Moving into UX was a natural progression of my personal and professional life that neatly blended together my past experiences and user-centered values.

To start, I was born and raised in the diverse city of Honolulu, HI, which has instilled in me a value that I believe is essential to UX: empathy. Being immersed in a melting pot of people from different socioeconomic and cultural contexts taught me the value of understanding people. There is so much to learn if one truly listens to what others have to say. Giving others enough conversational space is something that remains a core part of my cultural and interpersonal values. As a UX designer, I believe being understood is something all people want, whether they are a stakeholder, developer or customer, and my approach to UX designs upholds this at the forefront.

Professionally, I’ve always had the desire to creating delightful experiences for end-users and to support the goals of stakeholders. Most recently, I was employed at an online graduate school—in Vancouver, Canada, where my work focused on researching and writing content to help students navigate and succeed in an online learning environment. Additionally, I worked closely with their marketing team to deliver material across a wide range of areas, such as copywriting, WordPress web design, and video creation. There, I learned many tools necessary for my work in UX: research, writing, and creating helpful and user centered content.

My path to UX began when a friend of mine suggested it might be a good fit. After reading up on UX, I was hooked. I realized a career in UX would allow me to pursue my love for designing and creating content that helps solve human problems and meet user needs. I feel a synergy learning and growing in the field of UX. I am excited at the opportunity to grow my career as a UX designer and expand my skillset to craft easy to use products that work for users. I genuinely enjoy the process of thinking deeply about people and building designs that are purposeful.

I love the UX process as a whole, but the aspect of UX where I thrive most is conducting research and using it to inform the experience and visual design. I aspire to work with a team that values collaboration, with a space where I can learn from and connect with peers and senior colleagues to contribute to a product.