How I work

Role: UX Designer / Specialist / Architect

There's been a lot of design thinking, both creatively and technically, in my career.

A Peek into my Thinking

I have created user flows, service blueprints, views inventories and audits, data audits and information architecture, and lots of markerboarding. These typical led to clarity, requirements refinement, and much of the time, gray box wireframes and then into rapid prototyping.

Earlier in my career, I was a frontend dev, so I aimed to prototype with code (pre-React / js framework SPA), using design frameworks like Bootstrap to rapidly convey interaction, design, layout, information flow, etc.

I have found a new love, which is AI-assisted rapid prototyping. I'm an idea girl, and the speed at which those fill my head is finally matched with an assistive technology that moves even faster.

I can work through the full design process, though I focused my early career on design, dev, and prototoyping. As I've grown in roles and responsibilities, I've expanded my skills to cover more of an end-to-end process, though I've never considered myself a "researcher". I do what is needed to understand what needs to be designed and built, and then I get that to as realistic as possible as quickly as possible to vet with users and stakeholders. Many companies have enjoyed a faster discovery process thanks to my builder-mindset.

Behind the choice

Why I chose this piece

I think it is important to show the messy beginnings and middle of my work. We all have it. Some spend more time making beautiful artifacts, some spend more calories building the thing. I err on the later, but capable of supporting beautiful documentation as well.

What I hope you take away

I am a systems thinker. I have a builder mind-set. I can't not have ideas. And I can't know about a problem and not try to solve it thoughtfully.

By Rina Henderson Key