My ultimate skill is solving the problems that stand in the way of your customers

To effectively execute any UX project, I believe it’s critical to understand what the intended audience wants and how they view the world. This means I am very seasoned in my ability to plan, conduct, and analyze findings from a variety of research methods.

One of my strengths involves organizing information in an understandable manner for the target audience. Applicable to websites, apps, and software, my approach to information architecture includes systems like labeling, navigation, layouts, and search.

The first visual deliverable of UX project is creating wireframes. I put a lot of importance on creating a blueprint for each screen of an interface. The ultimate success of a project is heavily impacted by the ability of wireframes to show how something works,and defining the elements that need to be present from page to page. This includes all the interface components that are needed for all possible interactions and processes.

Prototyping might be my most valuable skill as it combines all of the elements of UX with UI design. The purpose of prototypes is to test functionality and ensure there is a match between a system and the users before development on the final product can start. I believe this should be an iterative process. So I create design systems – allowing me to create new prototypes, and update existing ones, quickly and efficiently.

While I am quite proud of my aesthetic design skills, I know that what really makes the difference in UX is my ability to understand and effect how users will interact with those designs. I create designs that reflect a user’s expectations. My goal is for users to recognize and intuitively understand an interface – even when they haven’t actually encountered it before.

I am very experienced as a graphic designer, which plays very well into the design requirements of most UX projects. Graphic designers make beautiful things, but as a UX designer, I make beautiful things that also play a critical role in educating and guiding users.

I love analytics! The data, when analyzed properly, is the ultimate validation of a job well done OR the messenger to explain problems or issues. I create expectations as I work through designs to ensure effective analysis later on. In other words, “If this flow works, we can expect to see [fill in the blank] in the reporting.”

While not a core skill for UX design, I believe my background as a developer is one of the reasons I have been successful as a UX Designer.

I understand how software works and needs to be written. More importantly, I know how developers think. This knowledge and experience allows me to not only accommodate software limitations or nuances, but it helps me in working alongside the people that will actually build out my designs.