About

UX Direction // Product Design Team Lead // Product Whisperer I thrive on building the teams and systems that create better, more usable, interesting things. Teamwork makes the dream work. It's been my good fortune to work with a number of talented design thinkers, engineers, and business innovators – to design a range of digital and physical products from the ground up – including in-car wayfinding, internet of things (IoT) platforms, voice UI, in-store sales applications, appliance interfaces, social networks, and a host of web and mobile apps. As a designer and strategist, I do my best work as part of an integrated team in an R+D context, as an embedded part of the product team or as a design consultant. I’ve seen firsthand the benefits of close coordination across Design, Engineering, and Strategy. + + + + + My personal promise to you – I will flex & bend the needle to: - deliver more-human opportunities & outcomes - create joy - bring material success to our team & customers Onward and upward, friends. 🚀

Work Experience

2024 — Now

Senior Product DesigneratDICK'S Sporting Goods

Remote

Designer and creative collaborator in our Store Technologies team:

Envisioning the future state of our store signage – and the supporting process & tools that enable better experiences for our athletes and teammates.

+ Testing & piloting new technologies to augment our signage capabilities and our UX design methods

+ Driving design concepts, features, and workflows through the full SDLC lifecycle – from idea to prototype > concept review & valuation > user stories > eng review > release > measurement

+ Building alignment for our concepts and approaches with pair sessions (design + engineering + product + analytics)

+ Cost & value estimation for features and concepts – to keep our roadmap and backlog focused

+ Contributing components and interaction patterns to our DSG and Store Tech design systems

+ User research with our in-store teammates and other stakeholders – to understand and document the full lifecycle of touchpoints and data – and bolster our current-state & future-state journeys

+ Focused user research for critical feedback on design concepts, prototypes & flows

+ Value-added contributions to cross-team and cross-product collaborations – so we might support the DSG one-team vision and change lives through sport

2020 — 2024

Senior Product DesigneratLaunch Consulting Group

Bellevue, Washington, United States

Building our digital futures, one solution at a time.

Advocating for better, more human experiences that create material value for all our stakeholders, across the product lifecycle. Design systems, user research, product whispering, and agile concept refinement through design-dev translation.

+ Helping to raise UX Maturity through deeper team integration with our Design Systems

+ Raising interface quality through collaboration & design translation with Product & Engineering

+ Promoting agile approaches that connect our UX vision with an incremental design-build-test cycle

+ Working across the Product org to understand and expand our "envelope of possibility"

+ Supporting our user research initiatives along the product roadmap

+ Listening carefully to user feedback to identify high-value opportunities for future refinements

+ Translating feedback into functional epics that support platform vision, delivered in sprint-wise fashion

+ Crafting & improving our platform design system, UIkit, and visual language with Frontend dev and UX

+ Building and maintaining our state-of-product artwork in Figma repository

2018 — 2020

Director of Research & DesignatPiktorlabs Inc.

Seattle, WA

Supported our growing Design studio at PiktorLabs:

We design experiences that people love. Our team of designers, developers, and problem solvers craft digital products and services that help your business grow.

Applying design and user research to inform product & business decisions.

Listening and synthesizing customer needs into product concepts and workflows.

Support and mentor our growing team of designers, developers, and problem solvers.

+ Managed design pipeline and research across all active clients

+ Launched 5 products within our Innovation Labs

+ Organized new processes & tools for faster, collaborative results

+ Helped grow our Design team from 7 to 14 designers

+ Led projects and coordinated efforts across Design teams in Seattle and Bangalore, India

+ Supported launch our first-annual company-wide keynote, Epik 2020

+ More details at: http://piktorlabs.com

2007 — 2018

UX Director / Designatdigital scientists, llc.

Greater Atlanta Area

Digital product design and consulting - We explore and build digital products for large organizations that need fast-paced and disciplined R&D capability.

End-to-end design consulting across the user experience for startups and Fortune-ranked clients alike: Thomson-Reuters, Office Depot, Mailchimp, NAPA, Lamar, Gables Residential, Interface, London Fog, and many more.

Created responsive, mobile layouts for web and native mobile applications. Supported design systems and strategy for clients and DS company marketing.

+ Helped launch multiple internet of things platforms (Connected car and connected devices)

+ Strategy, IA, Concepting, Wireframes, visual design, QA / testing

+ Launched over 50+ apps over 10+ year tenure

+ Delivered 80+ projects across 100+ clients

+ Shaped our design process & systems for coordination from sales to launch

+ Helped launch and pivot our social shopping platform concept

+ Grew design team from 1 to 7 designers

+ Supported multiple transitions, growing from 0 to 2 office locations + remote

+ Work samples at: http://digitalscientists.com

2006 — 2007

Furniture DesigneratStudio OneUp | FoamLabs

Developed a line of modular furnishings for home and creative spaces.

Designed and optimized cutting patterns for fabrics and urethane foam. Material sourcing and selection. Conceived & approved product samples. Streamlined new product development workflow.

+ Ran physical product prototyping lab

+ Conceived and built product prototypes

+ Oversaw sample creation for new product development

+ Created cut-part materials list, managed fabric markers and inventory

+ Trained and operated CNC-controlled Lectra fabric cutter and Fecken+Kirfel 2-axis foam cutter

+ Assembled bill of materials and assembly documentation

2006 — 2006

Interface DesigneratElectrolux

Collaborated directly with Design and Engineering teams to develop and extend the interface visual language – for a cohesive line of touch-sensitive controls for the kitchen & household. Finished work seen at popular retailers like Best Buy, Lowes, and Home Depot. On contract for project duration.

+ Interface design

+ UI design

+ User experience design

+ Engineering coordination

+ PCB circuit layout review

+ Participated in design reviews

2003 — 2006

Product DesigneratMailChimp

Atlanta, GA

Assisted with layouts and mockups for early builds of the Mailchimp email marketing app. Supported web and visual design for digital consulting client projects. Supported product mockups into development, including image selection/slicing, and testing. Assisted with company branding projects for both RSG and Mailchimp.

+ Web application design

+ Website and visual design

+ Digital marketing and brand design

+ Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Creative Suite

2004 — 2004

Creative AssistantatThe Coca-Cola Company

Atlanta, GA

Worked on contract with designers in the Licensed Product division.

Developed branded product campaigns & concepts for Coca-Cola brand licensees: Concepts for Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Sprite, and other brands in 2D and 3D applications. On contract for project duration.

+ Product design

+ Licensee product branding

+ Product mockups (2D and 3D)

+ Visual design

+ Brand graphic concepting

+ Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Creative Suite

Education

Bachelor of Science at Georgia Institute of Technology

Connect

Feel free to contact me at ralph@placeholder.flows.cv

Website