VISION

I believe content design has the potential to enrich people’s lives like never before. The accessibility of emerging technologies like voice and augmented reality is intersecting with an increased demand for digital entertainment, education and wellness services driven by the pandemic. There is truly no limit to what we can do from our devices, so it’s more imperative that designers frame the problems correctly, listen to people, and create their own unique insights that will truly meet people’s most significant needs.

As content designers, we’re often in charge of the “what”: what to say, what to share, what to offer. It’s our job to champion the process that rewards people the most.

“If you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places.”

- Fred Kent, urban planner

This perspective from the world of urban planning is applicable to any corner of design — whether that’s designing for products, services, offerings, communications or branding. It’s on us to see through constraints and assumptions to champion who can (and should) benefit from our work the most: people.

PROCESS

I follow human-centered design and design thinking principles to ground my teams’ work in observation and insight. My process has been honed at IA Collaborative, one of the country’s most respected design and innovation consultancies.

Get insightful. Research doesn’t always mean a full blown schedule of ethnographic sessions (although observing in the field is invaluable and always eye-opening) — insights can be driven from social trends, competitive analysis and lightweight user research. The point is, there is no point in starting until you have a basket of insights to guide your strategic vision and problem framing. That’s what sets products, brands, and businesses apart: a stance or an offering that delivers on people’s unmet needs in a unique and ownable way.

Create stuff. Concepting sessions (ideally with clients, who are often your best subject matter experts and champions) is where we think big and generate ideas. Prototyping brings the idea to life, whether that’s representing a concept with paper and a sharpie, writing down a value prop or creating an interactive design using Invision or Figma. Fidelity is less important than the questions your prototype allows you to pose, and the genuine reactions it elicits from research participants.

Make it again. The beauty of this process is trusting that you won’t get it right the first try, and that’s expected. After synthesizing insights into actionable outcomes (think revisions to strategy or features to add, remove or refine), the prototype changes shape and gets ready for validation with more research participants, clients, or both.

COLLABORATION

Great work is the result happy relationships. For team members, this happens when they feel inspired and invested in their jobs every day. For clients, it’s when their problems are solved, their ideas take shape and their expectations are exceeded. My role is to make all of that happen. My approach is to listen, then lead, using the insights I gather from team and clients to shape how we work together.