My process

Building relationships based on…

 
 

Trust

 

Relationship building is often overlooked in design work. This work requires influencing change, and for most people change is hard.

I’ve found that creating open and honest relationships with users, team members, and stakeholders is key to successfully enacting the change that design seeks to influence.

Building a foundation with…

 
 

Empathy

 

My design process starts with a strong foundation of empathy for all the people involved. Not only the “users”, but also the service providers, the vendors, and the stakeholders.

There are a number of research techniques I can leverage to gain empathy. I feel I’ve done my job when participants say things like,

“Wow I feel like I just got out of a therapy session”

or “Thank you so much for listening to me about all this”

Data

 

Working in two science and engineering focused organizations has instilled the importance of uncovering and presenting data-driven evidence. Some people prefer data, while others prefer testimony.

I believe pairing qualitative research with quantitative metrics enables me to tell the most compelling story and effectively drive stakeholders toward action and decision-making.

Systems thinking

 

As a human-centered designer the job will never be just change the colors or just make the feature easier to use.

I seek to find the root cause of problems so I’m not just solving a surface level issue. This requires understanding the ecosystem surrounding a given problem. I dig in curiously to explore the innerworkings of complex processes and environments.

Building solutions…

 
 

Collaboratively

 

The best solutions don’t come from one or two people in charge, they’re generated when we put our ideas together.

I use design thinking methodologies to conduct discovery workshops and co-design workshops that help ensure we are coming up with the best solutions within the constraints that exist.

Iteratively

 

We humans can be messy. So it’s no surprise that the human-centered design process is not done in a straight line.

I remain flexible in my process to accommodate new findings along the way. I believe teams also need to make space both physically (in our timelines) and mentally (in our expectations) for failures because it’s these failures and iterations that can bring about some of our greatest outcomes.