Yep, that’s me and my stunning bride in Vegas! Yes, we did elope! And, yes, we are still together. And, no, Elvis did not perform the ceremony. We were, however, living in different states when we met and when we got married 6 months later. Soon after the secret eloping, we moved to the same city; but the trip to Vegas was only the beginning of our crazy, wonderful, totally blessed life together.
We have travelled the country from one end to the other and eventually took our travels overseas to serve alongside a couple of NGOs in Haiti and Sierra Leone. Our hearts have always been to help, to serve and to bring change; but every time we go, we are the ones who are changed.
My oldest, his wife and their daughter, aka my granddaughter :) ...
... and my 5 precious littles, that aren't so little anymore.
I think everybody collects something, I collect smiles. Just look at those! Is there anything more precious? That’s what I get to come home to…or visit in Florida. They are the reason I get up every morning and the reason I work hard at my job. Strangely enough, UX and parenting are really quite parallel.
Define the problem. Understand the user, in this case my kids. Look at the data. Design a solution. Release. Observe. Iterate. I do this all day everyday. It’s what I do and how I’m wired.
If I look back on my life, I was heading down this UX path before it was a thing. It started when I was young and being drawn to maps and charts in newspapers. Then I discovered National Geographic. I was mesmerized by the beauty and simplicity of their maps, but also the density and depth of years of field data displayed so elegantly on one of those glossy pages nestled between all the stunning wildlife photos.
Next came college and the addition of a love for design. The merging of two worlds. I was always processing data and now learning how to visualize it was the next step. I remember going to a Tufte conference and seeing Charles Minard’s map of Napoleon’s disastrous Russian campaign of 1812 for the first time. Graceful. Simple. Rich with data.
Charles Minard’s map of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812.
As I continued to be drawn to visual sharing of information, I began to find career paths that allowed me to realize my talents and passions were converging. From page design to product management to data visualization and UX, I’ve been fortunate to find opportunities and worked hard to fine tune my skills in areas I’m passionate about.
So that’s my world, and I love it. Whether at work, distilling and delivering complex scientific information to donors so they can understand the science they want to support or as a parent trying a different approach to discipline and realizing, after implementation, that I need to go back and understand my little users better, make a few tweaks and launch a new product, the user experience is part of everything I do.
In the end, in either world, if the user experience is negative or inadequate, everyone notices. With a good user experience the information is understood and gets passed seamlessly. No one notices the process.
On a recent trip to Sierra Leone, I watched a man invest his time and labor applying grout with his bare hands, rubbing his finger raw. None of the students of the school he was working on will ever see his face or know his name, but his work will be appreciated by students and the entire village for generations. He will go largely unnoticed, but his work was important and has made a difference. And that’s the point for me. I want my work and my life to make a difference.