Background
Hello, I’m Chelsea, here to give you a brief summary of me. I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with a passion for art, nature and long distance running. From coloring books, to painting, to fine art shows, to teaching, I continued to explore new avenues for art until I found the perfect fit. At the Maryland Institute College of Art, my passion for art grew to include a passion for combining art and technology with a focus on user interactions and human behaviors which led me down the UI/UX career path I am on today.
After taking some time to reflect on what makes me “ME” I realized nature played a larger role than I thought. After many years in Milwaukee, I moved to Denver, Colorado with my soon to be husband to be near the mountains and learn a new city. There I started to realize fully the importance of nature to me. It is a large part of what influences my art, designs, tattoos, travel destinations and my hobby of growing and identifying plants. I also use nature as a way to reset, so I enjoy just being “in it” whether that is camping, backpacking and kayaking or doing some extreme activities like sky diving and bungee jumping to get out of a funk. I almost always have a trip somewhere far away planned to experience new places and cultures and gather inspiration.
I enjoy making paintings, candles, ceramics, and any other craft I find the opportunity to learn, which led to me starting a successful handmade craft shop where I sell my work locally and online. I have recently made Milwaukee, WI my home, once again – our desert puppy was not pleased with the move. Which leads me to now; I am currently living in a 100 year old house with where my husband and I have been enjoying fixing up our space, and learning all sorts for random skills along the way.
Work History
AkitaBox
I was the sole UI/UX designer at AkitaBox for the past 5 and a half years. I held full responsibility for the creation of new products and the continuous enhancement of the UI & UX of the existing products. I joined the company when they were first starting up and the major issue I noticed was the lack of cohesion throughout the software. I saw the need for a design system and took charge of creating one, then worked closely with the engineers to implement it to create consistent looking software. I often collaborated with clients, internal teams and stakeholders to translate business goals into intuitive and elegant design solutions. I fully designed their first mobile app for facility maintenance techs where I was able to seamlessly connect features and tools for users to collect data quickly while walking through a building. Several of my UI designs for new features and products are even patent pending. I was fortunate enough to work closely with clients in design partnerships to get direct feedback on mocks to ensure we were solving their problems and in a way that would work for multiple personas.
Integer Group
Previously I worked as a Digital Designer at Integer Group on the Coffee Team. My main focus was designing page layouts from wireframes for the Starbucks® at Home and Seattle’s Best® websites, as well as designing banners, assets and promotional sites for these companies. You can see some examples of the work I have done here in the Design section.
Email on Acid
Before Integer I worked at Email on Acid. EoA creates software to test and view your email in popular email clients to ensure it looks right before you send. I was the sole UI/UX designer and front-end developer for 2 years working to improve the user experience of all the EOA products. I designed user workflows, researched current user interactions, wireframed mockups of UI, wrote up detailed interaction and functionality docs, and designed and developed the front-end of the application. I continually A/B tested for improvements and made suggestions for any areas that need to be reworked.
My favorite project in my time at EOA has been the design of the “Email Editor,” a tool where you can develop and instantly test your emails. I enjoyed working on this project because through my wireframes and user flow I was able to direct development to address customer needs and market requirements while maintaining an attractive user experience. The product was released to overwhelming positive feedback and has become one of our most used tools.
…and more!
Prior to EOA I was the sole Production Artist/Developer for 3 years at a marketing agency in Milwaukee where I developed custom WordPress themes from PSDs, handled client-requested changes and built responsive sites and email campaigns from original designs. I also designed mockups for sites, retouched photos, reviewed sites to ensure proper use of UI/UX and debugged for IE8 and up. In addition to the work I produced I also provided guidance and gave programming demos to my digital interns. I also was a Graphic Designer for Kohl’s for a year and Designer/Developer for several creative agencies in Milwaukee which is where I got my start.