Hi I'm Dean.

Considering me for your next UX Design role? Let’s chat!
Here’s my CV on LinkedIn. Or email dewong + 7 @ + gmail + .com

Looking for coaching on UX, UI, Design, and UX Career or Job Hunting advice?
Book 1:1 time with me on ADP List where I try to give back what I’ve learned by mentoring others coming up in these areas.

Current Design Stack
Figma, Figjam, Slack, Git, Storybook, Miro, ZeroHeight, JIRA, Confluence

Design-Specific Skills & Expertise

Key Knowledge Areas

• UX & UI
  Deep experience defining The User Experience from a user-centered approach, and designing The User Interface, and leading the design effort on multi-disciplinary projects and working with blended teams
• Design Systems
  Create, maintain, curate, and evolve design system components, architecture, libraries, and tooling. Comprehensive guidelines and usage documentation. Educate and train designers to build a systems-thinking, collaborative community. Research, measure, and gather metrics regularly to support road map, value to designer-users, and more importantly, value to the business in increasing product design process efficiencies and brand UX consistency
• User Research & Usability
  A/B user studies, moderated and unmoderated user testing, quantitative and qualitative research, contextual inquiry, field studies, usability test planning, execution, analysis, and reporting, candidate sourcing, crafting user surveys and questionnaires Human Factors International (HFI) Certified Usability Analyst, Certified Forrester Research Certified Expert Web Site Review Methodology
• Accessibility
  Designing for visual, audible, cognitive, fine-motor and physical impairments and standards: a11y, Section 508, ADA, WCAG
• Product Management & Documentation
  Story & Epic creation, story-writing, pointing, and grooming. Specifications, business requirements, training, briefs, guides and guidelines, DPM, BPM, Agile, JIRA, Confluence, Aha!, Storybook, ZeroHeight, Supernova
• Front-End
  Inspector, hand-code HTML/CSS, javascript, markdown, modern browser standards, Mobile & Responsive Web, Git, Bootstrap, Material, React, GitLab, WordPress, Drupal, Rails
• Content Development & Writing
  Communications Strategy, Professional background in Journalism (Daily Print, Broadcast) and Creative Writing, writing for Product, Marketing, and Business
• Industry Verticals
  Enterprise, Consumer, SaaS, B2B, B2C, CRM, IoT, Business Intelligence, Big Data, Consumer Data, Financial/FinTech, InsureTech, Journalism, Print and Broadcast, Media, Consumer and Business Goods and Services, Independent Music, Senior Life Planning, Recruitment, ATS, Service Industry, Customer Service, Restaurant Industry, Residential Real Estate
• Design Apps
  Figma, FigJam, Miro, Adobe, Sketch, Zeplin, Axure, Invision
• Job Hunting, Sourcing, Interviewing, and Hiring
  I’ve been on both ends of the hiring process countless times and have pretty much seen-it-all when it comes to job hunting, interviewing, job coaching, advice on the UX profession, negotiating terms, and finding The Right Fit

TL;DR

I’m a reliable, flexible, and creative UXD Generalist you can depend on to get the job done. I’m comfortable as a solo practitioner or as a engaged contributor to a design team, or a balanced and integrated cadre of like-minded designers and technologists. I can wear many hats — or just one to focus on a specific area — depending on the gig, scope, role, and needs.

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I’ve had the fortune to work with some amazingly smart and talented people at some great companies while designing quality digital experiences and products for mobile and the responsive Web.

Many of these projects started out as ambitious ideas, with loose requirements and ambiguous problems to solve. But I’ve found that with the right mindset, partners and communication, there are always good ways to come together and find solutions that work for the business — and it’s users. Along the way I’ve learned a ton about working in small startups and large enterprises designing in an Agile environment, managing projects and personalities, and how to define product through good practices and research, while continuing to learn, support others, and remain open to new ideas, tech, tools, and ways of doing things.

Here are some of the top projects I’ve had the opportunity to work on. I hope it starts a conversation about how I may be able to step up and help with whatever design challenges you’re puzzling on.

Evolving Enterprise Design Systems and Creating Products for Enterprise at The Home Depot

I updated, maintained, evolved and advanced THD’s Enterprise Design Systems, and helped define methods to measure, plan, and prioritize system improvements and prove the business value of design systems to the business. I also had the chance to design a couple of Products for Enterprise.

Engineering a Multi-brand Design System From Scratch at Monster Worldwide & Randstad

I co-architected a Figma-to-React multi-brand Design System for designers and developers to speed production and time to market, support brand identity, and increase UX consistency.

