What am I doing here?

In a perfect world, tools work the way you expect them to.

I’m working toward a perfect world.

How I got here

I accidentally became a UX designer. I was a college writing teacher in charge of a writing lab, and some days I did nothing but answer questions for students and teachers just trying to use the workstations to to get their work done.

The tools were too hard to learn.

So I documented people’s questions, watched them interact with the computers, and tested incremental updates to the user interface. It was so rewarding to help people stop asking questions about the tools and focus on their tasks that I had to find out how to do it full time.

 
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When I’m working…

I don’t have all the answers—I have tools and processes to help the team find the right answers.

Research

Are we meeting the needs of real people? We aren’t here to just make shiny stuff.

Collaborate

We all work together. And by “all,” I mean designers, writers, developers, stakeholders, and especially users.

Iterate

Design. Test. Repeat. Did we test something today? What did it teach us?

Polish

Details matter. We’re not here just to make shiny stuff, but we have to make the right stuff shiny.

 
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When I’m not working…

 
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I ride my bike

Back roads and bike paths!

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I go to the ocean

White Horse Beach—when sunset meets low tide.

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I collect weird antique cats

French faience and majolica from the early 20th century.