Work Experience

• UX Design Manager

  Arctic Wolf 2021-Present

  

  I lead UX Design at Arctic Wolf, managing a team of UX Designers, UX Researchers and UI Developers who research, collaborate, design and help implement the User interfaces for all Agile Development teams at Arctic Wolf. I help bridge the gap between Product Management and Application Development Teams by facilitating Design Workshops, leading Design Reviews and getting alignment with leadership to prioritize the most important User Experience Outcomes and plan research activities to uncover latent needs and innovative solutions.

  Core Responsibilities

  • I lead the UX Strategy at Arctic Wolf
  • Planned, pitched, and enrolled Arctic Wolf as a members of Jared Spool's UX Strategy program.
  • I hire, mentor and coach a rapidly growing UX Team (currently 8 members). I hired 5 full-time employees and promoted two within the first few months of working at Arctic Wolf
  • I define and improve the Design process at Arctic Wolf based on needs and feedback
  • I define the annual UX Team goals and manage budgeting and resourcing
  • I collaborate with Product Management to create a UX roadmap that incorporates both sales goals and user needs to prioritize features.
  • I lead UX Research at Arctic Wolf, leading and mentoring a team of UX Researchers that incorporate research into the product development process.

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• Design Lead

  InFlight Corporation 2015-2021

  

  I lead the Design Team at InFlight, hiring and mentoring a team of UI Developers and UI Designers who build and manage the InFlight UX platform: A library of UI Components and Design Patterns that are the building blocks for all of our workflow design. We transform enterprise applications into world-class user experiences that are modern, mobile, delightful and accessible.

  As a Design Leader my goal is to elevate and inspire my team by leading by example, supporting their growth and career progression, removing roadblocks and distractions, and supporting them through open, authentic, and transparent communication.

  I work closely with Engineering, Product Management and Managing Directors to ensure we're aligned and collaborate effectively.

  I drive product adoption by creating mockups, prototypes, vision statements, design process facilitation, and design consultancy and advocacy across our organization and with our customers.

  Core Responsibilities

  • I lead the Design team hiring and mentoring a team of UI Developers and Designers
  • I manage the Design process and help facilitate decision-making across the organization and primary point-of-contact with customers
  • I created and manage the InFlight Design System to help developers build great UX on our platform
  • Design visionary who leads the design of all products at InFlight
  • I review and provide design feedback based on UX Heuristics and other Design principles.
  • I help improve our product using Data Analytics and other metrics alongside regular Qualitative testing.

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• Senior Product Designer - Team Lead

  D2L Corporation 2007-2015

  

  I was the lead designer of the D2L Learning Environment (now called Brightspace). I lead the design and implementation of new features and managed the entire design process from user research to prototyping to implementation and testing.

  I also worked closely with our UX Platform team to design and recommend new components and capabilities and fix usability issues with existing controls and components. I helped move our Design organization to embrace an agile approach to Design and development by incorporating user feedback into the regular development cadence and help support and inform design decisions as they were made. I interviewed dozens of teachers and instructors, as well as university faculty, adminstrators and support staff, parents, and students. My goal was to better understand what value our product could bring to our users and continually improve it for them.

  Core Responsibilities

  • I lead the design of the core product The Learning Environment at D2L - a product used by millions of teachers, students and parents around the world.
  • I managed the entire design process from user research to prototyping to implementation and testing
  • I helped create and improve the Learning Platform component libraries and prioritize platform development.
  • I championed accessibility and helped D2L acheive Gold status from the CFB.
  • Some examples of my work at D2L:
    • Content tool
    • Course Builder
    • Learner Experience
    • Calendar and Tasks

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• Senior Business Information Specialist

  Manulife Financial Group Benefits 2005-2007

  

  I was responsible for the design and development of internal tools and applications that streamlined business processes and increased operational efficiency for claim payers and business leaders. I reported directly to the Director of Business Intelligence, I worked with a small team of developers that supported the department.

  Core Responsibilities

  • I designed and developed applications to streamline and automate business functions.
  • I gathered requirements for reporting dashboard and ongoing trending analysis.
  • I gathered requirements from a mix of internal stakeholders and created detailed documentation
  • I created mockups and detailed design documents

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• Supervisor Client Electronic Support

  Manulife Financial Group Benefits 2003-2005

  

  I supervised the team, hired and managed 4 direct reports and managed the Client Electronic Support team.

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Competencies

• Design Leadership

  Arctic Wolf, InFlight, D2L, Manulife 2003 - 2021

  For the past 14 years I have led, mentored and managed teams of designers and UI Developers in Enterprise and Education Technology markets. At InFlight I have built the Design team from scratch hiring several Product Designers and UI Developers supporting a team that designs and develops the InFlight UX Platform.

