A series of steps I follow when coming up with a solution to a problem.
Define
You can’t find a solution until you have a clear idea of what the problem is. During the initial phase of the project I like to have collaborative meetings, workshops with the client to accurately determine their needs. Once I feel comfortable and completely understand the task at hand, I can move on to defining the project deliverable.
Discover
During this stage I want to establish exactly what it is that the client is trying to accomplish. This involves discussing your wants, needs, goals, and becoming familiar with as many aspects of your project as possible. Using the information you have provided me, I can then start my own research to help me with coming up a design solution.
Design
After I collect my information in the previous phases I can now craft the user experience. I like to start with quick thumbnail sketches where I can narrow my ideas down to one or two possible solutions. Once I feel like I have the best possible solution I can now start to create a high fidelity comps with Photoshop. Your first idea isn’t always your best idea!
Portfolio
Good design isn’t decoration. Good design is problem solving.
Blue Cross Complete
Responsive Web Design
Employee Assistance
Responsive Web Design
Health4Me
App Design
Caregiver Partners
Website Design
ACET
Pega Website Program
My Custom Health
Website Design
Marathon Shirt Design
Logo Design
Health Journey Map
Journey Map Design
About Me
User Interface Designer
Education
Wayne State University
Graduated 2011
Bachelor of Fine Arts and Art History, concentration in Graphic Design
Macomb Community College
Graduated 2007
Associates in General Studies
Work Experience
Ally Bank
January 2019 - Present
Currently working on the Ally Auto's SmartAuction Dealer platform. Responsible for the user experience and creating a consistent look and feel that aligns with Ally's brand guidelines. Responsibilities also include making sure the application is compliant with WCAG 2.0 accessibilty standards. Work collaboratively with a UX team and product owners to help facilitate the best product for our dealers to ensure we meet all of their needs.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan
February 2016 - January 2019
Worked on the Blue Cross member portal design team. Responsible for the look and feel of the website when the member is logged into their account. Executed all visual design deliverables from start to finish and made sure that they were 508 compliant. Provided HTML and CSS assets to make the website responsive for a seamless user experience across all devices. Also, worked collaboratively with back-end developers to ensure that the final deliverable aligns with my final comp specs.
Optum Technology
October 2012 - February 2016
Digital design of projects for clients within UHG, including, but not limited to mobile & website experiences. Worked within corporate branding standards and created innovative designs based on the clients needs. Executed all visual design stages from concept to final hand off. Brought simplicity and user friendliness to a complex system.
UnitedHealth Group
August 2011 - October 2012
Visual Interface Designer/Business Segment Liaison Responsibilities included the creation of graphics for web and visual content for mobile phones. Ensure deadlines are met and approved by client. Responsible for working with management for onboarding of all new hires, with hardware and software needs.
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Blue Cross Complete
Responsive Web Design
Blue Cross Complete is a joint venture between AmeriHealth and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM) that functions fairly independently of BCBSM and manages the Medicaid part of the business. Blue Cross Complete was a complete responsive redesign and expansion of the Blue Cross Complete (BCC) website in five months.
The main objectives of this redesign was to give the site a more modern design, better inform and educate users about their plan, make the content on the site more robust.
The BCC website was developed in Adobe Experience Manager (AEM). Most of the components in our AEM system are legacy components designed quickly years ago, before responsive design, and they have not been updated since. I had to exercise considerable creativity to deliver responsive designs that were modern and usable.
Due to the time constraints of the project sprints UX and development had to work simultaneously at times. Although not ideal we made it work by communicating closely to avoid confusion and ensure that the final project always aligned to the clients wants and needs.
The Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is available 24/7 to provide confidential help with life’s challenges, and is available to all active employees and their family members.
I worked collaboratively with a UX designer, lead UI designer and design manager to journey map, design and build a functional prototype. The design places emphasis on interaction between the employee and their interests by engaging them with the topics of interest. The design was meant to be fun and engaging with cool interactions and visually appealing colors and iconography.
We underwent a concentrated fusion session in which we journey mapped an employees experience. The scenario was set up to show that a 45 year lady Jade, who had worked with the company for 20 years, married and a mother of two who was recently diagnosed with diabetes. She didn’t know where to turn or how this may affect her and her family.
