WHO
I am a design leader with a passion for designing elegant, intuitive software experiences. I have experience designing for mobile, device, web and desktop software. I am a passionate, curious optimist with the grit to solve big design challenges, the drive to stay with a problem, and belief that we learn from iteration. I view constraints as the necessary starting point for great design, transforming user challenges into peak moments of delight. I have a strategic outlook, and connect the design mission to the business objectives and share my vision through engaging storytelling.
The craft of design is about problem solving, it is about creating systems and products that are easy to use. It is about making the end-to-end experience clear and simple. Good design is invisible – users don’t notice the design, they are simply completing a task. Designing software experiences is about crafting clear metaphors for complex computational tasks and systems.
An initial interest in architecture and the design of physical spaces while at UC Berkeley led quickly to a passion for designing digital products. And after years of designing digital products I still reflect on the insights of great architects. I am inspired by a quote from my namesake, the early modern architect Eliel Saarinen: “Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context—a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.” It is as true now in software as it was in his day for the physical environment.
