Darren DeCoursey

LipDub AI

Senior Product Designer

Monsters Aliens Robots Zombies

Forsta

Dialpad

I worked with the brand team to develop components, maintain the website design library and update designs for various web projects in Figma.

I partnered closely with the web engineering team on making sure designs were translated faithfully from Figma to the CMS. 

I also wireframed and mapped out user flows to help support user adoption and sign ups with the Growth team.

Specifically focused on conversion design, I A/B tested design variants for high performing landing and overview pages to increase sign ups and lead conversion.

Senior Web & Conversion Designer

Elastic Path

Overseeing the entire website experience, I led several key initiatives:

• Managed a smooth and successful website rebrand and platform upgrade, working with both a design agency and web contractor over the course of six months, with zero loss in organic traffic

• Oversaw website migration during Elastic Path's acquisition of Moltin, a competitor company, organized 301 redirect strategy with the Product team, and reorganized the site architecture, resulting in a 200% lift in traffic over the next two months

• Led the SEO and strategy, partnering with Digital Brand Services to boost brand visibility, and increase site traffic over 1.5x by migrating the primary eCommerce blog to the main domain

• Developed and led the entire CRO strategy from the ground up, including A/B testing, heatmapping, personalization and Google Analytics to increase the conversion rate for enterprise prospects

• Designed the App Marketplace experience for all integrations that could utilize Elastic Path's custom APIs

• Created user journeys and empathy maps to understand the pain points of their current customers in the B2B ecommerce industry.

Outside of the day-to-day web activities, I also:

• Working cross-functionally with the product team, I designed and executed the complete User Experience for the launch of their enterprise Free Trial, starting with customer interviews, then wireframing, prototyping, and final UI delivery to the web engineering team

Senior Web & UX Designer

V2 Games

• Created a UX design pipeline for mobile games company from the ground up. 

• Established a process for iterative testing, prototyping and reporting on KPI's and metrics for Unity-based mobile game projects.

• Managed the UX team, built out documentation and heuristics guidelines for developers and UI designers to follow.

• Helped develop the interface and user flows for several titles, including "Beast Brawlers,": an innovative approach where players battle it out in a real-time Player-vs-Player arena in quick rapid-fire battles. Voted Top 10 Game of 2017 at the Google Play Indie Games Festival.

• Designed cut scene visualizations, reward system and player swapping mechanic for “Fantasy Football League” mobile and tablet based iOS and Android game.

Lead UX Designer

Centre for Digital Media

I organized and prepped class materials as well as marked and graded written assignments. Gave guidance on group activities and organized brainstorming sessions. 

The course provides an overview of the broad range of topics associated with User Experience: everything from design research and heuristics evaluations to wireframing and prototyping are covered.

Assistant UX Instructor

Sensate Digital

Specialized in the ideation, design, prototyping and building of interactive exhibits and User Interfaces for museums and knowledge centres located in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Co-Founder

Qube Films

Was brought on board Qube Film's latest film "Way of the Wicked" as their visual effects supervisor and principle artist.

• Managed and planned continuity for onset crew to best capture plates for visual effects augmentation.

• Oversaw practical special effects shooting and planning for stunt sequences.

• Successfully delivered 35 final shots on time and under budget.

Visual Effects Supervisor

Gener8 Digital Media Corp

• Worked with Gener8's cutting-edge, proprietary technology to generate 3D imagery from 2D shots.

• Improved pipeline efficiency, collaborated with IT partners, and customized software scripting to automate tasks.

• Worked closely with junior and senior employees to maintain depth and detail continuity among various stereo sequences.

Projects include: "Iron Man 3", "Thor: The Dark World" "300: Rise of an Empire"

Stereoscopic Visual Effects Artist

“Colour it and put a border around it!”

That's the advice my father would always give me about my homework assignments in school. My father was a marketing professional. I should have known his words would put me on the path to becoming a designer.

But it wasn't a straight path. My first love was making movies. Designing special effects, shooting miniatures, blowing them up in my backyard. Trying to replicate scenes in “Empire Strikes Back” with toys and a cheap camcorder on a chilly fall day.

After completing my degree in Art History, I raced into visual effects because it was my passion. I learned all about colour, composition, lighting, dimension, and motion. Oh, and I was fortunate to work on some sweet blockbuster movies and television series too. However, I spent enough years in the film industry to realize that a crucial element was missing: interactivity.

That's why I decided to switch gears and pursue a Masters Degree and focus on learning interaction design. Working with teammates from different backgrounds, exploring UX research and cognitive science with academics. This felt more ME.

Fueled with a desire to make engaging and accessible digital products and web experiences, I spent the last six years in the tech industry, evangelizing the power of UX.

What kind of projects have I been involved in? Mobile game menus, web designs for SMB and Enterprise-level tech companies, tablet-based ecommerce demos, interactive touchscreens for museum exhibits and large-scale LED displays for music festivals.

When my father started to experience cognitive decline, I began to notice how much technology had failed him. Almost every digital experience felt like a chore. His frustrations became my frustrations. It instilled in me a deep, personal understanding of empathy, and how important user testing and accessibility are to the core of every product design.  And it made me want to design better.

And while he's no longer with me, I would like to think that he inspired me to add colour and a border around everything I do.

Specialties: Product Design | Web Design | UX Research | Wireframing | Prototyping | Design Systems | Interaction Design | Motion Design | Conversion Optimization | Copywriting | 3D Visualization | Installation Design

Stealth AI

Product Specialist

Independent Consultant

• AI-assisted Veterans' Benefits App - Product Strategy, UX Research, and Information Architecture

• Recruiting firm targeting Amsterdam tech/developers - Information Architecture

• AI-based Automated Handling Health Care Application - UX Product-Level Strategy and Research

• Health Care Brokerage - UX Product-Level Strategy

• West Coast Internet + Fiber Optic Provider - Brand Strategy and Information Architecture

• Specialty / Luxury Foods - Research and Information Architecture

• Nutrition Company - Content Strategy and Information Architecture

• Fortune 100 Agriculture + Fuel Company - Research and UX Product-Level Strategy

• Global IT Network Monitoring Software - Research and Information Architecture

Experience Strategist  

Guidepoint

Part of a network of expert advisors on a range of subjects related to product design, customer experience, SaaS and IT.

Advisor

DroneUp

DroneUp combines airspace solutions and software applications to help companies operate at scale with drone innovation—as well as operating an on-demand marketplace of over 10,000 FAA-certified pilots. 

With its Fortune 1-partner Walmart, DroneUp is the logistics behind drone delivery in six states (AZ, AR, FL, TX, UT, VA). Ranked 24 on LinkedIn's Top 2022 Startups. Teams such as: E-Commerce Platforms, Product Flight Compliance, Vendor Portal, Walmart.com Integration, Research Ops.

Senior User Experience Designer

Intuitive

Intuitive Surgical develops robotic products designed to improve clinical outcomes of patients through minimally invasive surgery, most notably with the multi-armed Da Vinci Surgical System. 

Consulting Project: Discovery, UX Research and Product-Level Strategy uncovering and prioritizing usability and feature needs for a robotic-assisted-surgery training platform.

UX Strategist

Robots and Pencils

Client: a "Big Four" global professional services firm. Project: discovery and product-level UX strategy focusing on portfolio growth using generative AI

Product Strategist

Risk mitigation software for safety inspectors on offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, North Sea, and Middle East

Product Design Consultant

KUDO

KUDO is a real-time, human-powered interpretation conferencing platform—in use by organizations such as the European Parliament (EU), Interpol, NATO, the United Nations–wherever there's need for multiple languages to be in conversation simultaneously. Projects such as: Artificial Intelligence / Interpreter Live Assistant, DesignOps, UX Research

User Experience Consultant

Daugherty Business Solutions

• User experience consultant for Fortune 500 financial services firm
• UX coach for product team incubator

Senior Consultant

PointClickCare

Product design for home health care. Teams such as: Design System, Document Handling, Intake/Patient Importing, Scheduling

+ PORTFOLIO +

http://www.danux.me


+ OVERVIEW +

Practice areas
• AX (Artificial Experience) Design + Strategy
• UX Strategy
• UX Research
• Information Architecture
• Conversational Design
• Interaction Design
• Visual Design 
• Talking to People and Making Things They Need

• Nielsen Norman Group Master-Certified user experience generalist (UXMC) — with specialized certifications in Interaction Design, UX Management and UX Research. [Founded by Jakob Nielsen and Don Norman in 1998, NN/g is research-based UX consulting firm trusted by leading organizations world-wide]

• Certified Product Owner (CSPO), Certified Scrum Master (CSM) and PMP-trained 

• Classically-trained Art Director — typography, color, layout, brand, logos, icons, campaigns, copywriting, creative direction (The Creative Circus)

• Experienced with enterprise, Fortune 500s (23), startups, ad/design agencies, in-house, working with teams, stakeholders and research participants in UK, EU, LATAM and APAC regions. Also experienced with regulated organizations (HIPAA, GDPR, FAA LAANC) and US government organizations (DoE, HHS, SSA, USDA.)



+ FIELDS OF INTEREST +

• agriculture ✔
• aerospace, aviation ✔ 
• automotive + mobility
• bio + genetech, medical devices and lab / science ✔
• construction ✔
• emergent tech (AR, drones, gaming, "last mile" delivery, robotics, VR) ✔ 
• energy ✔
• gen-AI / ML ✔
• globally distributed + international teams ✔ 
• healthcare + wellness ✔
• interpretation + language ✔
• logistics + transportation ✔
• military + defense

(i.e. fields or platforms within complex domains)

✔  = indicates field experience



+ TOOLS and SKILLSETS +

• Axure, Figma, Miro, Mural, Sketch, Creative Cloud (Animate, Id, Il, Ps) — Intermediate knowledge of HTML / CSS (hand-coded)

• Ongoing study of language, linguistics and taxonomies, content strategy, conversational design, data visualization, design systems, digital transformation, enterprise applications, field studies / task analysis, generative-AI, large language models, heuristic analysis, keyword stuffing, wow, you read, almost this, entire dense, keyword block, you go, glen coco, localization / international UX, microinteractions, mobile / responsive design, moderated and unmoderated user testing, motion design, platform / product design, project management, prototyping, SaaS, service blueprinting, UX roadmapping, WCAG 3.0 Web Accessibility



Tracking my learning progress here: https://bit.ly/32Y849D

Play the game in my header image: https://bit.ly/3C31elw

taplio

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Darren DeCoursey

Dan Benner

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