JOHN MOFFITT -
LOC QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
QUESTION 2
Ability to design website and application user experiences and information architectures .** Designed user experiences including: wireframes, user flows, and other interface components. Monitored emerging user experience trends in web, application, and mobile design and development and made recommendations based on the information.
Answer: Led the user experience design and information architecture design of complex websites and applications. Provided advice regarding the design and implementation of user interactions in software development projects. Researched, assessed and reported on new and emerging developments in the user experience (UE).
New Patterns - Recently anchor linking with sticky navigation that updates position on the page within the navigation while scrolling . . .new browser updates like slow scroll. Presenting information in a left panel details replacing modal/pop-up sceanrios.
Modals- Mobile design initially was
New Tab - context , user communication. Most users don’t know what the icon means
Scrolling - depends on the task, user, age. user testing of assessment products - multiple times, false footer -
Wizards vs Expert Forms -
QUESTION 3
Ability to interact collaboratively with others .** Worked well and cooperated with others in a multi-project focused design and development team, interacting with project managers, visual designers, programmers, testers, and external stakeholders.
Answer: At K12.com, Navigation Arts and Discovery Education, I was responsible for leading the user experience design on large complex projects. I am always part of the project from beginning in the research phase to the implementation and testing. As part of the design, it is always important to be aware of trends and patterns in the market that match with the needs of the project and user.
New Patterns - Recently anchor linking with sticky navigation that updates position on the page within the navigation while scrolling . . .new browser updates like slow scroll.
Modals- Mobile design initially was
New Tab - context , user communication. Most users don’t know what the icon means
Scrolling - depends on the task, user, age
Wizards vs Expert Forms -
Save button -
Icons and labels -
Consistency - it is all about context
In the box below, provide a description of your specific experience, education, knowledge, and/or training that supports your response to the previous question.
Answer: Led user experience for an enterprise-level project working well and actively collaborating with others on a life-cycle based, full-scale web development team, including project managers, visual designers, developers, integrators, and testers.
Nav Arts - External Stakeholders -
Teacher Tools - External Stakeholders
Students - observations and interviews
Freelance - Video format originated from
Question 4
Ability to interact collaboratively with others .** Worked well and cooperated with others in a multi-project focused design and development team, interacting with project managers, visual designers, programmers, testers, and external stakeholders
Answer: Led user experience for an enterprise-level project working well and actively collaborating with others on a life-cycle based, full-scale web development team,
Question 5
In the box below, provide a description of your specific experience, education, knowledge, and/or training that supports your response to the previous question. Do not paste your resume here or state
In the box below, provide a description of your specific experience, education, knowledge, and/or training that supports your response to the previous question.
Answer: I have participated in projects as both a Business Analyst and User Experience professional. My school background is actually in Fine Art which makes it very easy for me to collaborate with visual designers. A User Experience professional is often relied on to be the bridge between groups that may not always speak the same language. An important aspect in being the bridge between groups is to create relationships and trust. User Experience professionals are often generalists so that they can successfully communicate the language of different groups.
Engineers - Working close helps talk the same language , also empathy to the technical approaches and designs. For a time my manager was an engineering manager. I have also been managed by Art Directors, participated in testing, on most projects.
QA - Often QA consult to understand if it should be a bug or an improvement
QA - When I find a bug, I often just hand it off rather than report it independently
K12 we would review test cases
Roadmap - part of roadmap planning at K12,
Project Managers - helped with LOE Agile pt estimation
Question 6
Ability to conduct user research, usability testing, and evaluate user experiences . Developed and managed the execution of approaches for conducting usability testing and/or user research across an institution’s online properties. Worked with business owners and other professionals to conduct research, evaluate the site and understand user needs.
Answer: Developed test plans and scripts and then conducted usability tests with various participants both in-person and remote, documenting the results and making design recommendations based on testing.
QUESTION 7
In the box below, provide a description of your specific experience, education, knowledge, and/or training that supports your response to the previous question.
Answer- In my 3.5 years at Discovery Education I have been the most involved in one on one user testing, user surveys and user interviews. I have design and lead both remote and in person testing. I have also traveled extensively to specific markets for testing and interviewing. I am energized to speak directly with users as often you will be surprised with what they say and how they react to things. It is always fascinating to me to understand the motivation of their comments and rewarding to iterate on their feedback.
Assessment testing - standards - ID
Also K12 - Assessment testing
Task analysis
Teacher interviews - videos / bookmarking sharing , editing
QUESTIOn 8
Ability to perform IT research and analysis . Supplied expert analysis and advice on complex program-related user experience issues, including monitoring for changing requirements, identifying relevant issues/problems and gathering information from various sources. Developed conceptual designs and presentation to explain complex concepts to executives and stakeholders.
Answer: Provided expert analysis and designed solutions for a wide variety of critical UX issues and problems for multiple programs
QUEStion 9
In the box below, provide a description of your specific experience, education, knowledge, and/or training that supports your response to the previous question.
