IN SHORT
I enjoy shaping digital products from ideation through iterative releases to help people enjoy simple and efficient lives. Currently reimagining the developer experience at Olive, I'm a multi-disciplinary designer driven by working collaboratively with teams discovering solutions to interesting challenges.
With a content strategy background, I understand how to approach bold problem spaces and distill complexity into clarity to best capture the spark of big ideas.
Personalizing developmental math classes and learning.
Designing a higher education math dashboard that helps instructors assess student and class progress.
Modernizing the gradebook into an actionable console.
Building a performance dashboard for professors to evaluate student preparation and need for remediation.
Rapid prototyping and testing all in a sprint's work cycle.
Validating assignment completion and grading visualizations with college students in a single sprint.
Teammates enjoy working together
"The drive to ask "why" is a strong suit of Zach's. As important as asking the question, is having the communication skills to translate solutions based upon the "why", which Zach exhibits on a daily basis. He will be an amazingly strong addition to any effort, as he's got the drive and intelligence to come up to speed and contribute very quickly."
- Jeff Faller, Senior UX Design/Manager, Pearson
"Zach saw a user in the recipient of the deliverable just as he saw a user in the software we were building. It is rare to find a UXer that can appreciate the levels of users in the processes and the importance of an engineer or stakeholder grasping what IS to be built as well as an end-user."
- Laura Pionek, Product Leader, Chief
"Zach has an inquisitive approach to problem solving, and his calm and deeply thoughtful energy is a pleasure to work with. His design work is clearly influenced by his background in journalism: the capability to pull together lots of information, synthesize it, and then create artifacts which cohesively tell a clear story."
- Ron Itelman, Data Product Principal, Clarkston
"From day one, I could immediately tell that Zach is a natural communicator who can synthesize interesting ideas and turn them into reality. He was extremely user–focused in every step of the development process, using research insights to build a product that keeps people coming back."
- Francisco Martin-Rayo, CCO, Deep Labs
Past design work
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I built my first website in the Navy and learned to design on deadline while working in the newspaper industry. My design practice and focus area have evolved quite a bit since then.
Throughout my 15+ year career, I've delivered value to customers across a variety of industries. Creating digital products and human-centered experiences that make life easier and more enjoyable.
Click through the slider for different samples of older design work.
Skills I utilize
Design
- Sketching
- Wireframing (Lo/Hi)
- Rapid Prototyping
- Information Architecture
- Visual Design
Tools
- Adobe Creative Suite
- Sketch & Figma
- InVision & Zeplin
- Mural & Miro
- HTML/CSS/Javascript
Research
- Competitive Analysis
- Persona Development
- User Testing
- Contextual Inquiry
- Card Sorting
Experiences I pull from
Discovery
- User-Centered Approach
- Stakeholder Workshop
- Product Strategy
- Market Analysis
- Problem Definition
Definition
- Direct Communication
- Hypothesis Statement
- Journey Mapping
- Agile Methodologies
- Leadership Vision
Delivery
- Content Strategy
- Concept Testing
- Key Path Scenarios
- Iterative Prototyping
- Usability Testing
