Like many creative careers, mine has been an evolution. The constant is that I love making complex information easier to absorb, so users/customers can take confident actions that can change their lives.
My career in a nutshell…
(and why my varied creative background could help your business):
- I’ve been a lifelong artist, and began my design career as a graphic designer 15 years ago. While focused on environmental protection, education and branding for small businesses, I learned the ins-and-outs of web design, logo design, sales pages, illustration, WordPress implementation, print, Facebook ads–whatever needed to communicate a message effectively AND look good, I’ve done it.
- My design skills brought me to startup tech in NYC, where I naturally transitioned to UI/UX design and research for an online marketing company. I wanted to create tools for the web that were not only beautiful, but functional, frictionless, and based on thorough research.
- With a desire to have a bigger impact on people’s lives, I brought these skills to the health and wellness space, leading teams in a healthcare startup and working on many healthcare projects at consulting firms.
- And finally, as an independent consultant really wanting to see my clients succeed in their passions, I’ve come full circle with an added focus on copywriting for mission-driven businesses.
So, along with designing products and sites, I’m invested in the power of sharing solutions and services through words.
As a business, you deserve to create solutions that solve the problems you’re passionate about, and your customers deserve to benefit from them.
Get in touch so we can find a way to make that happen!
Knowledge and Expertise
Leadership
Team building and mentorship, design advocacy and empowering clients and teams to further their human-centered design initiatives.
UX Strategy and Research
Ethnographic research, workshops, synthesis and meaningful artifacts to uncover insights for innovative opportunities.
Digital Product Design
Interaction and visual design for mobile/desktop workflow management systems, apps and enterprise software delivered in a lean, agile and systematic way.
Healthcare and Wellness
Patient- and human-centered design focused on deep insights to solve complex human problems.
Data Visualization
Taking complex data and content and finding patterns in order to organize it into thoughtful interactions, visuals or sequences.
Agile / Scrum
Iterative design across sprints, roadmapping, communicating with development, and retrospectives for effective deployment.
My Design Values
Humans First
Quantitative data and best practices alone are often not enough to effectively tackle some of the biggest problems we face today. I believe in doing well-thought-out qualitative analysis, and upholding a human-centered approach to design. To increase quality of life, we need to understand the lives we are dealing with.
Stay Lean, Be Agile
I believe in the agile approach of failing early and learning often. This requires creating only the artifacts that are necessary to effectively communicate a design, or test an idea. Let’s make things at the right speed and fidelity to prevent bottlenecks while decreasing spend.
Think Systems
Beautiful design is the minimum, not the sum. Every design decision needs to be justified to uphold a strong design system. Let’s be diligent about consistency and future-proofing so that we can decide when to effectively bend the rules and maintain artistry.
Team Balance
Great solutions lie at the intersection of business, technology and design. We need to speak each others’ language and have empathy not just for our end users but our colleagues. We’re only able to address the needs of our users by working effectively and collaboratively across teams.
Other Fun Facts
🎨 I'm an artist.
I graduated from UC Santa Barbara with my Art degree in 2008, started my career as a graphic designer in marketing, then worked my way naturally to product design, research, and copywriting. Still, art has my heart! See some of my work at karoleend.com.
✈️ I love to travel.
I’ve visited 30 countries and 33 states so far, and looking forward to more. My adventures (and misadventures) fuel my art and writing, and learning how people around the world live is what piqued my interest in designing for better quality of life.
👩🏻💻 I'm a coach.
In addition to all my creative work, I’m a trauma-informed coach helping professionals and leaders excel in their purpose, career and life. Design thinking processes offer so many parallels to coaching, and I’m passionate about taking these processes and tools, among many others, to help a group of people I care deeply about. Learn more at karoleendcoaching.com.
Interested in working together?
Email me at karoleen [at] karoleendesign [dot] com and I’ll be in touch!