Kellie Verne

I’m a Designer

About

I consider myself a spatial orientation fanatic, always aligning invisible lines. I'm also a little on the obsessive side of whitespace. But my passion ultimately lies in creating things that work well, are fun to use, and (of course) look great.

Design is everything

I started a business in the mid-90s working with natural and organic product manufacturers and retailers, providing clients with a full range of design services including website development, design and strategy, creative direction, marketing collateral (both digital and print), package design, identity development, quality-assurance and project management.

Prior to that, I worked for many years in sales, marketing and design for an international trade journal covering the natural and organic products industry.

The key to my success has been working with authenticity, integrity, and good communication—essential aspects to healthy and sustainable business partnerships.

Although I've had a life-long love affair with the ocean, I've been courting the Rocky Mountains since 1991, and live just outside of Boulder, CO with my husband and son.

SKILLS & TOOLS

Balancing beauty, innovation, and usability is an essential part of my work. My approach focuses on clean, modern, and professional design executions, taking projects from concept ideation to product rollout.

Strengths

  • Independent self-starter that also thrives in a collaborative, cross-functional environment.
  • Own the user experience, design, front-end implementation, and QA for simultaneous projects from ideation to execution and maintenance.
  • Obsessively detail-oriented.
  • Strong quality assurance, organizational, project- and time-management skills.
  • Creative and analytical.
  • Staying current on processes, trends, and best practices for both user experience design and front-end development.
  • Ability to rapidly absorb and apply emerging technologies, software, and processes.
  • Ability to initiate, and implement process change within team structures for better communication and efficiency.
  • Experience working in both Agile and Waterfall environments.
  • Easily transform complex ideas into clean, easy-to-understand interfaces and visuals.
  • Constant advocacy for the user.
  • Constant advocacy for UX within the slow-to-adopt enterprise environment.

Tools

Web
HTML, CSS, Angular, Bootstrap, Material Design, Wordpress, Git, BitBucket, Terminal, Visual Studio Code
Design
Adobe Creative Cloud, Sketch, InVision
Project/Agile Management
JIRA, JAMA, Microsoft VSTS, Azure

UX PROCESS

The UX process varies in its design, strategy and implementation, as do the roles I play on a particular project. Versatility is key and I've combined what I've learned over the years as both a designer and a cognizant user to grab the right tool(s) to wear with the right hat(s).

Each product/project begins with discovery

I start with questions, and lots of them. I ask stakeholders to tell their story.

  • What's worked?
  • What hasn't (or isn't)?
  • What are your competitors doing?
  • What's working for them?

Together, we analyze needs:

  • What are the current goals of the system/product?
  • Where are they not being met?
  • How can we measure?

We define problems, declare assumptions, desired experiences, functional requirements, with an endgame of ultimately determining what the key outcomes should be.

Questions to Ask

  • Who is this for and how will they use it?
  • What are the desired goals or tasks of the user?
  • What are the business goals?
  • What assumptions have already been made?
  • What features or components can we implement now, and which ones can be implemented in the future?

The way this comes together varies, but ideally, there is a constant:

Deeply collaborative ideation

This is one of my favorite parts of any project. I love to see what insights develop from cross-functional/multi-disciplinary sources. Key outcomes may be different for different people. Collaboration provides the space to get different points of view on the table (or wall), and uncover potentially unexpected solutions.

Most importantly, collaboration develops a shared understanding, a shared mission or goal, and promotes trust, accountability, and pride of ownership for each team member.

Early-stage sketching/whiteboarding helps to begin envisioning an idea, or talk thru a specific (or subtle) detail with a developer.

Personas / User Types

personas example
Loosely defining a user's context, pain points, and needs helps better determine usage and behavior patterns of a target audience.

When developing personas (or user types), I coach stakeholders into performing an exercise: Look at the [system/product] from the user's point of view.

Wear their shoes long enough to understand—and better articulate—what they think their users needs are. We can then validate those assumption later.

Shifting the mindset away from a typical "business model" into user-centered thinking helps stakeholders to  empathize with these various personas to address the overall usability, intuitiveness, and experience of the product:

  • How is this useful to me?
  • What benefits/values does it provide?
  • Do I like using it?

After personas are developed, they become easy-to-remember reference points used during planning and decision-making processes. It also gets the stakeholders aligned around a target audience for more meaningful discussions around value propositions, ultimately serving the needs of their users.

We will create [this feature] for [this persona] to achieve [this outcome].

Sketches, mockups, wireframes, and prototyping

mobile app design sketches
Fidelity has its place, and depending on the interaction required at a particular point, these can be anything from sketches on a napkin to coded, functional prototypes.

I facilitate brainstorming sessions to determine functionality (and possible solutions).

Invariably some level of sketches, mockups, wireframes and coded protoyping occur as a result.

IA, UI and IxD

IA, UI and IxD
Questions to Ask
  1. How easy is it for the user to know what to do right out of the gate (affordances)?
  2. What is the appropriate design based on the user's device (TV, large monitor, laptop, tablet, phone, or a watch)?
  3. Is it consistent? Is it natural?
  4. Will it work no matter what pathway they choose?
  5. What if they get stuck?