Working closely with the business statistics showed that many employees weren’t aware that the company provided services such as counseling and other avenues to help coping with various life events. EAP isn’t just a service to help when dealing with tragedy or hard times. It’s also there to help with financial health, stress relief, or even help you find a good restaurant if you’re new to the area.
Our goal from here was to try and involve the employee from day one with an app. The idea was to engage with the employee as early as possible. We started out by understanding what the employee’s interests are, by creating series of questions in which they could click on. Once Jade chose different topics of interests we would create a dashboard tailored to her. From her dashboard she could then read articles, look up health recipes, or engage with other people within the company through various forums.
In our scenario we engaged the employee Jade as early as possible to let her know that EAP exists. Since she as aware of EAP and various programs she was able to enroll in a counseling program where she can get help and work with professionals to help guide her to a successful result.
My Role: Visual Designer
Health4Me
App Design
The UnitedHealthcare Health4Me application is designed for people to always have access to their health insurance 24/7. We know that people are primarily always within an arms length of their mobile device. The Health4Me application is designed to help customers find answers for their health insurance. Whether they want to find physicians or pharmacies near them, check a status of a claim, manage their prescriptions or estimate the cost of their health care. Health4Me is a go-to resource.
I worked collaboratively with an UX designer and under the direction of an Art Director to help facilitate new enhancements to the application. The design closely adheres to the brand style guide established and carried throughout the experience.
Heatlh4Me was featured at the 2016 (CES) Consumer Technology Association and continues to provide all consumers and millions of UnitedHealthcare plan participants with easier and more convenient access to information about the health care system.
My Role: Visual Designer
Caregiver Partners
Web Design
The problem we were solving for was that we know caring for a family member; friend or neighbor can be a stressful and demanding full-time job. The Caregiver Partners platform was designed to help support people with planning and coordinating services for loved ones. We felt that the best solution was to give the caregiver an all in one resource where they would be able to get important information that may pertain to their situation, a place where they could buy services such as food or medical equipment, and what I feel is the most useful section is the communities section.
The communities’ section is a resource available to the caregivers where they can invite family and friends to keep them informed about their loved ones well-being. My communities has a dashboard with a messaging section where you can write comments and post pictures, a task system where you can create task’s such as helping grandma with her grocery shopping and ask for a friend in your community to help with this task. And a calendar section where you can let people know that grandpa needs a ride to his next doctor’s appointment.
I worked on this project collaboratively with an UX designer, a lead design manager and product owner to successfully design a solution to caregivers needs. The design adheres closely to the UnitedHealth care’s brand guidelines.
Adaptive Constituent Experience Technology (ACET) is an internal based application used by call center personnel. The application is built within the confines of the Pega 7 framework.
I worked on this project collaboratively with a UX designer. The application already existed, our job was to provide usability recommendations where applicable and update the user interface with a clean look and feel.
Our goal was to provide a clean and minimalistic interface design that would help the call center agents navigate the system quick and efficiently. The challenge was that some of the screens had a lot of information so I tried to reduce as much clutter as possible and use color sparingly for actionable items. I also established a difference between primary and secondary button, as there was no secondary button before.
We received great feedback from our design enhancements from the agents stating that it streamlined their conversations with customers and also was refreshing to look at.
My Role: Visual Designer
My Custom Health
Web Design
myCustomHealth is a Medicare health exchange. Medicare is a complex topic that's poorly understood by its target audience, which are seniors approaching or over the age of 65.
My goal was to keep the design clean, while keeping high contrast and large text to help with accessibility for this demographic.
The design provides tools to help align retiree’s needs with the benefit options they offer, and supports easy and intuitive plan selection and enrollment. I wanted to streamline the process of picking a plan and provide the end user with user-friendly experience.
My Role: Visual Designer
Marathon Shirt Design
Logo Design
Marathon t-shirt was a logo designed for my family members who all trained and ran in the Chicago marathon in 2015. They went by the name team F.I.T. (family in training). The shirt and logo were designed as a gift to unify the team and congratulate them on a successful marathon.
Health Journey Map
Journey Map Design
The Health Journey Map was designed based off of a fusion session in which a team of UX, UI and subject matter experts went through a card sort to try and alleviate pain points in which patients may experience while seeking medical treatment. The journey defines what the patient may go through from checking into the doctors office, consulting with their physician, diagnosing and coming up with a care plan, and setting up follow up actions with an electronic buddy system. The map was the resource guide in which we utilized as our guiding map when working on our project.
