Interface Design
The heart of what I do is the planning, the architecture, and the hands-on design of data-rich software interfaces.
Information Architecture
I've spent a lot of time designing hierarchies of data as well as multi-level administrative infrastructures and conditional, multi-step workflows.
Design Process Refinement
It is satisfying to improve workflows between UX and Product, Development, QA, Professional Services, Executive... anyone and everyone. Why work harder than necessary? Work more efficiently and get more done.
Mentoring and Team Development
I've been a camp counselor, a guitar teacher, a restaurant manager, a computer store manager, and more recently a design mentor, and a department head... twice. It's core to my nature to explain things and share knowledge and help my friends and coworkers solve problems and learn new skills and information.
Design System & Component Library Development
I have worked on Enterprise-scale UX component libraries at four different companies. In doing that work I have become very familiar with iOS, Bootstrap, Material, React, Angular, Devex, and a number of other design systems/code libraries for Web and Mobile. To be clear... I am not a developer. But I am extremely familiar with what these do and how they work and I can have effective conversations with developers using them.
Wireframes and Prototypes
I can work in Photoshop, Illustrator, Figma, Sketch, Axure, AdobeXD, JustinMind, or basically whatever. If don't know it I can learn it quickly. Also a big fan of whiteboards and even pencil and paper.
Facilitating Design Workshops
It's productive and fun to get related stakeholders together and do a variety of discovery activities to get at the root of the problems-to-solve and gain insight into what's most important and consensus on the best way forward.
Usability and User Testing
An invaluable way to really understand how your Users think about and use your software. I've done one-on-one sessions, small-group sessions, focus groups, video interviews, and online prototype tests.
(UX) Requirements Writing
Eight years doing Product work taught me the importance of well-written Requirements. As a UX designer I write and advocate for UX Requirements that detail the interactions and functionality not immediately obvious in a wireframe or even an interactive prototype. It's good to have it all described clearly in one place... you can refer to it in your Agile processes and you can update the SSOT and keep a working group organized.
Persona Building
Knowing who your users are... what their goals are... and what they want to avoid... super helpful when iterating on wireframes alone or with a group. We all have opinions and that is useful. But it's always a strong choice to focus back on the persona you are making the software for. You are not your user.
Communication
Although communication is not specifically a UX skill it is nevertheless a very important business skill. One of the most important in fact. I always strive to listen, respect, and understand what my coworkers or my product's users are saying and to try to be as clear as I possibly can when interacting. It's key to moving through complex projects smoothly and successfully.
Typography
Let's face it... information is very often text. And text is most easily consumed and assimilated with the assistance of good typography. I pride myself on clean typography always being at the root of my interface work.
Agile
I went through 'formal' Agile training in 2013 and acted as a Scrum master for close to 2 years. Since then I have worked in Agile environments exclusively... though with varying degrees of strictness. It's a useful methodology and I can fit pretty easily into any flavor of it and even help to tune the process and improve the resulting outputs.