Resumé
I'm David, and this is the work I've done. I've been a journalist, editor, designer, consultant and developer. Let's talk.
Professional Experience
Cantina
Senior Designer & Front-End Developer
Jan. 2015 – present | Boston, Mass
I have worked on or led large, long-term, multimillion-dollar projects that include:
PPG
Market researcher | Cleveland, Ohio
Created an ethnographic market research report to explain business needs of small shops that are installing paint protection and color change film to inform their marketing strategy for a new product.
- Crafted a research plan and research questions
- Conducted interviews with shop owners and operators
- Affinitized key takeaways from interviews
- Highlighted key marketing opportunities
- Crafted report outlining findings
EstateSpace enterprise app
Design Lead & Project Lead | Charlottesville, Va.
Created an integrated web app experience that connected budgeting, scheduling, contracts, financials, document handling, invoicing and inventory tracking to create an end-to-end project management tool for the building trades.
- Collaborated with product owner on scheduling, roadmap and feature set
- Completed weekly status reports and tracked project budget
- Onboarded team members, as well as day-to-day management of team
- Conducted user and stakeholder interviews to gather requirements
- Prototyped and iterated multiple features, screens and flows in Sketch
- Web app information architecture and site navigation
- Led weekly design reviews with stakeholders and team
- Visual design, design system and component library creation and maintenance
- Agile scrum, Jira ticket and documentation writing
MIB Group enterprise search portal
Design Lead & Developer | Braintree, Mass
Designed and built a dynamic, simple UI for a web app that allows users to easily request and track the status of dozens of medical records from multiple sources.
- Worked closely with Product Owner to plan product feature roadmap
- Balanced deadlines for delivery of design and development work
- Planning and facilitation of discovery and design thinking sessions
- User interviews and regular UI testing of new features
- UI prototyping, iteration and bi-weekly design reviews
- Created visual design and design system component library
- Agile scrum, Jira ticket and documentation writing
- Front end development: HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Owner and maintainer of the CSS and HTML code base.
Bose Corporation hardware UI
Design Lead | Framingham, Mass
Breakthrough, first-of-its-kind FDA-approved over-the-counter hearing aid.
- Worked with engineers to spec hardware UI requirements — capacitive touch points, buttons and LEDs
- Mapped user actions and device functionality onto hardware UI
- Worked with mechanical engineers and firmware team on prototyping hardware UI
- Planned and analyzed user testing of hardware
- Trained in FDA-regulated product design and processes
- Wrote FDA-regulated documentation for user-interface interactions
Zipcar mobile app
UI/UX Designer | Boston, Mass
Revamped and modernized Zipcar’s outdated Android and iOS apps with a refreshed visual design, new identity and intuitive, elegant flows. Created prototypes, conducted user testing. Worked closely with product owner to set priorities.
Forrester Research mobile app
Designer & Developer | Cambridge, Mass
Worked with CEO to design and prototype a real-time customer feedback app that would aggregate consumer opinion across a wide swath of industries.
Avid Technology web site
Designer & developer | Burlington, Mass
Increased software sales by 70 percent with a total redesign of information architecture, visuals, content and UX on Avid.com to focus on direct sales.
BostonGlobe.com
UX/UI Designer & Front-End Developer
Nov 2012 – Jan. 2015 | Boston, Mass.
I was the Boston Globe’s new products and innovation specialist. I was designer and developer responsible for Cruxnow.com, a secular site for Catholic news and lifestyle features. I was designer for BDCwire.com site, a mobile-focused site for younger readers to find and share news.
PilotOnline.com
Content Producer, Designer & Developer
May 2008 – Oct. 2012 | Norfolk, Va.
In 2012: 155M pageviews, 21M uniques and ~50 percent market share.
Led and planned online coverage, wrote and edited breaking news stories, and was lead designer for PilotOnline.com. Created online presentation for A Chance in Hell, which was honored as a Pulitzer finalist and at Photos of the Year International.
Link newspaper
Co-founder & Design Director
July 2006-Sept. 2007 | Norfolk, Virginia. Circ. 30,000 (M-F).
Link was a free newspaper aimed at young, active adults. I co-founded it, created its visual design, content strategy, hired staff and oversaw daily production. It won multiple design honors and was widely recognized for excellence.
- Co-founded and saw it through to launch and ran daily production
- Recruited and hired a Link staff who chafed against traditional newspapers shared the vision and set them loose to innovate
- Built prototypes and design component libraries
- Visual design – color palette, typography, presentation styles
- Content strategy, tone and branding
- User tested prototypes with the target audience to refine our ideas through several iterations
Additional Design & Editing
The Virginian-Pilot | Page designer | Nov. 1999-July 2006 and Sept. 2007-May 2008 | Norfolk, Va.
Virgin Islands Daily News | Designer | July 1999-Oct. 1999. | St. Thomas, U.S.V.I.; circ. 20,000.
Sun Publications | Designer | Feb. 1998-July 1999 | Naperville, Ill.; weekly circ. 20,000.
Designer/copy editor | Herald-Palladium | June 1995-Jan. 1999 | St. Joseph, Mich.; circ. 25,000.
Key Skills
Theory
- Inclusive, human-centered design
- Content-led information architecture and wireframing
- Mobile-first, resolution-independent responsive methodology
- Semantics and progressive enhancement
- Cross-browser compatibility and interoperability
- Qualitative and quantitative user testing
- Iterative, data-driven research and design
- Design thinking methodology
- Leading design or project teams
Practice
- Figma and Sketch, Invision and Abstract
- Mural or similar whiteboarding tools
- VS Code, Atom, and other code editors
- Git, GitHub / GitLab version control
- Agile development methods (JIRA, Trello, etc.)
Languages
- HTML5 & CSS, including preprocessor languages such as Sass and PostCSS
- Javascript
- Jekyll / Liquid
- Markdown
- SVG
- Some React & React Native
Writings
- The Electronic Health Records Ecosystem is Complicated: Sorting It Out is Key to Building Great Experiences | Read
- Bring Your Design Version Control Under Control | Read
- Three Quick Tips to Writing Better Jira Tickets | Read
- How to build a PostCSS Plugin to Solve CSS Problems | Read
Education
Eastern Illinois University – August 1992 — May 1995. Charleston, Ill. B.A. Journalism
Illinois Central College – January 1990 — May 1992. East Peoria, Ill. A.A. Journalism