With over a decade of experience working in non-profits, technology, and education, I am confident in my ability to make a meaningful impact. I am also an active volunteer as a community organizer for climate efforts, and I am eager to bring my passion for social change to organizations that align with my values and goals.
My work experience spans public facing websites, public and private web applications, and future vision/strategy work.
A redesign of CCL's donate page to increase conversions by utilizing more best practices and refinement through user testing
A redesign of the post-join process to increase the percentage of new signups that convert to engaged volunteers
The progression of how we linked systems together to prominently inform volunteers about what actions they should complete
A redesign of the landing page for our volunteer portal to provide a more positive and task focused experience for our volunteers
A new application built for CCL volunteers that enables them to log and display actions that build political will for climate change solutions
Providing a way that Rackspace customers can customize their dashboard so that users with different jobs/roles can more easily access the information they need
Workshop facilitation to reach a vision for a future state of our the Rackspace customer dashboard that allows them to quickly understand the issues most critical to them
Developing a vision for the future of Fanatical Support within customer portals
Allowed Admins to set enable/disable notifications for Users, Categories and Devices at an account level and also allowed for more fine grained preferences for each user
The following recommendations were either from 360 feedback or are public on LinkedIn.
“Alaina is very technically savvy and usually has a pretty good idea about feasibility. That’s very useful as she works with developers to iterate through designs. She is also super FAST at turning things around. I think part of it is that she is very good at asking enough questions up front so that she has everything she needs. I love working with her because I know things will get done quickly and quality will be great.”
"Alaina is amazingly even-keeled, bringing much needed stability to projects. Even when something goes off-track, she readily steps up to own the issue and is ready to pivot. She is a thoughtful people leader and always seems to get the best out of her colleagues. She gives and receives feedback very well and I have observed steady growth as both a designer and leader over the past 5 years."
“Alaina does a great job determining design strategy for a project. I've seen her put together Mural boards, lead design sprint sessions, incorporating research, and doing overall thorough, detailed work while still pushing designs forward.”
"Alaina demonstrates a strong ability to analyze problems and turn them into design opportunities. She is able to think about design problems in terms of design hypotheses and brings others along on this journey, which ultimately makes the projects she works on stronger. She also comes up with inventive and resourceful ideas."
Consider viewing my full resume for a more detailed picture.
Citizens' Climate Education | Blacksburg, VA
2019 - PresentAs CCE’s only User Experience Designer and web designer I introduced the organization, starting as a volunteer, to the value of user research and design systems. We’ve since created our own design system and I’ve built us our own research repository. During this time I’ve been the primary designer of our marketing website(s), volunteer intranet site, and all of our volunteer web tools.
Rackspace | Blacksburg, VA
2017 - 2019Led the design process for several projects from conceptualization through detailed user interface and functionality design, usability review, and implementation.
Rackspace | Blacksburg, VA
2015 - 2017Rackspace | Blacksburg, VA
2014 - 2015Virginia Tech | Blacksburg, VA
2010 - 2014Moog Components Group | Blacksburg, VA
2010 - 2014Virginia Tech | Blacksburg, VA
2003 - 2007I'm a Senior User Experience Designer with ~10 yrs of experience as well as previous experience in web development. I'm based in Blacksburg, VA with many years of experience working remotely.
Since 2016, I've dedicated much of my time to doing my part to solve climate change, and currently the most effective way for me to do that it to use my design skills to help out a larger organization seeking to accomplish the same goal.
My favorite projects tend to be ones that involves making sense of complex systems and/or futures thinking. This interest tends to come out in a number of ways, from being able to find bridges in the gaps of our organization, to organizational efficiencies, to reframing/solving sustainability challenges.
I'd love to hear from you. Send me a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
