SENIOR UX DESIGNER
Cell: 804.937.6557 Email: kristenwebdesign@gmail.com
Portfolio: https://kristenwebdesign.myportfolio.com/
Leadership experience working with teams consisting of lead developers, designers, business analysts, product owners and product managers in fast-paced agile and Kanban environments
Senior UX Designer focused on web design and development experiences that are optimized on performance, usability, mobile first/responsive design and accessibility compliance
Web platform maintenance, user training, and process management expert
Design Software/Tools
Design Software/Tools
Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign/Behance/XD), Balsamiq Mockups, Figma, Sketch, Axure, Miro, FigJam
Web Application Platforms and Technologies
Development Tools Inspector, Sublime Text, Coda, FTP/SFTP, Google Web Fonts, TypeKit, Github Repository, WordPress Core Platform and Custom Plug-in Development, Adobe Business Catalyst, Magento 1 & 2-2.3, Drupal, MODx, jQuery, JavaScript, Bootstrap, HTML5, CSS, Joomla!, BigCommerce, NetSuite, Visual Basic, SQL, PHP7, JSON, API, Payment Processing Gateway Configuration and Management, Cvent, ClassMarker, CivicPlus, Brightcove Video Platform, Salesforce (Sales and Service Consoles), API Integrations and Configurations, Conveo, Marketo, Microsoft Dynamics 365
Mobile/Responsive Design and App Development
Design/Development Bizness Mobile App Design & Development, OpenMEAP Testing (functionality, look & feel) GenY motion, iOS simulator, Sauce Labs Browser & Device Testing, Airship Messaging, TestFlight Testing Platform
Accessibility WCAG 2.0/508 Compliance Software
Deque aXe PRO, Deque FireEyes, aXe Coconut, Voiceover, Color Contrast Analyzer (CCA), WCAG 2.0/2.1 Web Standards, W3C Markup Validation Service, W3C CSS Validation Service, The Web Standards Project, responsive web design best practices, semantic markup, JAWS, NVDA, PAC-PDF Accessibility Checker
EXPERIENCE SUMMARY
Visual Design & Front-End Development
Visual Design & Front-End Development
Creating and collaborating to create and manage design libraries, branding guidelines and color palettes, designing web UI templates and wireframes, mapping visual content strategy and user journeys, collaborating on across platform and senior level technology decisions, allocating and managing development and design resource teams on various public facing websites, creating and managing complex processes for release strategies, oversight for accessibility compliance and digital innovation throughout process development lifecycle.
Information Architecture and Design
Information Architecture and Design
Conduct research, planning, and consulting to achieve effective start to finish IT projects and re-platforming web projects of legacy sites to increase optimization and performance of assets and technologies for IT department. Collaborate and perform as lead designer on several teams consisting of platform architects, senior development leads, and programmers to create multi-platform solutions to solve organizational business gaps in current processes, enhance and create innovative future products.
Prototyping & User Centered Design
Step by step UX process-design activities that include; coordination, analysis and decision-making: Client discovery and requirements gathering, wireframe and mockup creation, production of hi-fi and lo-fi comps, clickable prototyping, user testing (defining personas, onsite facility and web-based user testing), A/B testing, analytic set-up and reporting, market research and defining target audience, stakeholder and user review and testing of prototypes, modifying design to meet technical and user feedback, working directly with developers to achieve results and optimal user experience, delivering presentations to users, stakeholders and upper management, product discovery sessions, agile practices and ceremonies.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Virginia Department of Health - Web OIM Team
October 2023-Present
Remote
Developed hi-fi and lo-fi mock-ups and wireframes in Miro and Adobe XD to represent design decisions, placement of graphics and customer journey.
Created HTML and CSS documentation for developers to translate wireframes into a working development environment.
Collaborated with business leaders, project managers, program managers, and DBAs to achieve user friendly webpages.
Conducted accessibility testing and troubleshoot accessibility violations for all webpages under the VDH WordPress site.
Recommended and created checklists for internal users to update content and graphics on webpages.
Troubleshoot plugin issues and work with plugin developers to resolve issues.
Participated as a team member on the communications team, recommending design best practices and accessibility compliance.
Worked directly with the Web Design manager on ongoing projects, new requests and troubleshooting issues with SiteOrigin plugin in WordPress
CDW (Full time) - Senior UX Designer for Home & Manage team
March 2022 - Present
Remote
October 2023-Present
Remote
Developed hi-fi and lo-fi mock-ups and wireframes in Miro and Adobe XD to represent design decisions, placement of graphics and customer journey.
Created HTML and CSS documentation for developers to translate wireframes into a working development environment.
Collaborated with business leaders, project managers, program managers, and DBAs to achieve user friendly webpages.
