Hi, I’m Shannon!

I’m here to help your team take inspired ideas from paper to product using real human experience to guide exploration, strategic best practices to drive collaboration, and mixed metaphors for fun casual storytelling before the meeting starts.

RESEARCH

DESIGN

FACILITATION

My Background Story

Leading clinical client groups taught me a lot about applied empathy and the power of creative collaboration in achieving what seems impossible. People are always giving us feedback about their experience—what they want, need, and what really matters. My goal is to figure out how to effectively listen to people’s feedback, and use that to drive product development.

Psychology & Clinical Therapy.

Professional Coaching & Facilitation Consulting.

As an entrepreneur I learned quickly that understanding the WHY at the core of an idea or product is a game-changer. When the first master plan hits blockers, understanding that core WHY creates clarity in decision-making, builds confidence, and fuels the inspiration needed for successful pivots..

Working with teams and organizations focused on high-quality experience has taught me how great collaboration achieves and expands what success looks like. Great collaboration is about tuning into people (on-stage and off-stage), sharing ideas, debating and exploring, and finding value in a range of perspectives.

UX Consulting & Facilitation.

High alpine hiking is one of my favorite things to do.

Research

How I work with stakeholders

Engaging stakeholders begins with first contact, the first email, the first message asking if they want to participate. Sharing the WHY and the impact their participation can have goes a long way in expressing value for peoples’ time and consideration. When people feel valued and respected, engagement increases and experience improves.

  1. Discovery

  • User interviews

  • Diary studies

  • Visualizing requirements and constraints

  • Stakeholder interviews

  • Competitive analysis

  • Personas & proto personas

  • Task analysis

  • Competitive analysis

  • Journey mapping

  • Prototyping and feedback

2. Explore

  • Benchmark testing

  • Qualitative usability testing

  • Accessibility assessment

  • Digital engagement analysis

  • Experiential engagement analysis

3. Test

  • Usability bug review

  • Analytics review

  • Surveys

  • Feedback analysis

  • Demo Q&A and other feedback

4. Listen

One trail has so many possibilities.

Design

How I work with developers and other team members

Getting to know people on my team and learning what matters to them helps inform everything from how I schedule meetings, to what follow-up looks like, and what kind of documentation is provided when I hand-off design. Each team has unique dynamics and I enjoy learning how we can come together and create a great daily experience.

Strategy

  • Identify methods of gathering effective feedback from users, business lines, and technology and organizational experts to determine where that human-centered sweet-spot is.

  • Engage the team and other stakeholders around the WHY of the product/service.

  • Visualize ideas, conversations, and assets to support discovery.

  • Gain insight into existing digital and relational dynamics within each system.

Design

  • Human factors must guide design. Experience is variable and design must support a wide variety of user needs and abilities in ever-changing contexts.

  • Short feedback loops keep design aligned with business requirements, tech needs, and team cadence.

  • Prototyping early and often quickly informs on experience and guides the response

Hand-off

  • Short communication loops with team members and other stakeholders means fewer (if any) surprises at hand-off, creating a smooth transition points throughout the development cycle.

  • Many questions or concerns can be answered during discovery and active design phases of development through collaboration with the team and stakeholders. This collaboration often leads to unexpected gains for overall product experience.

What’s the best thing to carry in a hiking pack?

Facilitation

I’m excited to get to know new organizations, learning about their unique vision, values, and most importantly their mission and the impact they want to make. Together we explore new products to develop, how to build stellar team collaboration, and expand professional and personal skill sets.

How I work with organizations

Strategy

  • What’s valuable to my audience matters and inspires me to ask questions in order to understand ideas and contexts from different perspectives.

  • Iteration and authentic integration trump reinventing the wheel every time. I aim to continuously incorporate feedback, keeping things lean and agile.

Engagement

  • In workshops, classes, and presentations I want my audience to feel seen, heard, and valued (whether we agree on something or we’re in debate).

  • When people creatively engage with an idea and each other, the positive feedback loop improves experience, raises confidence, and increases performance.

Follow-up

  • It’s exciting to learn where teams and organizations take ideas after product workshops; there is always something unexpected that leads to inspiration.

  • Understanding how a training impacts someone’s daily experience matters to me and I enjoy reaching out to participants for feedback.

I’d love to learn more about what you’re working on, what the vision is for the future, and how we can collaborate to create something truly amazing.