ABOUT

Hey, I'm Katie!

Iā€™m a self-taught UX/UI designer living in Cincinnati. I have three cats, Bootsy, Teddy, and Beanie Baby; a dog, Willow, and I enjoy starting online learning courses. šŸ˜‰ I also enjoy digital illustration, reading, psychology and philosophy, playing video games, watching TV, studying French, and talking.

 

TOOLS

  • Figma for design and low fidelity prototyping

  • Marvel for high fidelity prototyping

  • Invision and Craft for design documentation and deliverance

  • Zeplin and Storybook for design system documentation

  • UserZoom and Mural for design research

  • Invision and Whimsical for mind maps, storyboards, and wireframing

  • HTML5 and CSS3 for front-end web development

  • Adobe Analytics & Google Analytics for site analytics

  • Adobe Illustrator and Procreate for digital illustration

  • Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom for image manipulation

  • JIRA for work coordination and management

  • Ghost for content management systems

 

TRAINING

  • User Experience Research and Design Specialization
    Certificate, Ongoing, University of Michigan (Coursera)

  • Design Thinking Practitioner
    Certificate, 2022, LUMA Institute

  • Human-Computer Interaction
    Professional Certificate, 2020, Georgia Tech X (edX)

  • Design 101, UX: Research + Strategy, Interaction Design
    Certificates, 2019, Designlab

  • Psychology
    Bachelor of Arts, 2015, Oakland University

AFFILIATIONS & MEMBERSHIPS

Membership, The Interaction Design Foundation

Membership, AIGA

A BRIEF INTERNET HISTORY

I've been pushing pixels since 2005. Here are just a few of the different sites I've designed over the years.

  • Shrines to my favorite Disney movies

  • Pixel art portfolio (if you can call it that)

  • Obligatory cat fan page

  • Book blogs #1-3

  • Author site

  • Psychology podcast blog

  • Like 4 customized Tumblrs at once

  • Book blog #4

  • Portfolio (you are here!)

  • Enamel pin Shopify site

  • Book blog #5

  • Personal blog (still active!)

MY PROCESS

A little of this, a little of that. I'm not strict on which phases I conduct, I adapt the process fit the project.

  1. Empathize with Users
    By observation, executing a research plan, surveying users, making competitive comparisons, writing user personas, and creating empathy maps

  2. Define the Problem
    With problem statements, requirements definition, storyboarding, referencing accessibility and web standards, and exploring industry trends and best practices

  3. Ideate for Solutions
    Through information architecture, planning user flows, drawing rough sketches, mocking up wireframes, and conducting user testing

  4. Design the Prototypes
    By crafting pattern libraries, building style guides, prototyping, designing interactions, and user testing

  5. Measure the Results
    With analytics, QA tools, user feedback, and enhancement suggestions

  6. Iterate with Improvements
    At any stage; before and after release