Conducted accessibility testing and troubleshoot accessibility violations for all webpages under the VDH WordPress site.
Recommended and created checklists for internal users to update content and graphics on webpages.
Troubleshoot plugin issues and work with plugin developers to resolve issues.
Participated as a team member on the communications team, recommending design best practices and accessibility compliance.
Worked directly with the Web Design manager on ongoing projects, new requests and troubleshooting issues with SiteOrigin plugin in WordPress
CDW (Full time) - Senior UX Designer for Home & Manage team
March 2022 - Present
Remote
Create hi-fi and lo-fi mock-ups with accessibility and development annotations in Figma to represent CDW.com account manage product interface.
Create CSS documentation and train developers to translate wireframes into working development environment
Lead 3 junior UX designers by conducting peer reviews, leadership reviews, and presenting in system demos.
Participated in agile ceremony activities and daily scrum meetings on Home and Manage team.
Create user journey whiteboards and conduct UX discovery work using tools like Miro.
Conduct user research, analyzed analytics and translated results into presentations to stakeholders to provide UX recommendations and decisions.
Work closely with UX content team and user research team to ensure content is up to date and user testing is being conducted for all net new products.
Work closely with developers, architects and other designers to ensure design process is being followed.
Manage user experience for account and homepage product areas. Work closely with Product Owners and Product Managers to prioritize and refine product features for UX delivery.
Visa (Apex Consulting) - Senior UX Designer
March 2021 - December 2021
Remote
Create hi-fi and lo-fi mock-ups in Adobe Photoshop and Figma to represent Cybersource.com and Authorize.net redesigned user experience for re-platforming project.
Create CSS documentation and train developers to translate wireframes into working development environment.
Collaborated with lead developers to identify accessibility compliance violations/errors and work to resolve issues with Microsoft support team.
Managed all accessibility compliance issues internally and with third party vendors like Microsoft.
Participated in agile ceremony activities and daily scrum meetings on 6 different agile teams providing UX support, feedback and recommendations.
Primary contact for UX recommendations for Merchant Support and Sales teams.
Conducted user research, analyzed analytics and translated results into presentations to stakeholders to provide UX recommendations and decisions.
Created and updated user stories in Jira and Axure on daily basis.
Assisted marketing and Visa University teams in implementing branding for new redesigned platform.
Lead teams as Accessibility expert in UX design and accessibility compliance.
Hanover County Government (MaconIT) - Senior UX/Accessibility Lead Designer
October 2016 – March 2021
Hanover, VA
October 2016 – March 2021
Hanover, VA
• Responsible for providing web support for the implementation of the CivicPlus CRM solution.
Create hi-fi and lo-fi mock-ups in Adobe Photoshop and Figma to present to Government department stakeholders to reflect design ideas and new design processes.
Created new style branding guideline in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Sketch and Figma representing new colors, branding components, icons, graphic layouts and logo designs. Collaborated with CivicPlus developers to implement in new CRM platform.
• Expert consultant to County administration on implementation of network security, IT infrastructure and website processes, methodologies, and best practices.
• Responsible for consulting on graphics to be posted to website and getting the photos prepared to be posted to front and internal pages.
• Assist with transition plan and recommend on crosswalk between old/new websites and redirects.
• Responsible for testing and documenting go live plan utilizing usertesting.com.
• Review and provide recommendation on the website standards document and plan the move to a more decentralized update process.
• Responsible for updating, authoring, approving and reviewing web content accessibility in CRM and content authoring tools such as SiteCore, NetSuite, WordPress, and DreamWeaver. Provide accessibility governance and recommend support tools.
• Assist with Calendar development and design process to keep calendar current on main website.
• Responsible for social media and other website integrations including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. and ensure integrates with other County sites such as bai.net, click2gov, Granicus, ActiveNet.
• Implemented responsive design, ensuring a secure environment, ensuring website is compatible with latest browsers, improve searches and RSS feeds.
CFA Institute - UX Designer
September 2019– November 2020
Charlottesville, VA
Hybrid Onsite and Remote
September 2019– November 2020
Charlottesville, VA
Hybrid Onsite and Remote
• Conducted stakeholder meetings to gather and refine business and system requirements for six product value streams
• Led teams as lead designer and provided oversight and guidance in website programming, accessibility compliance, infrastructure architecture, and process management.
• Created wireframe and mockup designs in Figma / Adobe Creative Suite and obtained approval that reflects the vision of the stakeholders while meeting the needs of the internal and external users.
• Worked directly with developers to ensure wireframes and mockups are created in Figma, Sketch and Adobe Photoshop according to requirements and UX pattern library prior to live demos with product owners.
• UX consultations for core membership team and main website content teams to provide input on content strategy and user interactions.
