Nicole Maron 2014 portfolio

Research Strategy Design

2014 Portfolio

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CV in a nutshell

- San Francisco-based UX professional since 2000

- Experience Strategy, User Research, Information Architecture, Content Strategy, Interaction Design, Product Testing, Design QA

- Original and redesign work for commercial and proprietary web sites, mobile sites, phone and tablet apps

- Domain-agnostic methodologies: arts & culture, energy, automotive, finance, journalism & media, general aviation, healthcare, education, travel, activism

- Technology-agnostic UX in agile and waterfall development environments

I help businesses and non-profits create their optimal connected experiences. I offer illuminating analysis and communicate core issues via internal pitches, web and mobile experience audits, and system evaluation. With clear rationales and in plain language, I literally get executives, engineers, and designers on the same page.

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Recent Work

* Please note: most 2014 work is still under NDA and therefore not presented here.

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Client: Best Buy

User interface design language development for a major electronics retailer.

Tasks/Contributions !• Intensive, cross-platform interaction design audit of core design patterns for six unique client-branded properties, including two websites, iPad and Android tablet apps, and iPhone and Android web apps • Determination of best-practice standards and core design principles for a scalable, organization-wide pattern library

Sr. UX Designer, Sequence

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Reference: Tim Fisher, Account Director tim.fisher@sequence.com

“I had the pleasure of collaborating this year with Nicole on a large user interface design language project. She was particularly adept at bringing order to chaos, and clarity to an otherwise murky pool of inputs. When it came to delivering UX solutions, Nicole’s contributions were well-grounded by clear rationale, well articulated in her own confident voice, and most importantly, her solutions were right-on. Nicole’s got a great sense of humor and is a joy to have on any project team. She plays well with others and delivers greatness in the process.”

Retail electronics http://bestbuy.com

Client: PubNub Internet technology http://pubnub.com

Strategic interaction and content redesign of PubNub's Developer Portal signup and onboarding experience. !Tasks/Contributions !• Design workshops • User taskflows • Wireframing • Pricing model information redesign

UX Lead, Direct engagement

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“Nicole worked with my company PubNub for a short but important UX project. Though we only budgeted 2 weeks, Nicole was great at scoping an aggressive set of deliverables, and then exceeding those expectations at the end of the project. We're still working with ideas that came from the detailed documentation she provided at the end of the project. I'd highly recommend Nicole for any UX project. “

Reference: Todd Greene, Founder and CEO todd@pubnub.com

Client: Maker Media Tech, Arts,Culture http://makermedia.com

User research project to gauge online behavior and brand impressions of multiple Make platform users, including Makezine.com, Make print magazine, live Maker Faire events, and the Maker Shed ecommerce experience. !Tasks/Contributions !• Multiple executive and project team discovery workshops • Research plan design • User survey design and analysis • Key user group profiling

Sr. UX Researcher, Igniting Solutions

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Reference: Katie Jansen, Founder and CEO katie@igniting solutions.com

Client: Nexant/PG&E Energy utility http://pubnub.com

Discovery and strategy project for PG&E, focusing on customer energy efficiency communications. !Tasks/Contributions !• Site and content audit of pge.com • Competitive landscape • Behavior-change analysis, including gamification and best-practice information design • Ethnographic user interviews • User archetype and profile development

Sr. UX Researcher, Hot Studio

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Reference: Brian Cronin, (former) Director of Strategy @BrianCronin

Contact

Nicole Maron

email nicole.a.maron@gmail.com

mobile 415.420.6810

skype nicoleamaron

linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolemaron

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Approach and

Deliverables

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What does UX mean to me?

Finding the sweet spot between business goals, user needs, physical environments, and technical affordances

Applying the philosophy of the user’s emotional takeaway being of primary importance

Collaborating with all stakeholders as valuable team members: everyone is a contributor and a compatriot

Customizing adaptive sets of design principles for specific project, team, user, and scheduling constraints

Employing a logical and iterative design-test-improve process for product design

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Mantra: “Design for Reality”

There is no one true path: some projects require innovation, others are best served with current best-practice solutions.

Understand current experience trends: what else in the user’s world is setting her expectations?

Consider the full lifecycle: how will pre-launch marketing goals, post-launch testing feedback, phased releases, and future upgrades affect the product roadmap?

Technical feasibility: check in with engineering early and often to ensure that what is designed can and will be built.

Provide only what is needed: determine deliverables by project and team needs, rather than adhere to a static design process.

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UX Process

Discovery: Interview business and user stakeholders, review client’s previous research, complete current site/app usability audit and/or competitive analysis, refine and/or document business and project goals.

Strategy: Codify project-specific design principles, develop user personas, review content needs and workflow, workshop and define requirements and priorities, and develop project roadmap.

Design: Create user taskflows, site maps, and wireframes; collaborate with visual design on brand expression and cognitive impact.

Testing: Conduct guerrilla or formal design testing then provide iterative wireframe refinement.

Build: Detailed wireframe annotation, design QA testing.

I provide however much assistance you need, from a stand-alone site audit to identify issues and opportunities, to complete UX strategy and project leadership.

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Discovery & Strategy

Understand the problems to solve and opportunities to explore.

