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SHALYN OSWALD'S RESUME

Professional ​Info​​

As a person who strives to continually grow and improve, I find that working to understand both client and user, and designing experiences for both, affords me constant learning opportunities. User experience designing allows me to give purpose to my creative side and satisfies my tendency to be analytical and detail-focused, and to help both business and users achieve their goals in easy and delightful ways.

My main focuses are on user research and user-centered design, and being having the ability to marry their needs with those of the business.

Work​ Experience​
Lead User Experience Designer, Bluewolf (an IBM Company), March 2016 - Present
  • Led the charge in implementing design into a Salesforce partner global agency by creating a UX methodology, running educational sessions and classes on UX and design thinking, training co-workers in user-centered design.

  • Convinced co-workers and stakeholders of the value in user-centered design and pushed for a change in how design is viewed; was then tasked with scoping for many successful RFP and SOWs.

  • Designed projects for Salesforce Visual Force, Lightning Communities, and mobile responsive additions.

BW/IBM CLIENT PROJECTS-

The Coca Cola Company

Lead UX/UI Designer​

  • Goal to create company-wide internal site for support and ticket-management across multiple help desks. The associate view contains self-help knowledge as well as the ability to contact support via live chat and calls, as well as directly create support tickets; agent view is their own knowledge and the cycle through their cases.
  • Continually working directly with system architects, project owners, stakeholders, developers, and future users to make sure that everyone is aligned and that we are moving in the right direction to ensure project success.  Quick iteration on issues.
  • Responsible for owning look and feel and working with the teams to make sure we aren’t creating too much technical debt while still providing best-in-class look and functionality.
  • Persona and journey maps, informational presentations, mockups, and user-story creation.

American Express

Lead UX/UI Designer​

  • Worked to bring Salesforce Lighting into the internal campaign marketing process, integrating many different applications into one and creating a cohesive and intuitive experience for users who have never used Salesforce.

  • Continually worked directly with system architects, project owners, stakeholders, developers, and future users to make sure that everyone was aligned and that we were all moving in the right direction to ensure project success.

  • Created a consistent look and feel using very strict system constraints, as well as a style-guide, use-cases for component utilization, and custom re-usable components.

Vivint

Lead UX/UI Designer​

  • Researched call-center employees (users) for the company and created applicable personas and user-journeys by which to base design and functional decisions.

  • Solo-designed the entire call-center application system that integrated 8+ programs into one Salesforce-run application.  Worked closely with solutions architects to make sure that the backend was designed in a way that contributed to a good experience on the front end.

User Experience and Visual Redesign, Soft Networks
January 2016 - Present
  • Tasked with the redesign of a large e-commerce website dealing buying and selling networking equipment.

  • Created an appropriate color palette to compliment the existing logo, as well as chose appropriate fonts.

  • Created the layout of each page, including homepage and product page, created new navigations and gave the site a more welcome feel through my use of copy and advertisement.

  • Managed the requirements of key stakeholders with respect to branding and user needs, while adhering to a strict timetable.

User Experience and Redesign Consultant, Charity Miles 
July - August 2015

 

  • Tasked with finding out why the app had such a large ‘bounce’ and ‘exit’ rate at certain stages, and to come up with solutions to fix those issues, as well as encourage more daily use of the app.

  • Through extensive user research came up with several solutions that improved the app’s usability and design.

  • By implementing a stronger social aspect, we were able to use accountability and teamwork to encourage active daily use.

Website Design and Sales Associate, Absynthetika Designs, 2008 - November 2015

 

  • Redesigned full website, organizing necessary information in logical order and allowing for future e-commerce development; modulated for future manageability.

  • Strengthened brand trust and aesthetics by creating a new logo and illustrations, allowing for a more consistent feel throughout the website.

  • Kept a friendly and welcome feel too keep the user comfortable; nothing intimidating.

Insurance Claims Assessor, Desjardins Financial Security, Toronto, ON, 2008 to 2011

 

  • Maintained company policy, codes, and rules, paying out thousands of dollars per day.

  • Communicated with policy holders to determined claimed loss and the extent of insurance coverage.

  • Learned new business systems and held to a strict error and output percentage.

Technology

SKETCH

ILLUSTRATOR

PHOTOSHOP

OMNIGRAFFLE

GOOGLE ANALYTICS

GOOGLE FORMS

GOOGLE DRIVE

INVISION

AXURE

ADOBE XD

POP

TRELLO

KEYNOTE

SALESFORCE

UX Practices

AFFINITY MAPPING

BEST PRACTICES

BUSINESS ANALYSIS

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS

CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS​

COPYWRITING

DESIGN ANALYSIS

DESIGN STUDIO

DESIGN THINKING

FACILITATION

FEATURE PRIORITIZATION

ITERATIONS

KPIs

NEXT STEPS

OPEN/CLOSED CARD SORTING

PERSONA CREATION

PRESENTATIONS
PROTOTYPING
SITE/APP MAPPING
SKETCHING

STORYTELLING

SURVEYSUSER INTERVIEWS
USABILITY TESTING

USER FLOWS

USER INTERFACE DESIGN

USER RESEARCH

WIREFRAMES

WORKSHOPS

Education
User Experience Design Immersive
General Assembly, New York City
​2015

 

I immersed myself into the user experience designer world, learning in 10 weeks how to conduct research, ask the right questions, understand motivations, discover and fix areas of opportunity, and prototype to show my ideas.  

Also learned how best to work with team members and present these findings to stakeholders and developers.

 

 

Honors Bachelor of Arts, Specialist in English
University of Toronto
2001-2006

 

I read and wrote a lot, and focused a lot on the different usages of language, and its history.  The classes I most enjoyed were those on science fiction, creative writing, and where the entire classes were build around a central thesis.  I also took quite a few media and film classes.

 

Additional:

Copywriting That Sells

University of Toronto Graduate Course

2006

 

Learned the basics of copywriting and applied it to case-study assignments.  Oftentimes, the assignment involved creating a fake product and learning to sell it to various audiences in a multitude of ways.  Poster ads, brochures, and magazine ads.

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