Resume
Highlights
- DesignOps and design leader, mentor, and speaker with a penchant for innovation and operationalizing at scale
- Strong passion for supporting the UX community, advocating for design, and teaching advanced UX topics
- 3 years of people management
- 15+ year background in UX, accessibility, design, and quality assurance
Experience
Principal DesignOps Manager
5/2021 – present
Citrix, Santa Clara, California
As a team of one, I work on holistic DesignOps programs for the Product Design org (~60 people). My passions include operationalizing at scale, fostering connection and culture, and establishing solid cross-functional relationships. I have a penchant for aligning teams, increasing efficiencies, and reducing change aversion. I’m currently evolving our design system strategy, furthering our DesignOps practice, and defining a team skills assessment and career framework. I keep the team connected through virtual activities, engaging Slack channels, and office hours.
In 2021, I defined our design system governance (for 30+ products and endpoints), created sustainable and scalable ops processes (hiring, tracking, education, communications), and introduced localization and accessibility into the design process. I created over two dozen playbooks and roadshows on topics such as hiring and onboarding; coaching; communication; career development; managing at Citrix; working with product design; and story pointing for designers.
Manager II, Product Design
10/2018 – present
Citrix, Santa Clara, California
I led the creation of our end-user design system including a cross-functional governance process. I facilitated its maintenance, contribute guidelines, and defined accessibility solutions. I oversaw five designers, hired seven designers and two managers for our team, and have a track record for identifying top-notch candidates.
When I managed design projects on Citrix Workspace (a work management app), I increased my design team’s presence and participation within the SAFe framework. It gave design a seat at the table so we could mobilize around design-led experiences.
To keep us nimble, I challenged designers to innovate through new tools, methods, and processes; yet balance what’s realistic and how to work iteratively. I also demonstrated a high-level of organizational agility by forming solid cross-functional relationships. As a result, everyone was empathetic to creating great user experiences.
Principal Product Designer
10/2017 – 10/2018
Citrix, Raleigh, North Carolina
Lead Product Designer (8/2014 – 10/2017)
I led high-profile product and feature innovations for ShareFile – a file-sharing app with 80K customers and 20M users. I could strategically scale the design beyond the MVP and from small business to enterprise. As the team’s accessibility expert, I conducted audits, provided tactical and strategic approaches, and partnered with engineers to create accessible solutions.
I untangled technical and enterprise requirements into designs with simple user experiences. I consistently and successfully negotiated feature requirements to ensure friendly user experiences. I led by example with UX activities (workshops, ideating, sketching, critiquing, wireframing). Managers often selected me to create video pitches, present concepts, and conduct demos at company all-hands and executive leadership meetings. I also conducted three due diligence evaluations for company acquisitions.
My projects included: integrations, mobile apps, responsive web apps, onboarding/first-time use, enterprise features, design system, product innovations.
Senior User Experience Strategist
11/2012 – 8/2014
Rock Creek Strategic Marketing, Chevy Chase, Maryland
I led, mentored, and collaborated with colleagues on UX strategies, design solutions, and speaking engagements. Since many clients were new to UX, I guided them through our process and educated them on methods, activities, and deliverables. I identified, developed, and implemented relevant UX activities along the entire project lifecycle. I successfully scoped out UX work for multi-million dollar bid proposals.
Internally, I identified pain points and improved in-house practices. I created a QA plan for testing responsive sites and content management systems across multiple devices.
Some clients included: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Education Pioneers, Employee Benefits Security Administration, Export-Import Bank of the U.S., U.S. Commission of Fine Arts.
UX Designer / Quality Assurance Specialist
11/2012 – 8/2014
Rock Creek Strategic Marketing, Chevy Chase, Maryland
In this role, I created graphics/UIs for training applications and tested those products. Our clients were government agencies, which meant accessibility was required of our deliverables.
I tested web sites/apps, PDFs, and videos for accessibility. I became the accessibility expert and scaled accessibility efforts across the department by teaching writers, designers, and developers about best practices.
Complete work history can be found on LinkedIn.
Education
Master of Science Degree in Interaction Design and Information Architecture
University of Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland, December 2011.
- Thesis Project/Paper: Mobile Technology for Non-profits: Harnessing the Power of Crowdsourcing.
Certificate in Interactive Multimedia
The George Washington University, Washington, District of Columbia, May 2002.
Bachelor of Science Degree in Natural Resources Management, Environmental Ed. focus
The University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, May 1999.
Selected Speaking Engagements
- Podcast: UX in Real Life with M. Thompson, October 2021–present.
- Presentation: “The DesignOps Starter Kit” DesignOps Summit, September 2021.
- Presentation: “Unifying Your Product Design Org through DesignOps” UX Y’all, September 2021.
- Online course: “Understanding UX/UI Design for Accessibility: Design an accessible web page!” Skillshare, April 2019.
- Presentation: “Product Design Best Practices & Tools for Localization”
- UX Y’all 2018, Raleigh, North Carolina, October 2018.
- UXPA International 2018, Rio Grande, Puerto Rico, June 2018.
- Presentation: “Mentorship: Add Value to Your Career, Workplace, and UX Community” with A. Wirtanen and J. Bond.
- UXPA International 2017, Toronto, Canada, June 2017.
- UXDC 2017, Washington, D.C., April 2017.
- Triangle UXPA Community Event. Raleigh, N.C., April 2017.
- Poster: “A Case Study with Citrix ShareFile: Advocating for Information Architecture in Product,” with P. Desai, IA Summit 2016 Poster Night. Atlanta, Georgia, May 2016.
- Workshop: “The UX Portfolio Workshop: Roll Up Your Sleeves, We’re Getting Past ‘Portfolio Creator’s Block,’” UXDC, 2015.
- Presentation: “Un-siloing Your Project Team with Collaborative Sketches and Digital Prototyping” with K. Kuhl and I. Lestari, Drupalcon Austin. Austin, Texas, June 2014.
Many of my slide decks are available on my Speaker Deck page.
Skills
Management
- Operationalizing at enterprise scale
- Change management
- Hiring/retention
- Career/skills development
- Vendor/agency engagement
- Organizational agility
- Systems thinking
- Team culture/community
UX Specialties
- Product design
- Design systems
- Interaction design
- Accessibility
- Globalization
- Information architecture
- User discovery
- Audits and evaluations
- Diagramming
- Storytelling
- Workshop facilitation
- Information visualization
- Usability testing
- Quality assurance testing
- Agile/SAFe
- UX due diligence for acquisitions
Software (highlights)
- Figma
- Sketch
- Abstract
- Adobe Creative Cloud
- Jira
- Miro
- Trello
- Assistive technology in default operating systems; JAWS
Affiliations
- Co-chair, Citrix Asian Professionals (employee resource group, 2021–present)
- Founder and organizer, exploreUX, Washington, D.C. and Raleigh, N.C. (2014-2019)
- Director of Mentorship, Triangle UXPA (2018-2019).
- Co-Director of Community Events, Triangle UXPA (2015-2018).
- Member, Diversity Team, Citrix Raleigh Office (2017-2018).
- Member, User Experience Professionals Association.
Awards
- 3rd Place – 2019 Raleigh Tech Fair – Personal Reminder Notifications
- 1st Place – 2018 Raleigh Tech Fair – Citrix Workspace Push Notifications
- “Best Effective In-House Design Team,” 2014 Design for Experience Award.
Interests / Activities
- PADI Divemaster
- Podcast host
- Cycling
- Outdoor activities
- Tour manager for Pilfers