Web & User Experience Professional

Hello! My name is Sara.

My sixteen years of professional experiences range from copy editor, communications specialist, marketing director, web coordinator, digital strategist and technologist, adjunct data analytics and social media strategies instructor, web accessibility trainer to user experience.

This portfolio includes and demonstrates how I have learned to navigate user experience design challenges using the PARL format (Problems, Approach, Results and Lessons Learned).

Feel free to also explore my writings, click through my presentations, and review my reports.

Learn more about Me

Award-Winning Contributions

Kent State University

One of the world’s largest and most respected competitions, the MarCom Awards honor excellence in marketing and communication by recognizing the creativity, hard work and generosity of industry professionals.
Each year, the MarCom Awards receive about 6.500 print and digital entries from around the world.
2022 Honorable Mention
DATA VISUALIZATION
Digital Media Website Coronavirus Dashboards (view)
This project grew from an assignment to visualize Kent State’s COVID-19 data during the pandemic and expanded as information became available to include vaccination rates, historical information, residence hall levels and community risk levels.
2021 Honorable Mention
USER RESEARCH, USABILITY TESTING & INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Admissions Website Redesign (view)
I contributed to our large Admissions Redesign Project, assisting with the user research, usability testing and information architecture, in addition to the hands-on page building in Drupal.
The information architecture was managed first via sitemaps in Lucidchart.
I additionally ran and created DataStudio reports for the seven admit types. This allowed us to analyze the content audit for a strategic redesign - consolidating, rearranging and removing unwanted content. This information was supplemented with Google Analytics data.
Finally, I conducted remote usability testing for our international student audience, while combining that data and that of our partner’s data to draw user research conclusions for the final report, which was provided to leadership.
Description textRecognizing the best educational websites, digital content, electronic communications, mobile media and social media the Education Digital Marketing Awards gives institutions the opportunity to test their programs and content against the best in the country. A national panel of industry specialists reviews each piece; judging creativity, marketing execution, message impact, technology application and innovative content.
Each year, the Education Digital Marketing awards receives several thousand entries from educational institutions in the U.S.
2021 Bronze Award
USER RESEARCH, USABILITY TESTING & INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Admissions Website Redesign (view)
*Please refer to the MarCom Awards for full project details.
2022 Winner in Site Redesign Category
USER RESEARCH, USABILITY TESTING & INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Admissions Website Redesign (view)
*Please refer to the MarCom Awards for full project details.

Logos for the MARCOM Awards, EDM Awards, and Digital + Social Media Awards

Featured Projects

USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN

User Research for Admissions Redesign

Interactive Prototyping: Homeward Bound

User Research & Testing: ReminderX

Remote Usability Testing: Common Sense Media

Card Sorting & Survey: iSchool

Additional Projects & Work

Featured Writings

Featured

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's an ... alicorn?

When determining if one is a unicorn, it is important to consult an expert, like a good patient would consult a specialist (or, perhaps, even two). In this instance, I was able to locate one in the tri-county area who focuses on mythical creatures and Greek mythology. Okay, so she may be twelve, but she is well read and very cute (insert parental bias here). I posed this question to my daughter first, “Do you think a unicorn is the best creature?” Her reply, “No! An alicorn is the best creature. It is a cross-between a unicorn and a pegasus. It has all the qualities of a unicorn, but it can also fly!” My next question was for myself, “Could I be an alicorn?”

Too Late to Apologize?

Copyright is exclusive, but the internet is not, nor are its users. The lines between right and wrong can become blurred, and decisions can become compromised when it comes to technology. Piracy without concern for consequence is disconcerting.

Putting All the Pieces Together: Strategic Design

Understanding is the key to strategic design.

Proper planning, listening, viewing, testing, reporting, designing, iterating, and so forth, can only be successful if they stem from understanding the user's tasks, overall goals, current processes, etc., from the start of the project.

In order to move forward, we need to know the moves that the user has previously made.

How to avoid making your UX testing purple …

When a lawyer is in court, presenting his case, he or she is told to not ask leading questions, as to not elicit testimony the witness would not otherwise volunteer. The same is true for usability testing, whereas you do not want to lead your participant into the answer.

Striving for Failure

To fail is to succeed. When we are in school we are taught lessons. We are tested on these lessons and expected to retain the information through our studies, and then as a result, score high on tests. The expectation is to succeed, not to fail. The opposite is true of design. Failure is desired, because failure sheds light on where improvements can be made.