About Me
Coming from a very creative family, it was hardly a surprise when I decided to pursue a career in fashion design. After graduating college, I moved to NYC and worked mainly with overseas product development before returning to Austin and designing my own fashion line.
When I decided that it was time to find a more stable career, it was important to me that I was able to continue to engage my creativity, either by producing something visual or by using, what I was calling at the time, my pre-problem solving skills. Over the course of my recent UX education I have come to realize that I was already focusing on user experience, I had just given it another name.
While working in fashion, each season I unknowingly performed usability tests on the tracking chart I had been given and would iterate based on how well it had performed. When the design team complained about the thread color on a sales sample, I devised a plan for the future. Going forward I made sure to ask the designers to pick their thread color from a standards book and it went into the latest iteration of the tracking chart, which now had an appropriately located space for this color code. This way the factory would know exactly what color to use and, later on so would production.
After a couple of seasons (or rounds of iteration) my chart started to be used to streamline the transition as collection moved from design to merchandizing, then on to sales and production. It replaced the old standard of everyone taking their own notes during reviews of the collection. This previous method also meant that for any discrepancies you had to compare notes with growing numbers of people until you were able to reach a consensus. It was a terrible user experience and waste of time.
UX + Plants (+Me)
It has recently dawned on me that user experience can be applied to so many different things, and perhaps it can be better understood in the non-tech world by removing technology entirely from the explanation.
My hobby of indoor and outdoor gardening as seen through a user experience filter:
My plant philosophy is no one has a black thumb; they just have yet to find the right plant(s) for them. Like people, plants vary greatly in their needs so it’s important to start by researching your user/plant. Similar to personas, plant families give you insights into a plant’s needs, likes, and its pain points. Most people understand that plants need varying amounts of sun and water, but did you know that some plants actually prefer to be root-bound?
And if at first you don’t succeed, iterate! Plant propagation is iteration at its finest! When one of my indoor plants started to deteriorate, I realized it wasn’t getting enough light. I did some research and learned how to cut it up into smaller plants that I then repotted. Today that plant is huge and thriving as a, mostly, outdoor plant.