Ethan Anderson

User Experience Designer - Professional Problem Solver

I'm a New Orleans based UX designer with a diverse background in front-end development, media design, project-management and e-learning. Using twenty years of experience and contacts, I assemble teams, give them clear guidance, and shepherd user-centered ideas from white-board to app-store. Have a look at my process, a case-study, or get in touch!.

Requirements Gathering

User Interviews

Storyboarding

Wireframes

Flow diagrams

Proto apps

Stakeholder impressions

Cognitive walkthroughs

A/B testing

Documentation

UI spec sheets

Front-end code

Tap a phase

for more info

Think

The creative space where new experiences are born.

Here, with a small cross-functional design team, I get to know our users, and understand their problem. We analyze interview data and outline our main challenges. Then we think broadly to generate ideas that will later become detailed solutions. Exercises include: site visits, stakeholder and user interviews, requirements gathering, competitive analysis, user-persona development, storyboarding, etc.

Make

Where ideas are brought into focus.

Next, I build prototypes for the chosen solutions. In early cycles I create wireframes, storyboards, or flow-diagrams. In later cycles these become hi-fidelity mock-ups, interactive simulations or installable proto-apps. Tools I use here: Omnigraffle, Sketch, HTML, CSS, Javascript, animated-video and more.

Check

The only opinion that matters.

Next, I test our prototypes with real users to get feedback. My team analyzes the results in a new "Think" phase, repeating the process. With each "Think - Make - Check" cycle we move closer to a product our users will love. Methods include: stakeholder first impression testing, end user testing (face-to-face and remotely), online A/B testing, and more.

Deliver

Time to ship the experience.

When we've met our UX & design goals and users test well in core scenarios, it's time to deliver. I provide a wealth of information to our development team, and monitor it's implementation to assure our UX guidelines are met. My deliverables include: written documentation, style guides, UI spec sheets, animated help videos, app-store-ready front-end code, and more.

case study

Pitsco "Expeditions"

Pitsco Education is a nationwide provider of K-12 learning solutions, both computer-based and hands-on. Updated DOE guidelines meant they needed a new STEM focused e-learning app to stay competitive. I was the lead UX designer tasked with developing a user-centered solution on a very tight deadline.

My role

I was asked to create a research-based user-centered design for Pitsco's new e-learning app, an engaging new student user-interface, and update their core delivery technology all while keeping the stakeholders happy. I acted as a facilitator, designer, animator, front-end developer, and project-manager.

Limitations

Our client was 700 mi away, my design team was spread across 3 states and 3 continents, together we had one summer to design a great experience, develop the app and produce the first batch of instructional content.

Think

Early user research with Pitsco stakeholders and student-users revealed:

Pitsco was counting on us to realign and modernize an aging brand and improve sales.
Students found Pitsco's current courses disconnected and dated.
Pitsco needed to update their front-end technology before it broke completely.

Later sessions brought our UX goals into focus:

Create an exciting, media-rich, STEM-based e-learning system that utilized Pitsco's hands-on products.
Design a new student interface that meaningfully grouped instructional milestones and gamified progress.
Upgrade the experience by improving app performance using modern development tools and methods.

The design team was spread around the world, so we met in the cloud:

Virtual white-boarding.
Trello based card-sorting.
Collaborative wire-framing services (InVision, etc).
And many late nights to accommodate European and Asian work schedules.

Make

I created low-fi designs to bring candidate solutions into focus:

Information architecture visualizations.
Low-fi User interface renderings.
Wire flow diagrams.

I further refined our ideas to user-test proposed solutions:

Hi-fidelity mock-ups
Fully rendered, fully animated usage simulations.
Interactive UI prototypes using production ready front-end code for early unit testing.

Check

Testing with Pitsco stakeholders:

I'd regularly socialize with team-Pitsco keeping everyone in the loop, to prevent big surprises.
I built early prototypes for presentation in person at the Pitsco campus in Pittsburg Kansas.
I met with department heads individually to present early design ideas: exec team, sales, curriculum, etc.
As ideas came into focus, we'd regularly present them to Pitsco educators in our weekly update sessions.

Testing with students and teachers:

With Pitsco's support, we arranged mid-summer testing sessions with real student users.
Through direct observation, several user-flow issues were spotted.
Many bugs were identified and cataloged.
The students loved the new story-driven, game-like presentation.
Teachers reported increased student engagement and understanding.

Deliver

Once our UX goals were met, I delivered our designs to the dev team:

Written documentation.
User-interface specification sheets.
Animated usage simulations.
Application-ready front-end components.
Client training for new content development methods.

Results

The good stuff:

Increased sales: The Expeditions project modernized Pitsco's product portfolio by focusing on the user-experience. It's visually exciting, media-rich, and tethered to Pitsco catalog items, increasing sales across the board.
Increased student engagement by providing a unified story-driven experience with gamified progress
Decreased support costs: We completely eliminated legacy tech like Flash and Silverlight, drastically reducing costly and dangerous support issues.

The not so good stuff:

100% remote UX design sprints are challenging. I now always recommend a co-located, face-to-face sprint whenever possible.
Competing client stakeholders create massive speed-bumps. I now do more to bring them all to the table early and more frequently.
The significant core technology updates created friction with Pitsco's internal development team. I now make more of an effort to secure buy-in and understanding early.
Controlling design implementation was a challenge on this project requiring additional development / engineering cycles to clean up. I now provide more detailed specs and and monitor their implementation more closely to catch mistakes early.