Hands-on User Experience Leadership

Research, Interaction Design, Strategy, Architecture, & Engineering

I’ve worked in academia and private enterprise in a variety of roles, from educator to researcher to engineer. I am what Jared Spool calls a UX unicorn: someone who is competent in several of the domains that comprise User Experience design: user research, interaction design, information architecture, and UX strategy. I am also an accomplished User Interface (UI) engineer.

I started out as a social researcher and educator, initially introduced to the world of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) while building an online course at Syracuse University where I was taking my Ph.D. in sociology of work and the economy.

My early work focused on building user interfaces: UI engineering, UI design, and information architecture. I went on to perform UI engineering, product design, and user research in a variety of environments: eCommerce, financial/banking, mobile, online learning, tax preparation, marketplace platforms, search, and more.

In my current position, what I do, first and foremost, is advocate for the user. It’s the core of the user experience profession. Concretely, I have been busy building out a UX Research Lab and UX strategy for our team and the organization. I direct a UX Research program, overseeing the work of UX analysts, Product Managers, and Business Analysts. The goal is to thread UX research as a practice throughout the organization. My motto: UX Design is a behavior, not a department. The UX program consists of both tactical and strategic research, using both qualitative and quantitative methods on mobile and desktop users. As a UX strategist, I am also responsible for the following:

• crafting a UX training program for our product and design teams
• building out a Global User Experience Language to guide design, engineering, product, SEO, and marketing teams
• introducing design-thinking and user-centered design practice through workshops and field work events (e.g., field days, design-a-thons, and company-wide hackathons)

As a UX leader for the larger organization, I advocate for the user and work to raise the UX maturity level of Homes.com and Dominion Enterprises more generally.