Senior User Experience Designer

Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Recommendation from a previous manager

Here's what my old boss at Deloitte, John Bowie, wrote about me on my LinkedIn profile.

If it relates to user experience design, Carol can do it, and do it rapidly and with exceptional quality. She has a commanding understanding of all aspects of user experience design theory, principles, standards, and best practices, and knows how to apply them to create usable, elegant, and innovative design solutions. She is facile in CSS, HTML, SharePoint, and other front-end technologies, as well as with emerging interaction and user interface strategies like gestural interfaces and responsive design. In design competitions, Carol's team always wins, due in large part to her innovative ideas, technical skills, and teaming abilities.

A tireless user advocate, Carol knows how to defend her design decisions with fact-based research and accepted design standards. She is generous with her deep UX knowledge, mentoring junior staff, providing valuable design feedback to her colleagues, and documenting best practices and design patterns in internal wikis and blogs that she creates and maintains. In short, Carol makes any UX team better, smarter, and more effective.

Skills

Design & documentation

  • Very strong skill set and broad experience.
  • Very strong experience. Design documentation often used by BAs for requirements as well as by developers.
  • UX team member most involved in creating these.
  • Created agile stories for one Agile project and developer documentation for two projects.

Other UX practice areas

  • Have the tool set but not the artistic ability that makes a great visual designer.
  • Have done a great deal of usability testing in the past but not much recently.
  • Enthusiastic proponent of user research and know how it's done. However, haven't done a lot of it.
  • Worked with knowledge and content managers to ensure designs meet their needs.
  • Used tools such as Optimal Sort, Chalkmark, and TreeJack to create navigation.
  • Familiar with taxonomy and meta tagging concepts.

Prototyping & graphics

  • Taken Axure training and done a small amount of prototyping with it.
  • Used Balsamiq extensively for two recent projects. Very familiar with it.
  • Used Fireworks extensively for static mockups and image creation.
  • Certified iRise modeler with highest test scores among those trained. Used iRise 7.* for a number of projects and built templates and databases for it.
  • Mostly use Fireworks for graphics tasks but have some familiarity with Photoshop, mostly to tweak Photoshop files created by others. Would ramp up on this quickly based on similarities with Fireworks and past experience.

HTML, CSS, front-end development & branding

  • Extensive use of HTML for prototypes and production layout. Depending on project, used Dreamweaver, Eclipse, SharePoint Designer, or Visual Studio.
  • Extensive creation of CSS, including production CSS for Java (GWT, PrimeFaces, and jQuery), .NET, jQuery, and SharePoint.
  • Can read Java, write simple Java code, and tweak it. Currently learning more to sharpen front-end developer skills.
  • Can read JavaScript and tweak it. Currently learning more to sharpen front-end developer skills.
  • Created custom themes matching branding standards.
  • Created branding and themes for SP 2003, 2007, and 2010. Limited work with masterpages.
  • Created many SharePoint sites and taught content managers how to use them.

Quality assurance (HP Application Lifecyle Management)

  • Writing and running test plans for Agile kanbans
  • Creating, testing, and closing defects and issues in HP ALM

Known for

  • analytical skills
  • application design
  • comprehensive UX knowledge
  • creating UX tools
  • CSS
  • design documentation
  • enthusiasm
  • fast & fearless learning
  • fast turnarounds
  • form design
  • high-quality work
  • HTML layout
  • intelligence
  • interactive prototyping
  • intranet IA & design
  • keeping up with UX trends
  • jQuery, Java & .NET branding
  • meeting deadlines
  • mentoring
  • positive outlook
  • problem solving
  • Quality assurance
  • research skills
  • self starting
  • SharePoint branding
  • static prototyping
  • style guides
  • team player
  • user advocate
  • UX evangelist

Now learning

My last two projects, done for Vanderbilt University Medical Center's Office of Research — Information Technology, have been with Agile teams doing Java development. This means I can add Agile and Eclipse (the Java programming environment) to my skill set as well as two new UI component suites: PrimeFaces and Google Web Tools (GWT). I'm now working with the Java code in the Eclipse IDE to implement my designs. I've taken the GWT tutorial and am learning Java.

I like to spend time learning and brushing up my skills.

  • I'm working my way through MIT's free online Intro to Java course.
  • I completed Aquent's Summer of Learning which focused on HTML5/CSS3 and included forays into managing images for high-res displays and responsive design. Shameless self-promotion: I'm currently #3 on the leaderboard for those who took the skill assessment conducted after the course, with a score of 783 out of 800. This means I'm an official HTML5 master.
  • I also worked most of the way through Codecademy's JavaScript Fundamentals course and Robin Nixon's JavaScript Crash Course book.

