Hello there. I'm a Creative Director and UX Digital Product Design Leader living in New York City.
I'm a passionate, seasoned, creative director and product UX designer with vast experience in editorial news production, broadcast television, retail and e-commerce, content development, marketing, and branding.
Throughout my career, I've transformed strategic and business goals into winning designs for cross-platform digital products and experiences—while fostering collaboration, creativity, and successful teams and partnerships.
I'm excited about my work, but also the tools, methods, and approaches to get the job done right. I believe in leading by example and demonstrating the principles of collaborative design, the effectiveness of user-centric approaches, and the efficiency of lean UX methodologies (rapid prototyping, iterative user testing, etc.).
And while I’m not afraid to roll up my sleeves, I also enjoy growing, coaching, and mentoring high-performance teams to produce outstanding results.
PRODUCT DESIGN METHODOLOGY & APPROACH
My approach to design is flexible, inclusive, collaborative, and iterative.
This term "Design Thinking," has become ubiquitous. And while its origins date back to the 1950s and 60s, and effectiveness across many industries is clear, this methodology is still going through its adolescence in the digital space. The implementation and adoption of this approach across an organization, especially one that is large and more established, can be challenging, but it's often gaining support at the highest levels, that requires perseverance.
There is no single way to apply this or any other methodology to an organization or a particular product or business goal. Each comes with its own set of variables. However, there are recognizable patterns to learn from and the clarity gained by even applying it in a light or "lean" form is undeniable.
I believe in the "Design Sprints approach," pioneered by the team at Google Ventures — detailed in the book, Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days by Jake Knapp, and have designed and facilitated many workshops with great success. While I continue to adapt this approach as the industry and technology change, I remain focused on the fundamental goal: bringing people together to solve the right problems collaboratively.
“The main tenet of design thinking is empathy for the people you're trying to design for. Leadership is exactly the same thing - building empathy for the people that you're entrusted to help.”
— DAVID M. KELLY
FOUNDER OF IDEO
While this general approach is my base, these are the areas I find the most important and rewarding as a designer and problem solver.
A strategic phase for discovery and framing is followed by an implementation phase where potential solutions are tested and validated in a lean environment, and refined through iteration.
Collaborating with both customers, internal teams, and stakeholders throughout the process is critical to determining what products and features should be built, how to build them, and allocating the appropriate resources for success. It's at this intersection where design thinking is effective and most advantageous to an organization.
Monitoring, measuring, and facilitating communication is the key to learning about customers and making accurate adjustments efficiently and swiftly. Therefore, product design is really never finished, but instead, it's an ongoing cyclical process used to elevate the experience of the customer and build brand loyalty.
