President Barack Obama joins United Stages Digital Service (USDS) staff for a group photo on the Navy Steps of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building of the White House, Jan. 12, 2017. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
My experience includes being the CEO and Founder of ElleSee Futures, a design and research consultancy focused on helping media and not-for-profit companies through digital transformations, focusing on human-centered design.
The human-centered design toolkit can be applied to all aspects of life, and my new role has been the perfect opportunity to do just that. In 2019 I joined Valley Bank, a legacy organization going through a major transformation, to build a research and service design team from the ground up.
Before Valley Bank, I had the opportunity to work as a senior researcher at WeWork’s NYC headquarters during their rapid growth phase. At WeWork I designed, managed and executed research efforts leading to two products critical to the future of WeWork used by WeWork interior designers and the WeWork real estate teams. These products helped decrease the amount of time it took to spec out an interior design project by more than 50 percent.
Prior to WeWork, I completed a tour of service with the United States Digital Service, a startup at The White House that uses design and technology to deliver better services to the American people.
My career was influenced and shaped by my early experiences serving as a liaison between reporters, editors, designers, and producers at The Washington Post. For breaking news, as well as enterprise and investigative reporting, I worked closely with every department, managing storytelling across all platforms. What I found was missing in these conversations was the reader’s [the “user”] voice.
My expertise includes:
Helping product owners move from making assumptions about users to making informed decisions about usability and features users want is my strength. Experience design is not a one and done process. We should be constantly learning about how users are engaging with our products, responding to their behaviors and evolving.
Business, design, content and development teams must collaborate to do:
We must be proactive about how we can improve our products to take advantage of new behaviors and technologies.