  I believe a good leader is someone that helps their employees grow as people and treats them like equal contributers to the company's success. I create and foster a culture of authenticity, transparency and trust and complementary skillsets that aligns with the needs of the business.

  I create competency plans and career planning maps and I run regular one-on-one's to stay connected with my direct reports and provide an opportunity to raise concerns or discuss projects.

  I am a Product Focussed Designer and a champion for using Design thinking to faciliate good Product Design. I have helped build the Design team for two companies in the last ten years and lived through massive growth and business pressure to deliver results. I joined InFlight ~10 employees and have helped the business and team grow to over 50 employees and at D2L I joined when it was ~100 people and helped grow it to over 800 when I left.

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• Product Design

  Arctic Wolf, InFlight Corporation, D2L 2007-2021

  I have over 10 years experience designing products and digital experience for both D2L and InFlight. I believe in user centered design and my goal is to add real value to the people who use my products. When I review a design I have been working on - I am specifically looking for what is wrong with the design and ask open questions to see where the gaps are. To me, a good product is something that is both useful and beautiful - and that even the smallest tasks should be designed with care and purpose.

  I believe in regular design critiques and I like to create a safe and collaborative environment for designers to share ideas and research. I believe in being able to take risks and try things that might fail since it can often lead to a solution that is better or lead to more nuanced approaches. I especially I think it's important to clearly state and communicate user goals and design principles for any design since it provides a framework for critique rather than just opinions. It also helps me gather more relevant feedback and insights that can help shape the design.

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• Web Development

  Arctic Wolf, InFlight, D2L Corporation, Manulife 2002-2021

  I have over 10 years experience creating products for the Web and have worked with many Web Development frameworks over the years (.ASP,.NET MVC, AngularJS, React, Ruby on Rails) but since 2016 I have been working with the Angular framework - we use it for our component libraries, Design System and all of our product and customer development.

  Prior to this I have had years of experience building websites using plain old HTML, CSS, and Javascript and I still often just use a codepen when I have an idea I want to prototype quickly. I'm also a huge fan of the static site generator called Hugo - I used it to build the Product Showcase site for InFlight and for this site as well.

  I'm also quite comfortable working with any modern web framework. I'm most familiar with Angular but dabbled in both React and Vue.js.

  One thing I really enjoy about Angular is that it uses typescript and I appreciate some of the smarts it brings to development. It's quick and easy to create new components and hook into useful services. I manage/own the entire theming and branding framework which is built on top of Bootstrap 4 and leverages SASS variables, mixins, functions to provide flexibility within specific projects but still centrally managed. In most cases I find that I can rapidly prototype a new idea or workflow change directly in a feature branch of the product demo site rather than using an external tool such as Figma or Invision (which ends up being throwaway after implementation starts) but it really depends on the problem we're solving.

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• Lean UX and Agile Development

  Arctic Wolf, InFlight, D2L 2012-2021

  I work directly with architects and back-end engineers to define, break-down and prioritize the development work needed to implement my designs. I understand the constraints and technical hurdles that we need to jump to execute effectively and be successful. We work in short sprints and prioritize our work based on business needs and client feedback. I have years of experience managing backlogs, story mapping, sprint planning and running demos and retrospectives. I also have experience running Design Studios for new product ideas and rapid prototyping of concepts that we test and iterate on before implementation begins.

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Speaking

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Education

• BA - Honours Philosophy

  University of Waterloo 2002

  I completed an Honours Philosophy degree with a Minor in Journalism. I took several business and computer science courses and discovered the web halfway through University and began freelance web design and website development.

• Technical Writing Diploma

  Humber College 2005

  I received the Technical Writing Diploma from Humber College. The program focussed on business writing and general copywriting methodology and graphic design principles.

• Life-long Learning

  Online Learning 2008-Present

  I actively read non-fiction Product Design and development books and have taken dozens of classes out of interest and to build skills and hands-on experience. I've learned most of my technical skills out of a passion for learning, and applying the learning on the job and just snowballing knowledge. I believe in Online Education and I have learned so much by taking the time to explore so many of the free and paid resources on the web. I have taken many courses through MOOCS and other platforms (Coursera, Code Academy, Pluralsight, LinkedIn Learning).

  However, for me the most effective and immediate way to build knowledge is to apply learning in context of a problem that I'm working on. This has been a constant drive for me to learn more and really understand the web, how it works and the standards that form the foundation for web development (HTML, CSS, JS to be more specific) - I'm able to better design solutions for people and make value/effort decisions instinctually rather than through consultation with technical people.

  And while I really believe in self-driven education I also think that direct mentorship and learning from peers has been one of the most valuable sources of learning throughout my career. I seek out the best people to work with so I can learn from them and become better together.

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References

Available upon request

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