Answer: As my role as a Business Analyst I was most expected to have expert analysis on solutions. Also as a Business Analyst I was primarily responsible for gathering business requirements and documenting functional requirements. An important perspective on gathering requirements is the "refinement" aspect where the "true" requirement is identified. As a User Experience Architect I will often need to provide industry research or user research to support design. Communication with Concept Models is something I have done on many occasions. The key to all of these tasks is collaborating with others because in order to have a successful project, you need to have a team that works together and understands the problems to be solved.
CALMS
LTI - assessments
Rubrics competitive analysis
DE Competitive analysis - Dashboards, as well as Curriculum projects
PBA video - originally had a more complex presentation that would have extended the solution for teacher authoring . . .
Assignment manager - user research - need consensus and people to back you up
USER EXPERIENCE ARCHITECT
BUSINESS ANALYST
AGILE PRODUCT OWNER
Resume >
Favorite apps, websites,
Panera / vs Taco app / Pizza Responsive website with confirmation button that distracted from the task .. .Hosting service that made the two step cancellation obscure
BBC
Articulate authoring tool
Newseumed - website Graziella award . .
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Trending searches . .mixed results in analytics, most teachers would take cues from peer that are known.
Tell a story - build consensus through empathy with the user
Careers big
Literacy big
Primary source - Vocabulary
Vocabulary case study - what went wrong - Unit organization not needed - and resulted in - technical limitations took too much precedence and ultimately needed to be started over in Elastic indexing verses data base calls. Should have recognized that the Glossary was so popular so decisions needed to be better validated despite the obvious bad experience.
Favorite Projects -
POU Dashboard - started as a video concept , shopped in around with teachers, and the put a spin on it to be a strategic stepping stone internally, and then it was wildly successful.
Teaching Strategies - collaborative design process where multiple channels for research and input
Question attempts addressing a deep need that had been requested for along time.
Any project that had collaboration - assessment - collaborated with Dev to include some delight Math Coach navigation and animation - once
PBA assessments -
Building upon patterns - too much to do to reinvent the wheel every time.
Current opportunities -
Shark tank at K12 -
user testing vs field observations vs focus groups
QUESTIOn 10
Ability to plan and manage user experience designers and other roles on software development projects . Planned and managed user experience designers and other roles on software development projects.
Answer: Managed a team of THREE OR MORE analysts, developers, and/or user experience designers to complete a software development project, including planning and managing the tasks and deliverables of project team members.
QUESTION 11
In the box below, provide a description of your specific experience, education, knowledge, and/or training that supports your response to the previous question.
Answer: As an Agile Product owner I was responsible for managing the product success and that was done through using Agile Methodologies. Breaking out the planning and implementation into smaller chunks allows for each team member to better focus. The most important task of the Agile Product Owner is the ability to prioritize in a nonpreferential way. I find the more you model correct prioritization, the team members become less biased in their priorities
Business analysis team
Managing UX while a Product owner
MVP experience
Question 12
Ability to communicate in writing . Communicated information in writing in the performance of user experience design analysis, design, and planning.
Developed substantive documents about user experience design standards, and overall user experience standards for a commercial product or an agency. Prepared interpretive materials with impact, such as an institution-wide style guide; functional specifications for a large web application; or institution-wide policy.
Answer: I have documented requirements and design in many ways over the years. I have been fully trained in the Agile Methodologies which can be a powerful tool to provide feature completion. The Agile methods fit well with JIRA ticket management and it is often the quickest way for project completion when the team is fully embedded. I have also documented design and other project deliverable in a more traditional way through word documents or wikis which can work better for non-embedded teams.
Marriott - First experience with a Design System
Nav Arts- GW project - Indesign UX components
User Story structure -
QUESTIONS
Survey - on homepage? user profile information ?
Benefits - DE 401 retirement, health, bonus opportunities, vacation, salary
Time frame for Limited time ?
Education area seems ripe for an update ?
What are the projects and systems that the team designs for
How big is the team, is it expanding
Gov’t process ?
New initiatives at the LOC- new outreach - yearly book festival seems to be expanding , celebrity involvement, Bill Byson, Malcom Gladwell
Good fit for the position
My background experience
for a UX Strategest appears to be an Advocator and Innovator position
I am that type of person.
ADVOCATE AND INNOVATOR
I have an innovation mindset . . .I am often the person to jump in the water first to start the conversation. . .
I have years of experience advocating for the projects that I have worked on.
I find pitching the concept or the idea one of the most important aspects of a project. It helps create a common vision and helps build your tribe of believers.
USER CENTERED MINDSET
I also have a user centered mindset, I focus on the user's tasks for inspiration proiritize, but I can also consider business and technical perspectives.
COLLABORATIVELY
I know how to work collaboratively with Visual Designers, other UX Designers, Developers, and Business owners
SCOPE
I am realistic about scope but also use the vision and feature priority to help define potential phasing for any project.
I also have a allot of experience with working with all levels of an organization. I am very comfortable collaborating and distilling feedback and trying to get consensus.