• Identify business stakeholders, their personal investment, hidden goals and dependencies

• Learn the competitive landscape: audit other products and identify differentiators

• Create consensus around prioritized business goals and define success metrics

• Identify users, their unmet needs, their pain points, their expectations

• Understand the physical context of the user interactions: location, device, attention, distractions

• Understand the schedule and the development environment

• Provide detailed strategic recommendations

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Example: Strategic Recommendation

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Example: Content Recommendation

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Example: Top Behavioral Segments High-level user groupings based on behavior analyzed from demographics, technographics, and stated user needs can provide insight into your different users’ actual needs.

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User Profiles/Personas...Why?

Provide a common understanding for the team and client about who, specifically, will use the product.

Ensuring the project team makes no decisions based on personal preferences and biases of individual members.

Provide a vessel to place any vetted behavioral assumptions which need to be made.

Help align stakeholder goals with user requirements: business and marketing with end user goals and needs.

Help prevent feature creep and feature debate loops.

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Example: Detailed Personas

Demographics

Technographics

Emotional drivers

Motivations

Barriers

Needs

Topical impressions

Self image

Aspirational drivers

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Example: Design PrinciplesInformed by personas or user group types, targeted design principles provide a consistent guide for feature, content, and interaction design decisions.

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Example: Feature PrioritizationFeature prioritization is a key scoping tool for determining what features are most important and feasible to produce from multiple stakeholder perspectives. One workshop can establish a clear roadmap for the development of a multi-phase product.

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Design, Test, Build

Explore and iterate user tasks, content, interaction

• Use cases and task flow diagrams create clear user paths and explore content needs.

• Site maps and wireframes inform each other through multiple iterations, providing both high-level and detailed views of your product.

• Prototyping and product testing will save budget and schedule by surfacing conceptual disconnects, interaction issues and design inconsistencies so they can be fixed prior to production.

• Design QA ensures that the inevitable changes will support the overall design during build and beta.

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Example: User TaskflowsTaskflows establish the logic of the user paths for all user types so we can determine what user content collection, database calls, and instructional content is required at which step.

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Example: Site Maps

Site maps detail the site architecture, giving a true overview of the full size and scope of the site or app. !They may illustrate back-end structure, front-end navigation, or both.

They allow us to holistically view content structure and categorization. !They allow us to define public vs. password-protected areas and integration points with other sites, apps, databases, and user tools.

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Example: Content Map and InventoryContent maps lay the foundation for the detailed information architecture of content-rich sites and apps, and help define realistic expectations for content production. Inventories track page-level copy, video and social media requirements and opportunities.

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Example: Wireframes

Wireframes are the blueprints which visual designers and developers use to build the final product. !They are customized to show the ideal level of detail required by the team.

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Additional Work

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Client: Hyundai Automotive https://www.hyundaiusa.com

Web and mobile app design for MyHyundai registration and browsing experience

Sr. UX Designer, Razorfish SF

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Client: Virtuwell Healthcare http://virtuwell.com

Interaction design for patient and healthcare worker interface, electronic medical record information design, taskflow integration with 3rd party pharmacy order system, health plan design

Sr. Interaction Designer, AKQA

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Client: ShowGo Media http://showgo.tv

Executive and Agile engineering team guidance through design exploration and interaction design of ShowGo’s Wordpress beta site and standalone iPad app.

UX Lead, ShowGo.tv

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Client: Joie de Vive Hospitality http://www.jdvhotels.com/

Detailed UX evaluation of the JDV hotel site and booking engine template: user path and key screen analysis for usability, marketing goals, and brand efficacy.

UX Lead, JDV Hotels

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Client: SunRun Energy http://sunrunhome.com

Wrote internal sales help content and developed training video screencasts for SunRun’s whitebox solar design sales tool

Copywriter and Video Producer, Cloudforest Design

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Client: Flying Like the Pros General Aviation http://flyinglikethepros.com

Subscription-based business modeling, video instruction content strategy, course catalog and consumer shopping experience design

UX Lead, Hot Studio

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Client: salesforce Technology https://appexchange.salesforce.com/

Detailed task analysis and redesign for the AppExchange developer portal

UX Lead, Hot Studio

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Client: WFC Activism/Charity http://womensfoundca.org

Deep discovery and project strategy, user group analysis, complex content IA and navigation, text and video content strategy, interaction design, donor task modeling

UX Lead, Hot Studio/WFC

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Client: Once Upon a School Activism/Education http://onceuponaschool.org

Interaction design for compelling, emotionally-driving participant recruitment for Dave Eggers’ TED prize project

Sr. Interaction Designer, Hot Studio

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Client: Cisco Systems Technology Proprietary enterprise sales app

Taskflow modeling for unique enterprise/consumer hybrid sales interface, iPad app design

Sr. Interaction Designer, Boldium

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Client: FORA.TV Media http://fora.tv

Deep discovery and product strategy, complex content IA and navigation, text and video content strategy, video player interaction design

UX Lead, Fora.tv

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Client: SFGate Journalism http://sfgate.com

Complex publishing workflow and taskflow service design for legacy proprietary CMS, resolved vital communication and conflict issues for previously dysfunctional client team, complex modular content and interaction design

Sr. UX Designer, Studio Sungo

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Client: Burning Man Arts & Culture http://burningman.com

30+ volunteer design & development team management for 5 years; extranet strategy and interface design; community forum structure redesign and moderation

UX Lead; Extranet Design Lead; ePlaya Online Community Manager, Black Rock City, LLC

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Thank you

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Nicole Maron

email nicole.a.maron@gmail.com

mobile 415.420.6810

skype nicoleamaron

linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolemaron