Hello. My name is Deb.
I'm a UX and Product Design Leader living in San Francisco.
I enjoy solving puzzles, untangling knots, and making complex tasks feel easy.
What I Do
I specialize in transforming complexity into clarity for B2B and B2C apps, leveraging over 24 years of experience to elevate UX maturity within organizations. Skilled at uncovering pain points through stakeholder and user conversations, I untangle complicated user flows and multi-dimensional information architecture, producing quick prototypes for cross-team collaboration.
I value efficient organizations that integrate Design throughout the development lifecycle and am passionate about improving processes with DesignOps principles. I lead with a practical, iterative design approach, balancing ideal outcomes with realistic releases in partnership with Engineering and stakeholders. Dedicated, versatile, and thorough, I aim to make a significant and lasting impact.
My Philosophy
Processes should start with a framework but be flexible and adapt to fit the team you're working with and the feature you're working on.
MVP should reflect Minimum Valuable Product, not Minimum Viable Product. If the first iteration isn't usable and doesn't add value, then it may not be adopted and you may not get the chance to iterate.
Document as much of your design as possible so engineers and testers have clear instructions, but don't toss a spec over a wall; communicate early and often to reduce confusion later.
We don't have to address every edge case or even every use case right away, but we should think of as many scenarios as possible so that we acknowledge what we're choosing to ignore.
Step up and step back: as a design leader, I provide the context to let team members do their best, stepping in only to unblock them. I step back when things are running smoothly and step up to facilitate a decision.
It is a poor workman who blames his tools. I'm a fan of pen, paper, sticky notes, and anything else that can communicate ideas, whether it's low or high fidelity.
Sometimes, you have to slow down to speed up. Take a beat to work smarter on the right things.
Strong opinions, loosely held. Have a guiding principle, but be open to change when presented with new evidence or situations.
Consistency is important, as long as we avoid foolish consistency. Have a visual language, but remember that one size doesn't always fit all.
Iterating is good, as long as we don't abandon our long-term goal for short-term gains.