About Me

Where I'm From

I was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio and attended Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, where I majored in psychology and minored in studio art. I was never the kind of little girl who played with dolls; scrap paper from my dad's office and pencils were my toys of choice, for the most part. I have always been fascinated by computers (I was the only girl in the Computer Club in elementary school, #nerdalert) and once my family registered our AOL 3.0 account, by the Internet. I taught myself HTML in the late 1990s and built some pretty basic Web 1.0 sites, and tried to master any computer program that I could get my hands on.

Like many new college graduates, I needed some time to figure out exactly what my ultimate career path was. After graduating from Kenyon, I landed in Washington, DC, where I spent several years working in the legal sector. Working for a small firm gave me the opportunity to take on a myriad of responsibilities at once, and most often under tight deadlines. When I dove into my first jobs after college, my work involved using software that was beyond frustrating, and due to my heavy workload, I often ended up finding complicated workarounds that would get the job done by the deadline, but never was able to maximize the utility of the software, which added to my frustration.

I was researching possible career paths, and came across the user experience field. I was completely floored - people get paid to do this? I knew that UX/IA work was the perfect marriage of my psychology background, my life-long love of visual art, and my desire to make the experiences of using technology easy for everyone. I enrolled in the School of Information at the University of Michigan, specializing in Human Computer Interaction, had a whirlwind two years of academic immersion in the field, and now, here I am.

Where I Draw Inspiration

"Creativity is not a process, right? It's people who care enough to keep thinking about something until they find the simplest way to do it. They keep thinking about something until they find the best way to do it." - Tim Cook, Apple CEO

I recently heard that quote at a UX web conference. I was immediately struck by how much I identified with it. I want to make the experiences of every user, no matter what their market demographic, or what the product or website or application is, as clear, intuitive and delightful as possible.

Books, Blogs, and Beyond:

• Evernote - An invaluable product that consistently blows me away with its elegant, simple design across multiple platforms. This is what I aspire to.
• 52 Weeks of UX - A blog that has provided me with lots of food for thought.
• COLOURlovers - I get lost here for hours look at color palettes and patterns, and that's not even counting the amount of time I spend making my own.
• Mark Bittman - Simple, delicious food delivered with a simple message.