📜 Resume

Alex Y Chen (they/them) has 8 years of experience designing products with integrated teams in an agile framework, for both consulting and in-house environments.

Experience

Syndio

• Collaborate with product to interpret user goals into high-fidelity designs for complex features and product-wide improvements, driving value for our flagship product's roadmap
• Conduct user research with internal stakeholders and external customers to assess value, needs, usability, marketability, and information hierarchy
• Collaborate with the design team to review features and designs in progress across our product portfolio
• Support adding to and maintaining the design system, such as through refactoring figma components, writing documentation, and reviewing Storybook components
• Pair with engineering and QA to identify actionable next steps for implementation barriers, bugs, corner cases, etc. to help deliver quality products

TXI

• Facilitate workshops and discussions with both internal and external client stakeholders, including presentations to fiscal sponsors and executive-level stakeholders.
• Collaborate with stakeholders on requirements gathering, low-fidelity wireframes and user flows, and drafting acceptance criteria to support team alignment and documentation in the agile workflow.
• Lead a handoff process to engineers with high-fidelity mockups, video demos, and annotations to support implementation.
• Conduct design QA and accessibility reviews - consisting of screen reader and keyboard testing - to embed accessibility into an ongoing process.
• Conduct user research to drive insights and empathy with users, creating research reports that highlight insights and actionable next steps.
• Co-lead of the Accessibility Working Group - mentor colleagues in accessibility, collaborate on frameworks and processes, bring in external partners for training.
• Support content creation for our marketing team (writing blogs, taking interviews).

Shure, Inc.

• Led the product design and research of Designer, an installed desktop app for networked AV system configuration built by a team of about 20 engineers with about 2,000 downloads/quarter.
• Collaborated with a core requirements team (including product management, software engineers, and QA) to ensure the design solutions were technically robust, with a focus on steerable microphone technology.
• Facilitated discussions with internal and external users to identify user goals, pain points, and usability issues alongside the research team and product management.
• Led the accessibility initiative with the team of about 10 product designers by giving educational presentations, creating accessible guidelines, and integrating access as part of design review.

Design for America

Collaborated with a core team of 5 people to mentor and support a national network of 900+ students, mentors, and community members. Supported the website redesign through user research, sketching, and wireframing. Created content for communication and marketing materials.

The Providence Plan

Worked with a team of about 5 data programmers and analysts to create graphics for print materials and web interfaces to promote public data access and literacy in Rhode Island.

Studio Dunn

Supported the development of home furnishings and accessories through hand sketching and model-making, 3D modeling, and rapid prototyping (i.e. CNC milling, 3D printing) by working directly with the lead designer and studio owner.

Education

General Assembly

Rhode Island School of Design

Tools

• Admin: Microsoft Office, Google Drive, Notion
• Agile: Trello, Pivotal, Jira
• Collaboration: Miro, Mural, Sticky Notes, FigJam
• Design: Adobe Creative Cloud (Illustrator, Indesign), Sketch, Figma, Zeplin
• Front-end: Basic understanding of HTML & CSS

Mentorship and Advisory

Chicago Portfolio School

Guest critic and lecturer for interaction design students.

Sam Fox School, Wash U

Guest critic for interaction design students.

American Alliance of Museums (AAM)

Collaborated with Rebirth Garments to advise on a standard set of accessible communication guidelines.

Speaking Engagements

#FundraisingTech Event

Gave a talk called "Introduction to Digital Accessibility" that highlighted key aspects of accessibility and how people could get started incorporating access into their process. Representing myself.

Write/Speak/Code

Facilitated the workshop “Design for Accessibility: Steps Toward Radical Disability Justice." Representing myself.

Better World by Design

Facilitated the workshop "Design for Accessibility: Steps Toward Radical Disability Justice." This has 3 components: an introduction to accessibility and disability, an activity to recognize ableism and access barriers, and an activity to perform an accessibility audit of a product or website. Representing myself.

UX Strategy Meetup

Gave the introductory talk for "A Sound Strategy: Designing Invisible Experiences," a panel comprised of our product design team. Representing Shure, Inc.

Chicago Design Week

Spoke on the "Designing Welcoming Experiences" panel with 3 other speakers, all of whom had immigrant backgrounds and discussed the idea of a welcoming experience through that lense. Organized by Design for America, representing myself.

UX Strategy Meetup

Gave a talk about product strategy and social impact of a community composting app, for which I led the product design. Representing Compost Connect.

Better World by Design

Facilitated the workshop "Design with Compassion," an introduction to human-centered design. Representing Design for America.