Above is my favorite photo I took of San Fransisco - the city I live in.
Mixing UX research, designing for new markets, and cross-cultural perspectives is something I've latched onto and know I love. Whether it's understanding product localization, using translators during research, or practicing bidirectional design, I try to continually read up on new trends in this area.
oh, I also walk dogs.
Research Skills
- Survey development
- Usability studies
- Guerilla studies
- Focus groups
- Card sorting
- Interviews
Research Tools
- Usertesting.com
- SurveyMonkey
- Qualtrics
- Tableau
- Excel
- R
Currently learning SQL through codecademy. My skills include: manipulation, queries, aggregate functions, and multiple tables.
What do others think of me?
“Alex contributed to a high-impact UX deliverable for Autodesk — a design pattern that will soon be leveraged by product teams across Autodesk. Alex worked as part of a team of UX interns, leading the research work which included the design, execution, and analysis/reporting of a research study. Alex also made significant progress on several side projects. She co-designed and helped facilitate a brainstorming workshop. She also started a document that describes the logistics behind recruitment and executing the research study, making it easier for other researchers to follow her model. I was impressed by how much Alex was able to accomplish in a summer. Alex is well on her way to becoming an excellent UX researcher—I would gladly work with her again!”
“I’ve been particularly impressed with how Alex always takes initiative and conducts research into untapped areas of study that help expand class topics. This has led to her creating and delivering engaging lecture materials on UI design, cross cultural research, and sustainable packaging practices, to name a few topic areas. Further, she is an excellent collaborator and demonstrates superb leadership skills in the quiz sections that she leads, where she works closely with students. Alex successfully accomplishes all tasks she is assigned—she quickly adapts to anything she approaches and always delightfully surprises me with more novel approaches and solutions. She is a treasure chest of ideas!”
My User Centered Design Approach
My Education
While I complete my MS in Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington, my skills are being practically applied in a research group partnered with UX at Google that is developing a mixed methods approach for understanding technology use in context by combining mobile device app usage analysis and participatory design to produce data visualizations.
Prior to my MS, I majored in the unique Bachelor of Knowledge Integration, which equipped me with the skills to leverage diversity and be a strong collaborator within multi-disciplinary teams. For example, I worked with a political science major, a computer programmer, and two anthropologists for eight months to design and install a museum exhibit that educated about the sharing economy.
My Love for Culture + UX
I want to direct my UX skill set towards my passion for technology that can reach across cultures, addressing local needs but also forming cross-cultural connections. I first pursued this interest by becoming a research assistant during my Bachelors at the University of Waterloo's Culture at Work lab, which specializes in cross-cultural psychology. There, I researched communication and teamwork issues arising in multicultural workplaces between East Asian and Western cultures. My efforts towards cultural awareness are motivated by my belief that new technologies need to account for cross-cultural aspects in order to tackle the holistic nature of today’s global challenges.