Designing a Mobile 1st Micro-Annuities Marketplace InsurTech App at Second Half Finance

I led the product design on an InsureTech Micro-Annuities App that was pioneering an insurance marketplace where everyday consumers could buy and invest in partial annuities for retirement through major names like Principle, AIG, and Prudential. Typically annuities are only accessible as investment vehicles for high-end investors ($100k+)

Creating a Direct to Consumer “Big Data” App at Track Information

I led the product design effort on a Consumer Big Data App that sought to bring Big Data and Predictive Analytics to everyday consumers to help them track, manage, and centralize all aspects of our digital lives e.g. All of your Money, Health, Home, Auto, Travel etc. in one place to manage and access it all.

Helping Banks and Brokerages Come Together through FinTech at AcadiaSoft

I consulted in FinTech on new revenue initiatives and creating an Agreements Manager, an app that aimed to digitize, streamline, and reduce the time it took for financial institutions like Barclays, J.P. Morgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, and The Bank of Japan, to come to financial terms and sign agreements to transact together.

Spearheading a UX Research Practice and Enhancing the UX of a Product Content Syndication Platform at Salsify

I spearheaded UX practices, conducted research, and designed enhancements for Salsify, a Product Content Syndication Platform.

Information Architecture, Site Ideation, and Product Management for a Redesign and Revamp of Savant.com, a maker of Smart Home (IoT) Automation Systems

I lead a redesign of a corporate marketing site at Savant, a luxury IoT (Internet of Things) smart home automation manufacturer, seeking to go down market to average consumers.

Information Architecture, Site Ideation, and Product Management for the Creation of a B2B Store at Savant, a maker of Smart Home (IoT) Automation Systems

While leading the redesign for the Savant.com Web site, I was also leading the design of Savant’s 1st-ever B2B Store to enable its dealers and installers to purchase stock directly online (vs. Email, faxes, and phones) for new build-outs of home automation systems (Media, Lighting, Media, Climate, Security, Monitoring etc.) and customer repairs, updates, and maintenance.

Web Design, Marketing, and Email Design for Senior Planning SaaS apps: Compass Aging and CarePlanners

I led both the online and offline design efforts at Compass Aging Services and CarePlanners, which included managing design agencies, and creating marketing, print collateral, and HTML email.

Visual Design, Information Architecture, and Design Strategy of a Resource Center section for CarePlanners.

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More Experience

User Research and Redesigns of Web Apps for Independent Musicians

User Research practices and redesigns of an Electronic Press Kit (EPK), event and competition landing pages at both SonicBids and OurStage.

Design Ideation of Web Apps Looking to Leverage Big Data

Incubator experiences at Bullhorn, a Recruitment ATS looking to harness Big Data analytics in the hunt for potential new revenue sources in their data; And Quant5, which sought to mine Big Data and leverage Predictive Analytics to provide marketing and sales insights to major retail businesses.

Migrating a Packaged Software Product to a Web-based SaaS Platform

Led the redesign/migration from packaged software to SaaS, at Insight Direct for their flagship product, VaZing, an Enterprise CRM/SMB for the Service Industry. Initiated a UX research practice that included customer interviews, contextual inquiry, and relationship building to evolve the design, developed personas, and integrated UX within Product and Engineering lifecycles.

Additional Experiences in Package Design, UX Research, Information Architecture, App & Web Design, Search, Content Development, an Business Partership

Designed, and co-lead a redesign of the visitor and client Web experience at Top research firm, Forrester Research in Cambridge, MA; Created packaging and marketing materials for GrillSafe a BBQ grill scraper in Sudbury, MA; UX Research and IA for an intranet developer network at Endeca (Now part of Oracle) in Cambridge, MA; IA design and research for the Practising Law Institute, a learning management tool for attorneys in NYC; UX Designer of BostonWorks, The Boston Globe’s former job search site; App design for Brainshark, a SaaS-based video learning, training, and sales platform; Ads, Search and Navigation design at Lycos, a top search engine back in the early Web; Design and ad production, content developer, and newsroom liaison as part of the OG launch team at Boston.com, The Boston Globe’s regional news and information web site.

Writing and Reporting for Mainstream Media

Once Upon a Time, I was also a staffer/town news reporter for The Patriot Ledger covering the South Shore of Boston and the Plymouth District Court beat. I was also a contributing correspondent at The Boston Globe who worked for the Metro/Region section, and NorthWest Weekly, covering local and regional daily news and events, human interest, and politics.

Interested in working together? Reach out: dean + @ + deanwong + .com