Welcome!
With over 30 years of experience in the IT industry, I bring deep expertise in consulting, front-end web development, UX design, and multimedia solutions. As a DHS 508 Trusted Tester, I ensure that all digital products adhere to the highest standards of accessibility and compliance, starting from the initial UX designs.
My skill set encompasses web design and front-end development, where I have successfully built and optimized websites and web applications using HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, and JavaScript. I also have extensive experience in multimedia development and production, having created hundreds of computer-based training modules and marketing videos.
As a strong advocate for Human-Centered (HCD) design and 508 compliance, I am dedicated to delivering exceptional, accessible user experiences for all. I bring extensive leadership experience across both government and commercial projects, where I have effectively led IT and design teams to deliver innovative solutions.
Currently, I am focused on harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning to solve complex business challenges and drive innovation in product research and development.
My certifications include Google UX Design, ITIL 4 Foundation in Service Management, Scrum Master, and DHS 508 Trusted Tester. I am also currently pursuing an Azure AI Fundamentals certification as well. For both fun and monetizing photos and videos, I am also an FAA Part 107 Licensed Remote Pilot.
Portfolio
- All
- Websites
- Videos
- Apps
UX Design
II’ve experienced nearly every aspect of IT, but Human-Centered Design (HCD) has been the most rewarding.
UX Design leverages decades of my experience as a designer, developer, trainer, multimedia specialist and an IT Business Analyst working with clients to gather software requirements, establish business rules and design considerations. I believe having IT BA skills is important as you foster empathy for the user, develop good interpersonal communication skills and focus on the user-centered experience. While the process can take some time, it is very rewarding to see the project's successful completion and a happy client.
Wireframing and prototyping tools have come a long way since the 90's when I used Photoshop or Fireworks to create prototypes. My prefered wireframing and prototype tools are: Figma.com, Adobe Xd and Balsamiq Wireframes.
UX Design vs UI Design - what's the difference?
UX Designers Tasks:
· UX designers work with product managers, stakeholders and business analysts to clarify requirements.
· The user's interaction with a product is the primary focus of a UX designer. Creating applications that are useful, usable, and engaging is the goal of UX designers.
· The UX designers work on a problem, understand it, and provide the best possible solution to it.
· The UX designer conducts user research to figure out the needs and potential problems of target users.
· The UX designers develop user personas and refer to them in different stages of the design process.
· UX designers works with UI and other designers to manage and produce the best solution possible.
· The UX designers work together with UI designers, developers and stakeholders.
UI Designers Tasks:
· UI designers work with front-end developers to ensure that the design looks good when implemented.
· The UI designers are more concerned with the visual layout of UI components on the screen.
· The goal of UI designers is to design something that attracts the user at first glance.
· The UI designers perform research on the latest UI trends in the market and define the product's visual language.
· The UI designer designs UI controls like drop-downs, text fields, buttons, etc.
· UI designers create wireframes, low and high-fidelity prototypes.
· The UI designer collaborates with programmers to translate design ideas to usable products.
UI/UX Design terms can be confusing and are always evolving. User Centered Design (UCD) is now commonly called Human Centered Design (HCD), which focuses on the user's experience engaging with a product or service. Customer Center Design is understanding the experience before and after the customer (user) engages with a product and focusing designing a product or service based on your customer's wants and needs. The goal is to create the best User Experience (UX) and Customer Experience (CX) possible for the widest range of users.
One of my first interface designs for a DOS-based application in 1993.
Developing a new web or mobile application requires a structured approach and careful consideration of the user’s expectations, their experience using the application and to discover any pain points. The goal is to understand the users experience through research, interviews, creating personas and user journey maps along with a competitive analysis before any designs are created. It is also important to have a diverse test group to ensure the best user experience for the widest range of people.
Once the wireframes have gone through the approval process and have been approved as an interactive prototype, it is essential to conduct further user testing to ensure that the established goals have been met and no new impediments have been introduced during the wireframing and prototyping phases. At this stage, it is important to incorporate any relevant feedback to refine the deliverable through an iterative process. I often develop the final prototype as a fully functional Bootstrap front-end, which can be tested live across different viewports and provided to back-end developers as a deliverable.
Every step helps ensure the success of the project and to provide the best User Experience.
Here are my top 10 UX/UI Design tips:
- Only incorporate the best functionality - 10 strong features are better than 20 weak ones.
- Understand business rules and user needs. Many designers strive for a contemporary, "consumer looking" design and avoid practical complexity. For example, as a new user if you opened an application like Lightwave or Cinema 4D you might be overwhelmed by all of the options, however experienced users would demand nothing less.
