network of professional relationships in various teams

  • Learned presentation techniques from a UX mentor that developed storytelling skills to bring the business units and stakeholders along with the design process

  • Worked with a UX mentor to establish best practices for our team design process to coordinate with product managers and developers

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Main

Skills Learned

  • Transition between design school and business

  • How to be a professional UX designer

  • Worked with a mentor to learn best practices

  • Wireframing and mapping user journey flows

  • Providing feedback in a professional environment

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Examples of

Projects Worked On

  • Election results customizable widget

  • Smart watch weather updates and alerts

  • News content and alerts layouts

  • Advertisements for local news station partners

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2016

Reason for Departure

Job role was switched from UX design to flash ad design, and I wanted to focus on developing my UX design skills that I was hired for.

*Lakana has since closed their doors

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YA Engage


May 2016 - Aug 2017

Overview

  • Designed various wireframes and prototypes for both internal and external facing sweepstakes and promotional websites

  • Created personas based on customer data and information to provide direction and reasoning for design direction

  • Coordinated internal focus groups to redesign existing internal software to set rules for promotional websites

  • Animated and recorded presentations for the sales team to present to potential business partners

  • Wrote HTML and CSS for client websites including Culver's, Dannon, Cricut Mobile, and T-Mobile

  • Applied client branding to designs and front end code to ensure a seamless user experience for their customers

  • Participated in ideation sessions for new products and current product improvements

  • Presented designs to leadership to gain support for the proposed user experience updates to new and existing products

  • Participated in story writing and grooming in Jira to align with development and quality assurance teams

  • Managed multiple projects at once with the ability to deliver personas, focus group results, prototypes and presentations in a timely manner

  • Earned certification in Google Analytics by taking their online courses and completing and passing their exams

  • Helped transition YA through ownership change by sharing design and communication best practices

  • Created an internal tool that allowed users to use an easy drag and drop technique to set rules for various promotional websites including fraud checks, requirements, and payouts

  • Worked with product managers to ideate a social system for brand ambassadors on the back end of promotional websites to increase engagement

  • Collaborated with the contact center to improve their customer service software to decrease call times and increase overall efficiency and customer satisfaction

  • Volunteered to join the work social event committee and designed communications to share out for those events

  • Developed storytelling skills to present user journeys and mock-ups

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Examples of

Projects Worked On

  • Various sweepstakes and promotional websites

  • Back office administration software to set up promotional websites and programs

  • Brand ambassador social networking website

  • New product ideas

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2017

Reason for Departure

Vaperware design and sales practices that seemed dishonest for the customers and didn’t align with my core values.

I was also looking for opportunities that paid fair wages for my level of education and experience for Minneapolis.

*YA has since closed their doors

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Hennepin County


Aug 2017 - Nov 2019

Overview

  • Worked on the Center of Innovation and Excellence team to improve digital experiences for the residents of the county

  • Designed and shared out the first design system for the entire county to utilize brand and accessibility standards across all digital products

  • Collaborated with multiple teams to ideate creative solutions to help residents complete tasks easily online

  • Generated content to publish through the content management system to educate residents on important issues and show how they could take action in their local government

  • Designed wireframes and clickable prototypes to share with developers for their back end development

  • Published HTML and CSS for entire websites to behave as anticipated after producing the clickable prototype

  • Maintained focus on Hennepin County residents and their needs with various social programs and educational opportunities

  • Collaborated with IT and communications to follow brand standards to create a trustworthy experience for internal and external users

  • Campaigned and demonstrated a justification for earning a master's degree in psychology to pair with UX work

  • Hosted and guided multiple in-person moderated usability tests to uncover pain points in designs and live websites

  • Worked with a researcher on the team to assemble a panel of testing participants who lived in Hennepin county

  • Toured and gathered findings from various usability testing labs including 3M and Target HQ to learn what they did for best practices when running moderated usability tests

  • Used Optimal Workshop to conduct virtual usability testing and gather feedback from participants

  • Managed multiple projects at once with the ability to deliver wireframes, prototypes, test results, accessibility issue reports, or UX guidelines in a timely manner

  • Communicated advice clearly to product, design, communication, and development teams on accessibility best practices and related decisions

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Examples of

Projects Worked On

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2019

Reason for Departure

Lack of clarity around roles and lack of communication between departments resulting in duplicate and/or missing work

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Wings Financial


Nov 2019 - Current

Overview

  • Hired on as the first in house UX designer

  • Worked with business analysts and stakeholders to understand project details and needs in order to influence the UX and user journey

  • Worked closely with marketing to ensure alignment with the Wings brand while creating a member focused experience

  • Created a consistency of brand and user experience across all digital channels including public facing websites, home banking, and mobile application

  • Designed user interfaces in wireframes and prototypes for inclusion in requirements stage of all projects

  • Developed detailed, accessible, and interactive prototype user interfaces and static mock-ups for developers, QA and documentation purposes

  • Created and hosted a bootcamp class for internal employees to learn about what user experience design is and best practices they can execute in their own work

  • Worked with the development team during the coding stage to provide guidance around UI specifics plus accessibility, and adjusted the UI as necessary within any determined constraints

  • Ensured that all designs comply with regulatory policies and are produced in accordance with established Credit Union policies and procedures

  • Participated in brainstorming and ideation sessions for complex and meaningful problems

  • Maintained focus on the Credit Union’s objectives and strategic priorities as well as department goals and needs of Wings’ target audiences

  • Built out Best Practices for UX/UI for custom development projects through creation of a design system which included accessibility and branding standards

  • Clearly communicated designs and solutions in a concise and easily readable format by both technical and non-technical personnel

  • Exceeded individual quality service goals as identified in my performance action plan

  • Accurately applied technical job knowledge and skills to complete all work in a timely manner in accordance with policies, procedures and regulatory requirements while managing varying degrees of work

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Examples of

Projects Worked On

  • The first Wings design system

  • Innovation sprints to generate new ideas

  • Card management flow and pages

  • Mobile banking dashboard and navigation design

  • New member onboarding application

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