About Me
As a multidisciplinary designer, communicator and strategist, I’ve been crafting accessible and engaging digital products in health services, finance, higher education and the military for the past 15 years. I advocate for linguistically inclusive multimodal design and am a huge proponent of Object Oriented UX.
I am also a localization and internalization expert, teacher, front end developer and voice technology enthusiast, who is continually learning new tools and technologies.
Early Innovation
Crafting user friendly, accessible and device-agnostic digital experiences have driven me my entire professional life.
My passion for languages and curiosity to stretch what’s possible and build for the future led me to create pocket PC language courses and ebooks before the first Kindle, and responsive websites before the iPhone. Check out the multi-language early stages of my site, built to work on the PlayStation Portable and Pocket PC. (Did I mention that was before the era of iOS and Android?)
Passions
Technical & Strategic Skills
HTML
CSS
JavaScript
Localization Strategy
WCAG 2.1
Conversational Design
Voice User Interface Design
UX Research
Competitive Analysis
User Testing
User Flows
Journey Maps
Personas
Wireframing
Prototyping
High & Low Fi Mockups
User Interface Design
UX Writing
Brand Identity Design
Email Design
Comms Strategy
Digital Content Strategy
Training & Coaching
eTeaching
eLearning Design
Software Skills
Prototyping
Figma
Adobe XD
Axure RP
InVision
Miro
Sketch
Balsamiq
Voiceflow
Dialogflow
Alexa Developer Console
Coding
Visual Studio Code
Google Web Designer
Adobe Dreamweaver
Data & Content
TMX
CMS
WordPress
SharePoint
Leanplum
Visual Design
Adobe CC:
Illustrator
Photoshop
Spark
Premiere Pro
InDesign
Acrobat
Affinity:
Designer
Photo
Publisher
Language Skills
Work Experience
Senior Accessibility Designer – Multilingual UX Lead
CVS Health
Remote | since Sept 2020
Championing inclusion by removing linguistic and accessibility barriers, helping ensure that the User Experience of CVS’ digital platform and ecosystem is designed – at its core – with inclusion and accessibility in mind by:
- Advising on usability, accessibility and inclusion for our authentication apps
- Leading an enterprise-wide effort to enhance the user and customer experience for our Spanish speaking customers, patients and clients on web and native mobile
- Promoting linguistic inclusion during every stage of the design process to better serve non native English speaking customers
- Expanding accessibility reviews to include our Spanish apps
Digital Strategy & Design Consultant
Remote | since Feb 2019
Helping businesses and non profit organizations succeed by:
- Developing digital strategies and products for:
web, email, social media - Designing brand identities
- Conducting industry research
- Offering usability and accessibility guidance
Digital Communications Manager
Citizens Bank
Remote | Nov. 2011- Dec. 2019
As the de facto senior full stack designer at Citizens, I produced along the whole gamut of UX, UI, and, in most cases, front end development, in order to limit pain and friction points from the bank’s internal digital products and keep colleagues engaged.
Ideated and designed new features, redesigned the corporate intranet for 20,000+ colleagues and contractors, designed the remote work portal, HR portals and external websites and personalized SharePoint communities.
- User Experience Research/Design/Writing
- Google Analytics data analysis, surveys, focus groups, workshops, card sorting, journey maps, personas, interaction flows, wireframes, lo fi prototypes, usability and accessibility tests
- User Interface Design
- Hi fi prototypes, mock-ups, design systems, style guide, graphics
- HTML, CSS, JavaScript
- Visual Design
- Website migration
- Communications strategy
- Content strategy
- Google Analytics dashboard design and digital marketing campaign boosts
- Vendor management
- Continual process improvement
- Online and in-person training
- Created and championed for accessibility standards
Website Development Team Leader
Citizens Bank
Providence, RI | Mar. 2011- Nov. 2011
Enhanced department intranet by closely working with UK developers and stakeholders and advising on usability, UX and IA :
- Advised stakeholders on digital strategy and Information Architecture
- Developed video and audio accessibility standards
- Crafted local site redesign strategy
- Developed design systems
- Created Google Analytics dashboards to help stakeholders increase metrics
- UX Writing
- Visual Design
Website Product Developer – Web Content Manager English/Spanish, Visual & Motion Design
Citizens Bank
Cranston, RI | Oct. 2006 – Mar. 2011
Redesigned phone bank intranet, maintained English, Spanish and Chinese web content:
- Championed usability and writing for the web
- Coordinated Spanish and Chinese translations with translation agency
- Designed graphics and bilingual Adobe Flash animations
- Maintained translation databases
Senior Foreign Language Program Manager
Central Texas College – European Division
Hanau, Germany | Apr. 2005 – Aug. 2006
Directed the foreign language programs in the US Armed Forces Europe area of operation: Germany, Benelux, Italy, Spain, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Egypt and Kuwait:
- Created prototype for electronic language and culture courses on Pocket PCs for the US Navy
- Recruited and trained language instructors
- Developed new training methods for instructors in remote regions by using – at the time – modern technology (video conferencing, IM)
- Served as point of contact and resident expert for language and culture related inquiries by members of the US Armed Forces Europe
- Developed language curricula for new class offers
- Designed print and digital teaching materials
- Evaluated teachers’ performance in Germany and the Benelux countries
- Organized teaching rosters
- Created language program newsletter
- Ran annual teachers’ workshops in Germany and the Benelux countries
Adjunct Faculty Member – German/Spanish
University of Maryland University College
Hanau/Friedberg, Germany and online | May 2004 – Aug. 2006
Taught German and Spanish undergraduate classes to members of the US Armed Forces Europe
Web Designer
Freelance
Hesse, Germany | Nov. 2001 – Mar. 2006
Built responsive web sites and created experimental designs for small screens like the Playstation Portable, Nintendo DS and Pocket PCs
German Headstart Instructor
Central Texas College
Hanau, Germany | May 2000 – Mar. 2004
Taught German culture and language for easy integration into German society to members of the US Armed Forces Europe
Education
Language Teacher, MA
Justus-Liebig-Universität
Giessen, Germany | Oct. 1993 – Mar. 2000
English and American Literature, Hispanic Studies, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)
Semester Abroad
University of Nottingham
Nottingham, UK | Oct. 1996 – Mar. 1997
Economics and Japanese
Certifications and Continuing Education
Online Developer Certification
Makromedia Akademie
Karlsruhe, Germany | 2001
Web and graphic design with Adobe and Macromedia tools
CPUX – Foundation Level Training
International Certification and Qualification Board
Boston, US | 2018
Ongoing UX/UI Training
Interaction Design Foundation
since 2018
Ongoing training and certification in the subjects: User Experience, Human-Computer Interaction, Dynamic User Experience, Emotional Design, Design Thinking, Mobile UX Design, UI Design Patterns, Conducting Usability Testing
Open Source & Creative Commons Contributions
I am fascinated by user powered knowledge databases, NLP, AI and Machine Learning and have contributed to Wiktionary in the past.
Common Voice
I am currently donating my voice (and accent) to Mozilla’s Common Voice open source project in German, English, Spanish, French, Romanian and Italian. The project strives to make voice recognition open and accessible to everyone. It will also help democratize voice technology, and benefit speakers of languages not currently supported by commercial voice assistants like Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.
Google Translate
I am validating Google translations in five languages, in order to enhance accuracy of machine translations. My motivator is that they are available to everybody, everywhere, for free.