Emily Anderson
UX and UI Designer
Contact
(312) 371-4570
Journey to where I am today
UX/UI Designer
September 2017 – Present
Working as the UX and UI Designer at Mightybytes, a small digital agency. I provide design services to a wide range of clients including education, insurance, and professional associations. Besides strict UX and UI design, I have gained experience in search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, conversion rate optimization (CRO), and data analytics measurement and application. I have also gained invaluable insight into how digital design and development is approached from a more mainstream perspective.
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Lead Lean UX, Human Centered Design, and Discovery workshops
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Perform UX audits to guide clients in how to make their websites more intuitive, consistent, and engaging
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Carry out user research and testing with a wide variety of user types and research methods
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Lead clients through UX methodologies including personas, user flows, wireframes, and design systems
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Advise other design agencies on how to design for the web
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Ensure that projects are meeting WCAG 2.0 AA standards as well as web sustainability best practices
Lead Design Architect
Senior Design Architect
April 2016 – August 2017
May 2015 – April 2016
Working as a Lead Design Architect on HMH's new digital file reader and new digital curriculum platform. I also support curriculum development teams to ensure that their digital curriculum will work seamlessly on the platform when it is ingested.
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Designing for K–12 students, teachers, and administrators by focusing on their needs, obstacles, and motivations
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Solving problems through a user experience design process, including user personas, user research, user stories, wireframes, iterative prototypes, and user interface design
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Advocating for design thinking within the immediate project and throughout Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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Ensuring design interfaces and interactions are accessible and meet AA WCAG standards
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Building a continuously updated component library that acts as a foundation for all design
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Participating in Agile development
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Working hand-in-hand with the Content Strategy, Engineering, Business Analysis, and Product Management teams
Senior Designer
May 2013 – May 2015
Worked as a User Experience and User Interface designer in a small business unit that focused on struggling students in school by delivering mobile-only curriculum and assessments.
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Created graphical interfaces that engaged and inspired users by drawing upon the virtues of the human centered design processes
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Supported and worked alongside the marketing, sales, editorial, engineering, and product management teams
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Communicated design needs and requirements to an overseas development company
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Lead various forms of research in order to reveal unseen expectations and needs, including stakeholder interviews and usability testing
Graphic Designer
October 2008 – May 2013
Worked as the sole graphic and web designer in the University Marketing and Communications department on diverse projects from the brand campaign to the alumni magazine, as well as web design, event promotion, merchandise, and photo direction.
Top 3 Strengths
(besides my UX and UI chops, of course)
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Simultaneously big-picture and detail focused
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Meticulously organized
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Thoughtfully observant
Awards
2013
iLit (Inspire Literacy) app
AOE recognizes creative new offerings that help educators teach, train, and manage technology. Evaluation criteria includes: quality, effectiveness, ease of use, and creative use of technology.
Software Loves
Axure, Sketch, Zeplin, Slack, Trello, InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Basecamp
Not my faves, but I have experience in: Jira, ZenHub, Excel/Word/Powerpoint, Keynote
Some people have said...
“Without her expertise, there is no way this project would have turned out as smoothly or high quality as it did. [Her] attention to detail and ability to think big picture or small picture has been amazing.”
– Coworker from 2018
"Emily is a stellar employee. She is helpful, willing to do the heavy-lifting and detail work, and has a clear vision of where the team and the (project) need to go."
– Manager from 2016
"It's a rare combination to find an individual with her positive energy, talent, focus, willingness to listen, compassion, eagerness to grow, and openness."
– Manager from 2015