User Experience stands to gain a lot from web analytics and the mindset that you bring to such tools. Web analytics provides another source of quantitative data about our users and a focus on measurement that can give us greater insight into and accountability for our work. I’m a user experience architect at ITHAKA, where I put this vision to work as well as practice more traditional UX activities. I work on JSTOR, a platform that millions of people around the world use to access scholarly journal articles. It’s not quite, but very similar to, enterprise UX.
Previously, I was with Pure Visibility, an Internet marketing company in Ann Arbor, as their Measurement Team Lead. I have also been the president of the Michigan chapter of the Usability Professionals’ Association, and I’m currently the Volunteer Co-Chair of the User Experience Professionals’ Association (that is, I coordinate volunteers).
I am passionate about learning about people. That was what put me on the path to user experience and it’s still the most exciting part about my job. I’ve gradually expanded my repertoire of ways to learn about user behavior and for several years I have focused on learning how to incorporate web analytics into my UX toolkit.
I have an MSI in Human-Computer Interaction from the University of Michigan School of Information. I’ve also previously worked with Compuware and Thomson Gale, and spent two years as Associate Content Editor of UX Magazine. I have been an officer in the Michigan chapter of the User Experience Professionals’ Assocation, spoken at conferences, and I’m the author of Practical Web Analytics for User Experience.
When I’m not doing something user experience-related, I’m probably cooking or working with Lego or music. There are also cats.