Author: admin

Raised Koi pond is now officially complete.

As a creative you learn that sometimes ideas are enough, while other times your entire being won’t sit right until the concept’s been actualized.

Well, this project has been milling around in my head for the past three years–My mind is so relieved to have it out!

---

Before time

---

Building the raised pond

---

The final product

Questions

Philosophy

• What is your design philosophy?
• Where is the future of design going?
• What is the future of the designer?
• Tell me about something you learned recently.

 

Design

• What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever designed?
• Why is <pick a random element> the way it is? What options did you look at?
• What are some of your favorite user experiences? Why? (does not have to be digital)
• What excites you about working here?

 

Process

• What is your process?
• What makes your approach to solving problems unique?
• How did that process work on your most recent project?
• What part of that process do you scale back on or feel most comfortable skipping during a crunch.
• How did you come to that [design] decision?

 

Research

• What do you think of [competitor product]?
• What other products/apps/sites have you looked at or used like ours?
• When doing the research for this project
  • a) What’s something that surprised you about the users you worked with and
  • b) How did that realization impact the design

 

Leadership

• Describe a situation when a team member was stuck
• Tell me about a time when two members had a broken relationship that negatively affect the work. How did you keep the team moving forward?

 

Technical

• How much do you know about the impact of responsive design on the build side?

 

Design exercise examples

• You have 15 minute to design a travel app with a focus on managing expenses while traveling

Question for employers

• What does success look like at the company?
• How will you be assessing my success in six months? 1 year?
• What will I have been expected to have accomplished during my 1st year?

Articles of interest

• 10 Questions You’ll Be Asked in a UX Interview
• How to probe for pain in a job interview

 

Employment

PAYPAL.com
Senior Visual Design Consultant 5/2011 to Present

• Establishing visual design directions
• Product visionary roadmap concepting
• Collaborative brainstorming for user flows and online experiences
• Domain and technology researching

FRANKLIN TEMPLETON INVESTMENTS
Senior User Experience Designer 7/2005 to 4/2011   |   Visual Designer 2/2001 to 6/2005

Art Direction and Design

• Manage visual design for over 35 corporate websites in 13 languages, web-based enterprise applications, intranets and styleguides
• Lead creative development, including template creation and visual execution of global site redesigns and new content templates
• Effectively integrate user experience disciplines and facilitate intra-team collaboration to translate user goals and business requirements into intuitive design solutions
• Ensure support and translation of corporate brand and product strategies for external and internal web initiatives
• Lead design UAT for site build issue tracking and resolution
• Provide design direction, business perspective and insight, guidance and mentorship to global team of senior, junior and contract designers

User Experience Research

• Conduct client interviews to build corporate knowledge base on customer activities
• Conduct expert reviews of website to identify usability issues and enhancement opportunities
• Generate Mental Models as part of project discovery and proposals
• Participate in team lead usability studies and document observations
• Track VoC user experience trends to determine actionable design solutions to enhance website experiences
• Evaluate user needs against business goals and development feasibility to determine project initiative priorities

Strategic Planning

• Analyze opportunities and project knowledge gaps, define successful approaches and proactively solve problems within design project lifecycle
• Concept design initiatives to address business and online challenges

Project Management

• Manage team design project work-flow, schedules, scope, timelines and deliverables
• Provide clear communication to business partners and management regarding project status, resource requirements, design issues and priorities
• Mitigate project risks and ensure timely resolution of key design issues
• Lead and collaboratively participate in key project-decision making; e.g. requirements gathering, resource allocation and coordination of global project teams
• Conduct vendor/agency evaluations for large scale project participation and long-term corporate relationship fit

Process Optimization

• Documentation of team design processes, job roles, responsibilities and training procedure
• Streamline design-to-development review process across global team, contractors, vendors and internal developers.

Relationship Management

• Directly manage client relationships in support of strategic and creative goals for both the US and international markets; e.g. Europe, Asia, North America
• Create, facilitate and lead client presentations and meetings
• Demonstrate sensitivity and awareness to the cultural and business environments of global business partners

Resource Management

• Define priorities and manage resources as appropriate across projects
• Manage, schedule, assign visual design and information architect production requests

EVITE.com
Designer 2/2000 to 11/2000   |   Jr. Designer 9/1999 to 1/2000

• Successfully launched redesign of Evite invitation
• Established site visual design and developed standards
• Collaboratively developed ongoing site UI, site promotions and product enhancements from concept to launch
• Actively assisted in building design team
• Led creation of designs for user testing and collaboratively organized focus groups

Awards

KASINA TOP TEN FINANCIAL WEBSITES
FranklinTempleton.com
2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009. 2010

STAR AWARDS, Mutual Fund Education Alliance
FranklinTempleton.com
– 2010 Best Retail Website (US)
– 2010 Best Online Marketing Campaign Advisor – 2020 Vision: Equities in the Decades Ahead
– 2007 Honorable Mention, Best Electronic Advisor Newsletter

WEBBY AWARD, BEST SERVICE
Evite.com
2001

Lectures, Conferences & Seminars

Unconference, Focus on Presentations
Palo Alto, February 2009

UI 12
Boston, November 2007

WEB DESIGN WORLD
San Francisco, January 2007

USABILITY WEEK, NEILSEN NORMAN GROUP
Accessiblity Focus
San Francisco, January 2004

LECTURES, DISCUSSION GROUPS
Active participant of the AIGA and Bay Area design community
2002 to present

Education

University of California, Santa Barbara
BA History, 1994 – 1999

University of Sevilla, Spain
Abroad studies, History 1997 – 1998

References

Available upon request