Profile

Design manager in eCommerce field for more than 13 years; 11 years directing technical and visual design of enterprise class web applications for financial services; distinguished record of promoting uncompromising concern for customer satisfaction, profitability, and growth; notable for:

  • Maximizing potential to reach, inform, assist and close more customers through insightful design
  • Producing agile, high-performing web user interfaces that are easier to build, maintain, and use
  • Devising innovative design patterns that are more effective for business and accessible for consumers

eCommerce Visual Design Manager, Ally Financial

2008–Present

Assembled and currently managing a world-class team of full-service design professionals credited with award winning user interface design for ally.com. Also art directed the team in multiple offline design engagements, showcasing their talent and versatility in print and textile media

Managed design team in execution of corporate rebranding from GMAC Financial Services to Ally Financial. Primarily responsible for design of marketing and transactional user interfaces for disparate lines of business under one corporate identity and a single unifying design system

Responsible for visual refinements to corporate brand architecture in transition from the GMAC house-of-brands model to the monolithic strategy for Ally Financial

Art directed numerous strategic projects pursuant to corporate rebrand, including design, production and framing of more than 40 original digital art prints adorning the walls of Ally's new corporate office tower in Charlotte and it's corporate headquarters in Detroit

eCommerce Technical Design Director, Wachovia

2000–2008

Established Technical Design as a vital function of a thriving User Centered Design practice, instrumental in earning Wachovia numerous prestigious recognitions for quality, usability, and design from Forrester, Keynote, ComScore, and Webby

Orchestrated the implementation of validated best practices in web usability, accessibility and technical design for Wachovia, prescribing limitations of use for markup and style sheets to a team of 10 developers in eCommerce, while advising and consulting to dozens more throughout the enterprise

Devised a uniform taxonomy and markup framework, coined the “Web Presentation Architecture”, normalizing all markup in production at Wachovia while giving developers a predictable foundation for progressive enhancement and unobtrusive JavaScript

Directed the modernization of Vignette CMS presentation templates, able to consolidate more than 650 managed HTML assets into a single, flexible display template framework serving 10 distinct branded domains, 80 separate web form application flows, and more than 7000 unique pages

Increased productivity and reduced error frequency among presentation developers by assembling and maintaining a comprehensive reference suite of technical guidelines, development tools, design patterns, and rich internet application utilities

Conceived, designed and documented more than a dozen innovative design patterns in production for Wachovia and on web sites around the world, which increase the flexibility, accessibility, and efficiency of the web presentation layer

Established visibility and prominence as a thought leader by engaging the world wide community of web professionals through publishing and speaking engagements such as UX Week, A List Apart, and css Zen Garden

Addressed audiences at more than 20 speaking engagements in three years, communicating passionately on the business benefits of accessibility and web standards, articulating value in ways tailored to the unique concerns of every constituency, whether technical, financial, social or legal

Invented a patent-pending system and method for delivering a device independent web page, allowing Wachovia to be the first major financial services company to offer browser-based, mobile-optimized online banking to web-enabled smart phones through progressive enhancement

Contributed to a 50% reduction in web-related customer service calls by developing high-fidelity web application prototypes in iRise and ColdFusion, enabling Usability staff to derive more penetrating insights into customer behavior through comprehensive usability studies and heuristic evaluations

Founded the Wachovia Standards Based Design Collaborative, a community of practice comprised of more than 40 UX professionals, developers, designers and team leads at Wachovia, cooperating to implement uniform web standards across diverse lines of business, functional areas, and geographies

Managed the creation, funding, and staffing of a web accessibility specialist position, a role without precedent, yet successfully negotiated despite an acute scarcity of funds for resource augmentation

Education

University of North Carolina at Wilmington

Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies, 1998

Specialized Skills and Experience

Experience Design:

Branding, aesthetics, accessibility, usability and persuasion architecture for the web

Business Administration:

Planning, staffing and directing for eCommerce technical design

Technical Communication:

Patent, procedure, requirements, style and methodology documentation

Professional Communication:

PR, case studies, proposals, pitch presentations and executive briefings

UI Programming:

Expertise in Web presentation layer development technologies

Web Application Development:

Object Oriented Programming in ColdFusion and PHP

Content Management Systems:

Authored in ColdFusion (Access); administered in WordPress (MySQL)

Software:

Adobe Creative Suite 4 (Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash), iRise Application Simulator

Awards, Publications, Inventions and Appearances

  • Ally.com named Best Web Site in Financial Services by Change Sciences Group in 2010
  • Guest presenter at 2008 IBM International Meeting on Human Ability and Accessibility in Austin, TX
  • Web accessibility expert at North Carolina Smart Solutions Forum for Human Resources (2007)
  • Guest Presenter at 2006 Adaptive Path UX Week Usability Conference in Washington, DC
  • U.S. Patent applied for system and method for delivering a device independent web page (2006)
  • Charlotte Information Technology Blue Diamond Award for WachoviaChampionship.com (2005)
  • Webby Award for design of WachoviaChampionship.com (Webby Worthy, 2005)
  • Creator/author of "Onion Skinned Drop Shadows" technique published at A List Apart (May, 2004)
  • Designer of "C-Note", featured at css Zen Garden (Official Design #126; May, 2004)
  • Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, awarded by the Secretary of the Navy (1991)