I am a the founder of my own UX Consulting firm, Deduce Designs. I strive to present actionable information in a manner that is accessible and helpful to the average user whether I’m designing a web page, building databases, interpreting the results of a usability study, or creating data visualizations.
The Journey
My path to becoming a User Experience professional, however, has been a little circuitous.
I graduated with a BA in Economics from Barnard College in 2005. I worked at the New York Federal Reserve for four years after graduating: first in Emerging Markets, then in Banking Studies, and finally in International Affairs. As a Research Associate, I did the data “dirty work” for the economists and policy makers: whether that meant building Excel databases, building VBA macros and STATA scripts to clean data, or writing policy memos to quickly communicate the salient points.
After leaving the Fed, I spent two years in India working with various non-profits on monitoring and evaluation systems and became very interested in how third-sector organizations measure their social impact. I could see that there was a need in the third-sector for creative data interpretation and analysis and that need is what drove me to start a Masters degree.
This took me to the University of Michigan’s School of Information where I studied how to make information useful for everyone else who isn’t a data obsessed nerd like myself. Within my first year I founded the A2 DataDive, an event inspired by the work of DataKind that pairs local non-profits that have data issues or questions with enthusiastic data scientists and students who volunteer a weekend to helping provide answers. Our inaugural event in February 2012 went so well that it is now an annual event that is being carried on by current students. In recognition of my contributions to the School of Information, I was the first recipient of the newly created Nikki Candelore Roda Student Impact award in 2013.
The theme running through all of my work is how to make the information I was working with more digestible for my users, but still let the data speak for itself. At both VMware and Goldman Sachs, I have had to interpret the frustrations, hopes, and experiences of our users (which were expressed in interviews, focus groups, and usability tests) into actionable design ideas for our software developers. At each step in my path, I have been the data and information translator.
I’ve always loved the language of data analysis and interpretation, so I guess that makes me a data scientist, and I hope to continue working in this field in the future.