Communication

A UX designer serves as the nexus for just about every stakeholder and discipline – internal and external – in a design project. Thus, to be an effective designer means being an excellent and efficient communicator. Since I have firsthand background not just in design, but in both front end and back end development in addition to significant work as a product manager, I'm able to easily speak the language of all internal and external stakeholders.

Additionally, having worked in organizations that span the range from the largest of organizations to the smallest of startups, I'm able to facilitate communication at exactly the right level – visually, verbally, and in print.

Deliverables

I've produced the complete compliment of design-related deliverables including:

Most importantly, though, with experience in both waterfall and agile processes as well as within large design groups (and companies) and small startups, I have the experience to be able to determine what deliverables are needed to support a particular type of group or size of company.

Management & Leadership

I've managed teams in a variety of disciplines, from design, to development, to testing. I've managed both local teams and off-shore teams. I effective at mentoring, motivating, and inspiring the people I manage  to deliver great results, often in difficult circumstances.

I'm also an effective leader, able to facilitate group decision-making, drive consensus, and build support and buy-in for decisions. I've been effective doing this with teams I've managed, cross-functional teams with which I work, and executives to whom I've reported directly and indirectly.

The Entire Product Development Lifecycle

Discovery

I've led the Discovery phase on several large projects, identifying 1. market opportunities and 2. user needs and pain points. This leadership has provided both strategic direction as well as a thorough understanding of the user.

Definition & Design

With the strategy set and a good understanding of the market and users, I'm also facile with the full compliment of processes and deliverables necessary to execute on that strategy. I'm also a master of the entire design process including contextual work analyses, work reengineering, use case and user story creation, creation of wireframes and user flows, and usability testing among many others.

Development

I've worked in development roles—most recently as a full-stack Ruby on Rails developer and application architect for my company, The ChalkBird—and have managed front-end development teams and testing teams. I communicate easily and work well with developers. I am intimately familiar with MVC architecture, REST, agile development and a variety of front end technologies including Javascript, JQuery, Ajax, HTML5, CSS3, SASS etc., and have first hand experience developing applications using all of these and others. In short, I am intimately familiar with the "stuff" out of which my designs will ultimately be built, and am able to use that knowledge to build designs that will actually work.

Deployment

In certain B2B scenarios, I've been the primary point of contact in the deployment of products I've designed and managed. I've had this role as both an individual contributor and as the manager of a delivery operations organization. This is a supremely valuable role for a design leader to have as it provides essential insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the product and its design as well as being a source of ongoing strategic input.