I am driven by the user's needs. I am a good listener who works hard to get to the common truth behind what the user expressed. I naturally look for trends within user feedback and data to drive priority.
Best Work
My best work achievement would likely be a Discovery Education Project. Alternatively, the current project that I am working on could be a candidate. The project that I am working on right now has been exciting in it's large scope. It is a complete overhaul of the primary teacher workflow. It included in depth user research and collaboration across the entire company. I am confident that the changes that are planned for with will be very successful. It has the potential to my best work, but since it is only in the early stages I would say it does not qualify.
The discovery education project that is my best work is likely an assessment dashboard. It is a project that I personally was responsible for getting off the ground. The originally Dashboard was in dire need of being updated, but the leadership could not see beyond the large scope. What I saw was the pain points of the users. From second hand and first hand interviews I knew what the problems were. I iterated over multiple concepts and got feedback from peers. It was apparent in the data what was the most important aspect of the Dashboard, so I pitched a concept that provided an iterative roadmap to fulfill a vision of totally updating it. It was a collaboration from the first phase to the last phase. We rolled in lessons learned from the first phase to ensure we could avoid the same problems in the subsequent phases.
It was my best achievement because it realized and maintained the vision throughout and ultimately made many teachers lives much better and it all started by a simple pitch.
Design By Committee
The most difficult task is to avoid design by committee. In the current project that I am working on I knew this had a high potential of derailing the project so I was methodical about gathering the project background and user research. I meet with key subject matter experts at the onset and gathered research data from the field to ensure when I spoke, I spoke with the voice of the customer. I ensured as many people as possible had a voice without allowing for the loudest voice was not the only voice. Whenever there was an update concept I would reference the feedback that was considered for it. I often used video and audio recordings to provide proof of the user research evidence as well as usage data that provided insight into the most common patterns. When there was an opposing directions considered offered I pull out common threads that could be rolled into the next iteration without destroying the original integrity. I also would challenge a proposal if it did not align to the vision or user tasks. The most important aspect was building a tribe of believers so that I was not the only advocate for the user .
Best Boss
Has your back and provide that executive backing
Difficult Personalities
There was a project manager that was notorious for saying no. They did this to control scope. I understood the concern, but often Developers had less of a voice. I would do initial scope investigations so that the project manager was not the only voice.
Example
Difficult person
Share meetings between designers where we would bring our work and get feedback . . I was always sensitive to how to provide feedback so that it was not just negative feedback. Eventually, there was trust built as I supported their immediate agenda and then in turn they trusted me when I proposed something. This trust that was built up was eventually tested when a project went bad and it had to be redirected. The direction of the project was initially driven by technical design concerns
Team - Shark tank 2- Shark Tank examples
The project I would like to talke about is the current project
What would I do differently . . .
I used their
Dashboard Journey Map. . .often in the education space it is important to understand the Teacher
Customer Experience Design is about considering not just the online screens, but the entire experience of the user. Empathy is key in this type of strategy and it is key for to communicate and get others to also empathize with the user. That empathy can help reinforce and define a strategy that can be applied not to just one workflow but to an entire experience, project or future project. The first step is to know your user. Often when working is isloation a team may design a solution in a silo and not understand the limitation of an environment for a user. One project I worked on has an assumption that a student could easily use this new tool with their phone . .the problem was that many schools have obstacles that make this assumption a false assumption. The details of this we uncovered when visiting a elementary school. While visiting the elementary school other realities of the classroom presented themselves including the variety of teacher personas there approached the work very differently. Another project I worked on was a complex workflow where the teacher had not just one task, but several tasks to consider simultaously. It is about considering the whole of the experience. Knowing the user is key, but communicating the essences of the user is also key. I was part of a conference with teachers were I was exposed to a larger variety of different teacher roles. When I returned I created and presented mini-persona profiles to help the team better understand different unique scenarios.
Another interesting project where the Customer Experience Strategy was key was when I was part of a team that was providing a hybrid solution that was both online and offline. The offline had a print companion with QR codes and the digital was used independently or with the print. This project was particularly challenging as when I interviewed teachers in different regions of the country their online access was different so there were many variations that needed to be accounted for in the Customer Experience.
The projec ti would like to talk about is the current project I am
I was new and and learn allot and create a strategy very quickly.
As part of the
Concepts- - internal stakeholders, user testing with teachers as well as User Testing.com to test more non-domain specific information . .and we learned that the navigation changes less important.
Another important aspect was Mobile - originally focus on a Tablet with the goal to reduce the project scope and get to market quicker since we did not have allot of users on the phone and we also had a Mobile App . . .
After additional internal stakeholder interviews and business input an increase priority was put on the phone from a future proofing of the initiative. The prototype had always included responsive design for the phone so it did not result in a redesign, but did uncover the fact that most stakeholders did not understand Responsive design. This required a bit of education on my part with responsive simulations in Axure as well as Video examples of the experience. Ultimately we updated the strategy to include the phone as a priority.