I’ve heard that the difference between a junior and senior designer is that a junior designer can create a brilliant solution for a well-defined problem, and a senior designer can create a brilliant solution for a vague problem. I’ve learned that (and a few other important things) in my eight years of creating digital products and services. Here are some of the key lessons. I hope to turn these into blog posts this year.

 
 
 

UEGroup

Blog posts coming soon:

  • The importance of research of every stage of planning, design, and re-design

  • Redesigning a legacy system (and why you can’t judge or blame the previous designer)

  • Making the complex simple (and why it got complex, in the first place)

  • The devil is in the details, and so is the success of a design

 
 

Recreation.gov (Booz Allen Hamilton)

Blog posts coming soon:

  • The key to keeping stakeholders happy — documentation

  • Why being a designer can make you a better product manager

  • Why our satellite dev teams were just as successful as the headquarters teams

 
 

Fidelity Investments

Blog posts coming soon:

  • Working with and innovating within design systems

  • The importance of good product managers

  • Making the most of guerilla research

  • Walking decision makers to fruitful conclusions

 
 

Fresh Tilled Soil

Blog posts coming soon:

  • Learning to discuss design was the hardest thing about becoming a designer (and how improv comedy has helped)

 
 

WineKick / Drink Crate (Startups)

Blog posts coming soon:

  • UX exists to help the company thrive (and why the best product won’t save your company)

  • If I did more discovery research, would I have ever founded my startup?