Hello,
I am Dede Sonntag
UX Designer - Greater Seattle/Remote
The things that are important to me are freedom, inclusion, empathy, kindness, imagination, and Golden Retrievers (which basically represent all these things).
THE STARTING POINT
To be user-centric (for real) is to see the importance of investing time in getting to know your audience.
WHAT REALLY MATTERS
Empathy, inclusion, and accessibility are vaccines against bad UX and nobody wants to be remembered as a poor experience.
CASE STUDIES
After gathering feedback from users on the quality of their experience while navigating Nav's web and mobile apps, I was tasked with organizing the information in the form of an infographic. This "delight map" was then used during a company-wide meeting to address the user's pain points and to seek solutions for improvement.
The CMS for Fidelity Charitable's main website had been designed a few years ago before a companywide initiative to strive for better accessibility standards. Upon noticing that the CMS offered several low-contrast color combinations for fonts and backgrounds, I created a table to show the contrast ratios. After presenting this information, better guidelines were implemented to ensure accessibility throughout the website.
WORKING SMARTER
I enjoy moving fast, but I prefer not to "break things".
CASE STUDY
While working with the tech teams, I also had to wear different hats at Charitable by providing design support to the marketing technology team. One of my initiatives was to create a Figma component library for their Adobe Experience Manager CMS.
That eliminated a lot of guesswork for current and future designers, which in turn streamlined the UI process.
FLOWS MATTER
Skipping the initial work, like creating flow charts, is a surefire way to get headaches later.
CASE STUDY
At Everi, I was tasked with designing high-fidelity mockups for digital kiosks.
When given very little information to begin a design, I like to spend some time creating low-tech representations of the flows so the entire team can visualize all potential issues in the process.
USER INTERFACE
Trends in beauty change quite often but good experiences will never go out of style.
CASE STUDY
After user research was done to define the profiles and demographics of casino employees, flow charts were created to fine-tune the user's potential paths, and wireframes were approved, I designed the final UI for the digital experience. The company branding style was set previously and taken under consideration while creating elements.
