About Me
Hi, I'm Carter.
I'm a UX researcher and designer who likes untangling messy problems, whether that's a confusing homepage, a dashboard full of competing priorities, or a brief that's asking the wrong question.
I recently finished my Masters in Information Sciences specializing in UX Research and Design at the University of Michigan School of Information, and I've spent the last 2 years working with real clients on problems ranging from in-vehicle interfaces to community workforce programs. I do my best work where research, design and project leadership meet.
How I Work
Three habits show up in everything I do. Each links to the project where it mattered most.
I look outside the obvious for ideas. On an automotive project, studying only cars would have kept our client copying competitors. Pulling in patterns from other industries opened up new interaction ideas. [Link: GM project]
I question the brief. When UMCI asked how to make an innovation center more engaging, our research suggested a different question: who will be ready to use it? That reframe shaped a whole program strategy. [Link: Detroit project]
I design for what's feasible and what's valuable. On the Maker Works redesign, I led research and ran the project, so I could see both what users needed and what the client could realistically deliver. [Link: Maker Works project]
What I Bring
| Area | What that looks like |
|---|---|
| Research | User interviews, usability testing, heuristic evaluation, competitive analysis, affinity mapping, secondary data analysis, interaction mapping |
| Design | Wireframing, interactive prototyping, visual design and branding, physical prototyping with 3D printing |
| Leadership | Project management, running weekly client meetings, scoping and deadlines, aligning stakeholders, facilitating synthesis sessions |
| Technical | Figma, ScreensStudio, FigJam, Python, HTML/CSS, Adobe Creative Cloud Suite |
Beyond the Work
When I'm not researching or designing, I love engaging in hobbies where I can apply my tendency towards organization and attention to detail in slower-paced settings; I’m constantly tweaking my pour-over coffee-making technique, and always theory-crafting my next trading card game deck.
That curiosity shows up in my side projects too. Momentum is a self-initiated platform concept for early-career designers, and I built a small Python tool that uses the Steam API to recommend games, because I wanted some experience working on the back-end of things to better cross-communicate between design and development teams. [Link: Personal Projects]