- Use User Research testing to support designs to demo for stakeholders. If there are two viable prototypes employ A/B testing with two separate users’ groups and typically the ideal number for each group is 5 – 7 people.
- Use Font Type size and Weight to denote hierarchy on a page or section and only use two, preferably just one typeface that is native to both Windows and MacOS. Also, if there are text links, please make them obvious.
- If a button or link is part of a multi-step process, use an ellipsis, often called "meatballs" (…) to indicate there is another action.
- Validate form data entry as soon as possible to alert users. It is very frustrating for a user to complete and submit a form, and then encounter an error forcing them to re-enter their information.
- Use existing framework classes and controls whenever possible, such as Bootstrap. Refrain from creating custom controls that force a user to learn something new to have to interact with your webpage or app.
- Show progress bars for time-consuming tasks and always show a “proof of life” spinner when pages are loading or data is being pulled from a database. If there is an error and the task can’t be completed, stop the spinner and display an appropriate error message, never just display the all-too-common: “Something went wrong…”.
- Show, don’t tell. Clean, simple graphics help users understand what is expected. If necessary, create short training videos that cover one specific topic.
- Make everything 508 Compliant from the beginning including Alt tags for images and appropriate descriptions for Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) Attributes.
Production Skills
UX Design/Web Development
Here are the programming languages, tools and web frameworks I use:
- Figma, FlutterFlow / Balsamiq Mockups
- Bootstrap / HTML / CSS / XML / JavaScript / jQuery / Angular / JSON
- WordPress / Joomla
- Miro Collaboration Platform
- Visual Studio Code / Dreamweaver
I usually wireframe in Figma or Balsamiq, and once the design is approved, I will create a high-fidelity prototype for the final review. Next I build out the design in HTML/CSS using Bootstrap incorporating many of the built-in classes and components, along with custom JavaScript if needed. WWhile many UX designers hand off their final wireframes to developers, I prefer to code it myself to ensure the design's look and feel are accurately implemented. Once the HTML/CSS layout is complete, it is handed off to the developers to integrate the back-end and finalize the project.
I am a strong advocate for using Bootstrap as a framework because it is lightweight and provides a wide range of built-in classes that enable quick web application development. Visual Studio Code is my preferred editor due to its cross-platform compatibility, extensive library of free extensions, and speed. The "Go Live" feature is an essential tool as well.
Video Producer, Director and Editor
I have always had a passion for film making, starting in my early teenager years creating short 8mm movies. As desktop video editing matured on personal computers, I started creating CBTs and creating short marketing videos. Camtasia Studio is my go-to video editing program for CBTs as it is ideally suited for creating training videos with captioning.
For larger productions such as the History Roads Pilot , I used Apple’s Final Cut Pro, Motion and Logic Pro X to edit the videos, create special effects and produce the music. I have extensive video and audio plugins along music libraries that makes the creative process flow much faster.
I am also the webmaster for Light on the Rock, where I produce the audio and video sermons. The video is shot in a bedroom with a green screen, uploaded to Dropbox, then I download it and knock out the background using DaVinci Resolve, which is an amazing color-grading and chroma keying application.
It’s truly amazing what can you produce on your desktop that would have cost a fortune just a few years ago.
Multimedia Production Software & Hardware
Multimedia production presents challenges that rely on wide variety of design, video and authoring tools including:
- Adobe Photoshop / Illustrator / After Effects / Audition
- Techsmith Camtasia Studio
- Apple Final Cut Pro / Motion / Logic Pro
- DaVinci Studio
- Native Instruments Kontakt
- Lectora
- Adobe Experience Manager Forms (formerly LiveCycle)
While Adobe After Effects is the industry standard video FX software, I really like Apple's Motion for creating visual effects and animation. Even with memory-intensive plugins, it renders very fast allowing tweaks to be made in realtime. I have been using Camtasia for over 12 years and it is ideal for creating training videos.
For music production Logic Pro is amazing and comes with a nice range of synth plugins. One of the best music plugins is Native Instruments Kontakt which has a huge library of sampled instruments.
Certifications & Security Clearance
On May 22nd, 2024 I passed the DHS Section 508 Trusted Tester final exam. My experience in UX-centered design and knowledge of 508 compliance enables me to create human-centered applications that fully adhere to 508 standards.
- Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP), 2009
- Microsoft IIS Certification
- Microsoft Networking Certification
- Leidos Scrum Master Certification
- Camtasia 2020 Explorer Certification
- Camtasia 2020 Voyager Certification
- FAA Part 107 Unmanned Pilots License
- Google UX Design Certificate
- ITIL® Foundation Certificate in IT Service Management
- DHS Section 508 Trusted Tester Certfication
- Security: Public Trust
