I am a New York-based digital strategist with a background in experience design. I work with agencies, Fortune 500 companies, and startups to figure out how to best meet their brands’ needs on the web. Learn more...
Role:User Experience Designer (via Komo)
Dates: March 2009 – April 2009
Narragansett is a small, North Eastern beer brand that contracted Komo to create their web site. They already had a great content strategy and high-level UX completed, and my job was to help fill in the blanks and improve the engagement. The site is still fairly straightforward, but we got to include some nice touches.
Role:User Experience Designer (via AKQA)
Dates: May 2009 – June 2009
This summer, I worked with AKQA to create the user experience design and functional specifications for a social media portal for Smirnoff, in support of their “There” campaign. Unfortunately, I was introduced to the project a bit late in the process, so I wasn’t able to influence the overall strategy. Our goals were to provide a platform for brand and consumer content around “being there”, while using an engaging interface to communicate the brand’s tone.
Role: Information Architect (via Undercurrent)
Dates: June 2008 – July 2008
In the summer of 2008 I worked with the cool kids at Undercurrent to flesh out a concept they had for a community-based food website. The idea was that instead of looking for good resturants, you could look for great dishes — for example, when you have a hankering for a great mac and cheese, where do you go? We worked on a lot of feature ideas to encourage community participation and display data in an interactive, engaging interace.
Role: User Experience Designer (via Nitro Group)
Dates: April 2008 – June 2008
Role: Strategist/ User Experience Designer (via Nitro Group)
Dates: March 2008 – July 2008
Nitro Group approached me to create a comprehensive digital strategy for Dove Chocolate. Although I am a huge fan of chocolate, I hadn’t previously had much experience with chocolate or candy online.
I started the strategic process by completing a comprehensive review of competitive web sites, focusing in particular on more high-end chocolate brands, which was the space that Dove was hoping to move towards. Additionally, I took a detailed look at how people were already talking about Dove online – it turns out that the Dove Promises (an inspirational saying on the inside of each Dove chocolate wrapper) were already being discussed online (and had even been translated into Klingon).
With the competitive review, I was able to define a baseline for Dove’s web presence. The insights about the existing community inspired more interesting ideas around engagement and outreach.
After presenting my findings to the client, I was able to bring some of the recommendations to life in user experience design for the new web launch. The web site redesign, which was supported by online marketing and promotional efforts, successfully connected with women who are passionate about Dove Chocolate, allowing the brand to participate in the conversation.
Role: Information Architect (via createthe group)
Dates: January 2008 – February 2008
In early 2008, I worked with the talented team at createthe to create a detailed information architecture document for the redesign of Armani Casa, Giorgio Armani’s line of home furnishings and interior design. We used a cinematographic metaphor for the site’s primary navigation: on the main screen, high-quality photography of Armani interiors is navigable through a timeline interface, like an online video.
Link: armanicasa.com
Role: User Experience Lead (via Poke New York)
Dates: November 2007 – January 2008
Role: Information Architect (via createthe group)
Dates: September 2007 – November 2007
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Role: Information Architect (via createthe group)
Dates: October 2007 – November 2007
Cusp is a small chain of mid-level fashion stores located in Washington DC, LA, and Chicago (to clarify for New Yorkers like myself, their inventory and style is similar to Scoop, Intermix, or Big Drop). They came to createthe group to bring their inventory online through an e-commerce site.
To kick-off the process, I created a set of personas using demographic research to enable us to focus our design. We referred to these throughout our design process, which strove to enable all the cutting-edge functionality of modern e-commerce systems while maintaining the brand’s fun, engaging feel.
Unfortunately, one of the most innovative (and my favorite) features didn’t make it to the final implementation: a sidebar that captured the user’s browsing history, with the capability to “pin” favorites, fully integrated with the shopping cart.
Role: User Experience Designer
Dates: October 2007 – December 2007