• Core team member in core agile processes (daily stand-ups, refinement/grooming, sprint reviews, retrospectives, PI planning, value stream refinements, leadership strategy meetings).
• Provided UX strategy for core stakeholders in system integration meetings with data team, systems team, and cross-platform teams.
• Collaborated with UX Interaction manager on lead projects to provide insight and feedback.
• Advocated for analytics, usability testing, and other avenues of user testing and user research not yet used by the organization.
• Provided guidance and act as expert on responsive design, improving search results and RSS feeds.
• Provided expert recommendations and guidance for development/programming at organization for NetSuite and Salesforce implementations and assisted in interviewing process for developer new hires.
• Provided UX consultation on article, research content and Financial Journal content for mobile app and third-party research journal sites.
• Performed as lead mobile app developer and designer resource during mobile app decommissioning project.
• Performed as Lead UX designer for professional learning IT team providing UX design and consultation on professional learning credit tracking, program and overall user messaging.
• Performed Lead UX designer for Core Membership team that covered CFA Institute member experience, renewal process, join process, Charter holder award process, NetSuite payment integrations, Cvent payment integrations, and over 160 global society experiences.
Freelance Developer/UX Designer
Various Clients including Ronald McDonald House Charities of Richmond, UpTech, PEAK Training and Consulting, City of Richmond, Commonwealth Computer Training, Little Big Business Solutions
January 2017– September 2019
Richmond, VA
Various Clients including Ronald McDonald House Charities of Richmond, UpTech, PEAK Training and Consulting, City of Richmond, Commonwealth Computer Training, Little Big Business Solutions
January 2017– September 2019
Richmond, VA
• Conducted weekly and monthly meetings with stakeholders to determine vision and gather requirements.
• Developed website pages, contact forms, social media integrations, image galleries, and reviewed and obtained approval from clients using software such as Adobe, WordPress, Dreamweaver, Drupal, Sitecore, NetSuite, .Net, and many other software platforms.
• Responsible for ensuring websites meet ADA 508 accessibility compliance standards.
• Responsible for creating roadmaps and strategy for websites and businesses using Microsoft and Adobe Creative Suite products.
• Obtained wireframe/design approval that reflects the vision of the stakeholders.
• Existing site redesigns for Richmond Metro area clients, from small business to enterprise, re- platforming to Adobe Business Catalyst, BigCommerce, Magento, and WordPress.
• Setup & managed analytic tools including Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, Search Console, Bing, etc.
• Integrated YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media tools on websites.
• WordPress customization, server configuration, and theme/plugin development.
• Created, advised, and implemented social media campaigns for clients including content strategy, ad- based revenue conversion and SEO/SEM performance.
• Customized, hand coded HTML/CSS web and email marketing template design.
John Tyler Community College Workforce Alliance - Senior IT Software Trainer
Feb 2014 – October 2016
Richmond, VA
Onsite
Feb 2014 – October 2016
Richmond, VA
Onsite
• Aligned courses with Microsoft technologies and common tools used within general office environments such as QuickBooks, Sage, Salesforce and Crystal Reports.
• SEO, social media, advanced WordPress, Microsoft IT courses and IT software
• Customized courseware and materials design/development (for above).
• Printed, e-learning, and screencast course curriculum materials design and development.
• Conducted Staff and client training on web development software (HTML/CSS, Adobe Business Catalyst, WordPress).
• Testing center management with national testing partnerships (Pearson, Kryterion, Certiport, Prometric, Castle, CIW, PAN)
• Lecture/syllabus preparation, student assessment, and lab configuration.
• IC3 and Microsoft Trainer for City of Richmond Workforce Innovation Center Program serving unemployed population in the Greater Richmond area.
• QuickBooks Certified Trainer for Virginia Department of Transportation throughout Virginia
Little Big Business Solutions & PEAK Institute - Web Developer & Project Manager
Dec 2012 – February 2014
Midlothian, VA
Onsite
Dec 2012 – February 2014
Midlothian, VA
Onsite
• Performed as Project Manager for local & national marketing and web development clients.
• Adobe Business Catalyst and WordPress website lead developer for new website projects and re-platforming web clients.
• Company-wide Agile methodology process implementation and improvement of current processes.
• Vendor communication, relationship, and account management.
• Customized, hand coded HTML/CSS web and email marketing template design.
EDUCATION & CERTIFICATIONS
Liberal Arts Associates Degree, J. Sergeant Reynolds Community College
Master OOUX (Object Oriented UX) Course and Certification
Microsoft Network Technology Program
MCTS, MCP, MCSA, MOS, Microsoft Trainer Certification
PrepMasters-Train the Trainer Program, Adult Education Specialist