Jp - Overview

Howdy, I'm Jp

Design Team Lead at IBM

I work on disaster recovery software - if hackers crashed a hospital's computer system, my team's work brings it back online.
4 years into my career, I'm not looking for new gigs. Instead I'm looking to pay it forward by mentoring new designers and volunteering design work for non-profit groups.
Big picture, I use the lean process to increase net positive contributions to people. In rough patches, I cool the team off with homemade sherbet.

Icon showing a loop to imply the endless cycles of design work..

How I Design

Illustration showing a user describing a problem

Define the challenge

Starting out, I ask a lot of questions of a lot of so I can define what challenges our users face. This also helps me define what the challenge is not.

I ask things like:

Who are our end users?
What problems are they facing?
What business goals are we trying to meet, and how do our technical capacities enable that?

Illustration showing a formula where a problem and solution are known, but variables arem issing to go from problem to solution

Hypothesize a solution

Once I've gathered data, I work with others to synthesize it. We move on once we can hypothesize a solution and measurably test it.

I ask things like:

Why do these problems exist?
What can we change that would most impact users in this context?
What does that do to our bottom line?

Illustration showing a tester trying different methods to sovle a problem.

Test and iterate

No one gets everything right the first time, so I test that solution as an abstract concept all the way to a concrete prototype, keeping what works and changing what doesn't along the way.

I ask things like:

How might we make that change happen?
How might we measure the impact of our work?
How might we iterate to push the envelope?

Loop illustration showing an arrow leaving the loop

Ending the Loop

Design is an iterative loop: every test reveals a new challenge to hypothesize on and test. But at some point you have to move on.

I ask things like:

Have we resolved 80% of the challenge?
Are new problems popping up?
What have we learned about our process and ourselves that we can carry into future work?

Case Studies

IBM:
Data Protection & Recovery Software

Collaboratively defining, designing, and testing how Storage Administrators monitor and manage their data systems.

What I do: Research, UX Design, Testing, Project management, Stakeholder communication

Duration:
1+ years (April 2017-present)
Outcomes:
Many. Most I can't talk about.

Sorry, my current work is under NDA. If you really want to learn more, then let's set up a one-on-one conversation.

Steno App:
Transcription for Journalists

Conception-to-execution project eases the time crunch on journalists (and their editors) by streamlining the path from interview to published article.

What I did: Research, UX Design, User Testing, Project Management