I also do Information Architecture (IA), creating the best way to organize information and content. This can include taxonomy, content categorization, site maps, process flows, and options available depending on the user journey. Not only is it an integral component for the building process, but IA helps team members attain a bird's-eye-view of the project. This is also a great checkpoint for demonstrating usability.

Before beginning User Interface (UI) design, a very strong understanding of a workflow and how the user interacts with the system (Interaction design or IxD) must be established, at least as much as it can be at the time. Since this is what the user sees, uses and interacts with, I define:

  1. What the best elements are for a given task(s)
  2. What needs to be visible and when
  3. What happens when a user clicks, taps, swipes, "interacts" (how it works)

Visual Design, aka The Icing on the Cake

perception

Perception, a vital component of a user's experience, evokes emotion.

As a visual designer for over 25 years, I've always advocated for the end user. And since half of the human brain is dedicated to visual processing1 , typography, color, spatial arrangement, and imagery (overall look and feel) will always remain as a high ranking officer for any product.

In Summary

yummy peace cake

Successful design is not an exact science (nor is it really science at all). But by applying the right amount of combined methods, strategies and processes when and where appropriate, we can not only help people do what they need to do, but make it enjoyable. Or even fun.

Get the Recipe!

Discover: interview, listen, interpret, identify.

Organize and Measure the ingredients:

User profiles and needs, brand guidelines, technology, business goals, other components and variables as the recipe dictates. Validate assumptions.

Cook:

Develop information architecture, functional requirements, interaction, visual design, validate, test, and build.

Taste!

Prototype, test some more, monitor, and if the recipe needs tweaking for an even tastier cake, iterate.

Resume

With over 25 years of design and development experience, I help digital teams build faster.

Employment History

Download Resume as PDF

Lead UXD / Front-end designer and developer

2019 - present

The Boeing Company, Englewood, CO

  • Help create enterprise design system and front-end component library for digital products across multiple portfolios.

  • Act as mentor and guide others to adopt and utilize product design standards.

  • In S.A.F.e. environments, support both design and development teams by acting as a liaison between the two disciplines, fostering better team communication.

In addition to focused items above, day-to-day duties involve UI, UX, and FED design for enterprise-level web applications and mobile apps. Design, produce, and execute assets, as well as create responsive front-end code for digital applications. Initiate discovery meetings and interviews to determine project requirements, priorities, user needs, and business goals. Produce assets and deliverables for wireframes, low- and high-fidelity prototypes, user flows, design elements, specifications, and style guides. Ensure brand and technical consistency across various media channels. Work closely with back-end developers to ensure complex requirements integrate with design specifications.

User Experience Specialist / Front-end Designer and Developer

2018 - 2019

Jeppesen Sanderson, Inc., Englewood, CO

UX, UI, IxD, Responsive web design (RWD), and front-end design and development for enterprise-level web apps. Design and code UI functional prototypes based on user feedback. Effectively communicate interaction and design to stakeholders and cross-functional team members as well as for developer handoff. Translate business requirements into elegant and intuitive solutions while balancing user needs with business goals and technological constraints. Continuously contribute to establishing collaboration, consistency among products, and a strong design culture.

Senior Digital Experience Designer

2015 - 2018

Collective Goods, Louisville, CO

UI, UX, IxD, visual design, RWD and development for enterprise-level web applications and mobile apps, as well as corporate and intranet websites. Created mockups, wireframes, prototypes, and customer journey maps, and organized and implemented surveys for user feedback. Refined brand and technical consistency across various media channels. Collaborated with stakeholders and back-end developers to ensure complex requirements integrated with design specifications.

owner

1997 - 2016

Kellie Greene Design, Inc., Erie, CO and Kaneohe, HI

Interactive and visual design business translating B2B and B2C brands across various media, uniting touch points for consistent, enjoyable customer experiences.

Clients were assisted with a full range creative services, including branding, marketing, advertising, website design and development, package design, among others.

  • Managed projects from concept ideation to product rollout.
  • Successfully launched and/or improved 160+ websites
  • 100% of new business based on referrals, with a high level of client retention—many relationships lasting for more than a decade.
  • 10+ years as a design consultant for two Silicon Valley branding and communications firms.

Lead Designer

2014 - 2015

Energy Central, Denver, CO

  • Wordpress custom design and code to reflect unique brand elements for 4 websites.
  • Creative direction for brand development and design for all printed marketing collateral, advertising, trade show signage and materials.
  • Management of contractors.

VISUAL DESIGNER, FRONT-END DESIGNER AND DEVELOper

1999 - 2000

Ohana Foundation for Higher Education, Honolulu, HI

  • Designed visual assets and developed front-end code for educational DVDs.

Portfolio

This section is a work in progress. Until complete, you can view older work by clicking the options below. Feel free to reach out if via LinkedIn if you need to discuss more current work.