On my to-do list are:

  • jQuery
  • LESS
  • PHP
  • WordPress

I have many front-end developer skills (HTML, CSS, layout, branding) and can read and tweak code. Although I'm not a developer, I've used the Visual Studio and Eclipse development environments and can pseudocode (write informal high-level descriptions how a program should be coded).

Professional experience

UX design & front-end work

Working for Vanderbilt University Medical Center's Office of Research — Information Technology — Nashville, TN

November 2014-present

  • Member of an Agile team building the first of a planned suite of applications to support medical research. Work includes UX design and mockups (Adobe Fireworks), light front-end development work (Java and CSS in Eclipse integrated development environment using Google Web Tools), quality assurance, and creation of design patterns and developer best practices.
  • Began this project as a contractor with TEKsystems and then moved to Holland Square Group because Vanderbilt changed its list of approved contract vendors. Subsequently hired as a full-time employee.

UX design & front-end work

Worked for Holland Square Group as a contractor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Office of Technology Research, Information Technology— Nashville, TN

July 2013-November 2014

  • Member of an Agile team building the first of a planned suite of applications to support medical research. Work includes UX design and mockups (Adobe Fireworks), light front-end development work (Java and CSS in Eclipse integrated development environment using Google Web Tools), creation of design patterns and developer best practices, an expert (heuristic) review, and participation in user acceptance testing.

UX design & front-end work

Worked for TEKsystems as a contractor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Office of Technology Research, Information Technology— Nashville, TN

October 2012–June 2013

  • Began project described above under Vanderbilt University Medical Center. (Because Vanderbilt changed its list of approved contracting vendors, I moved from TEKsystems to Holland Square Group to continue my work at Vanderbilt.)
  • Design of well-received user interface for room accounting application used by Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center to track use of space including emergency contacts and justification of chargebacks for research grants. Worked on a small Agile team. Responsibilities included mockups, HTML prototypes, CSS (Java with PrimeFaces/JavaScript UI components), and Agile stories and other documentation.

UX designer, Enterprise Applications Group

Deloitte Services LLP — Hermitage, TN

September 2001–June 2012

  • In spring 2012, selected as member of the inaugural CIO Institute, a handpicked team of information technology professionals authorized to tackle a project of our choice. Resulted in approved project to build the Dot, a way for teams to collaborate on documents simultaneously, with plugins for real-time collaboration (based on Microsoft Lync) and persistent chat (based on Yammer).
  • In winter 2011-2012, part of winning 48-hour leadership challenge team. Team created community site prototype incorporating elements of Yammer and SharePoint team sites. Design became basis for actual project to replace existing community sites.
  • From 2010-2012, served as lead UX designer for US intranet, which is built on SharePoint with many .NET applications. Projects included a complete intranet revamp based on responsive design (project was just getting underway but initial wireframes completed), a look and feel refresh as part of the transition to SharePoint 2010, and replacement of the native SharePoint “my page” with a .NET version including design of customizable widgets that users can add to the page.
  • Other projects included a customized SharePoint community/blog site for CEO and firm leadership and a security application for passwords. Also was lead designer for the firm’s time and expense reporting system.
  • Very active in creating content for UX Standards site and online style documentation, including accessibility recommendations and layout/CSS guidance for front-end developers.

Instructional designer & multimedia specialist, Information Technology Services

Deloitte Services LLP — Hermitage, TN

September 1994–September 2001

  • Created computer-based tutorials for Deloitte and Microsoft applications using Authorware
  • Built multimedia presentations and interactive kiosks using Director.

Professional organizations & certifications

  • Member, UX Professionals Association (formerly Usability Professionals Association)
  • Human Factors International Certified Usability Analyst
  • iRise Certified Modeler, v7.2

Recent reading

Books

  • Java Examples in a Nutshell, David Flanagan
  • User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development, Mike Cohn
  • Agile Software Requirements: Lean Requirements Practices for Teams, Programs, and the Enterprise, Dean Leffingwell
  • CSS3 for Web Designers, Dan Cederholm
  • HTML5 & CSS3 Visual QuickStart Guide, Elizabeth Castro & Bruce Hyslop
  • HTML5 for Web Designers, Jeremy Keith
  • JavaScript: The Good Parts, Douglas Crockford
  • JavaScript Crash Course, Robin Nixon
  • jQuery for Designers: Beginner’s Guide, Natalie MacLees
  • Mobile Design Pattern Gallery, Theresa Neil
  • Professional SharePoint 2010 Branding and User Interface Design, Randy Drisgill, John Ross, and Jacob J. Sandford
  • Responsive Web Design, Ethan Marcotte

Other