GoDaddy Summer, 2020 - Current

I have carried forward my passion for improving the design process to the scale of GoDaddy. Here, I’m working cross-functionally with many of the teams building cutting edge experiences for our customers. I employ user-centered-design practices to design a better design experience for our teams.

Leadership

  • I lead the federated design system effort around our core multibrand design system. I work closely with our lead designers across the organization as well as engineering to align on various updates and changes to that system.
  • I train designers on GoDaddy’s way of doing product design, facilitating regular onboarding sessions and developing a multimedia training curriculum for our systems, tools, and processes.
  • I build the Figma libraries and maintain tools to keep the libraries aligned with our multi-brand token system.
  • I cast the vision and help align teams on cross-org efforts that impact multiple global user experiences.

Keap (Formerly Infusionsoft) Summer 2017 - Summer 2020

I led DesignOps at Keap because I really wanted to improve the lives of designers there. I brought designers and engineers together, enabling them both to build more purposefully, serving our customers better.

Leadership

  • I drive improvement of the Design System that powers and informs the design of all Keap apps leading to higher-quality, more consistent user experiences as well as components that are easier to work with for both engineers and designers. Gathers feedback and coordinates updates to design and engineering artifacts, boosting quality.
  • I led the redesign of the designer hiring and onboarding experience, which inspired the company-wide adoption of the new process and reduced designer ramp-up time to one day. This effort won the team the “Better Together” award. Coordinated the creation of a design playbook that standardizes best practices and team procedures, which became the new standard for playbooks throughout the company.
  • I lead a company-wide effort to adopt Design Thinking and User-Centered Design practices by mentoring team members across the company in using lean user research and collaborative ideation techniques, standardizing and increasing the impact of design at scale.
  • I spearheaded the launch of an open-source tool for Sketch called Sleuth, which gained 3,125 visitors, was featured in Sketch’s newsletter in its first month.
  • I designed and launched an experience that dramatically reduced the difficulty of sending bulk emails that now accounts for half of all bulk email campaigns sent in Keap.

Open Source

Tallwave Fall 2013 - Summer 2017

Tallwave was a great place to work. I was energized daily by the influx of new and interesting projects. Tallwave really understood the importance of customer experience design. Building empathy with customers’ consumers taught me new and exciting insights to drive performance of my designs.

Note: I’m including my time at 29th Drive and Ethology into this as my team was acquired twice, ultimately by Tallwave.

Notable Projects

Open Source

6 years at U-Haul

The big takeaway from my time at U-Haul was the importance of well-designed systems in the customer experience. In addition to tuning the front-end experience at Uhaul.com based on research, we found and executed several improvements to the in-store experience by tuning or creating better applications for employees to use.

Big Projects

  • Uhaul.com: Tuning based on research, making it mobile-friendly.
  • Internal apps ranging from reports, to warehouse management, to a parking space sharing app, to a reservation management system.
  • U-Haul Car Share: Guiding the launch of a new service line.
  • Supergraphics: Designing and building educational mini-sites, an accompanying phone app, and content management system.

Freelancing & Owning/Operating Streak Creative

As a (former) freelancer, I developed a lot of my web design and programming skills on smaller projects. Later on, I founded Streak Creative Technology Services LLC with a friend of mine. Through that experience, I learned about starting, owning, and running a business. Streak was always a side project for me, and I wound down the business shortly after starting at Ethology (29th Drive).

2 Years at NAU

My time at the NAU Marketing Department taught me that in design, the details really matter. It sounds really foundational, and it is, but it’s something that’s only really learned by having a superior designer critique your work over and over until you get it right. This job is also where I picked up proficiency in several of the Adobe tools.

Bachelor or Fine Arts in Visual Communication from NAU

In 2006, I earned a BFA in Visual Communication with emphasis in Graphic Design from Northern Arizona University.

Miscellanious Jobs

I’ve been working since I turned 16. A lot of those years were spent at “entry-level” jobs while I was in school. Nevertheless, I learned a lot!

Domino’s Pizza

I worked every non-management position from customer service to delivery. The key takeaway from this job was that customer experience is important from the time the phone is answered to skillfully executing the order, to the demeanor of the delivery driver.

Blockbuster Video (Remember them?)

One summer in college, I worked at Blockbuster video. As a customer service person, I learned the ability to connect customers with products based on their interests and personality — like a video rental sommelier. This was the beginning of my interest in customer empathy.

Arcade Attendant

In high school, I worked a year as an arcade attendant. I learned a lot about basic job skills and the value of integrity.