Design for public service. I have supported various customer experience initiatives within the federal government – at Veterans Affairs and Department of Agriculture – in an effort to better understand, measure, and improve the citizen experience of receiving federal benefits.

US Department of Agriculture

Booz Allen Program Manager: July 2020 - March 2021

Booz Allen Lead CX Strategist: October 2018 - July 2019

I manage a team of UX designers, design strategists, visual designers, and content strategists in support of USDA’s Office of Customer Experience. Initially contracted to support General Services Administration’s (GSA) IT Modernization Center of Excellence (CoE) for Customer Experience (CX), I functioned as deputy program manager and lead CX strategist. We executed on five CX projects to help embed CX as a key strategy and capability of USDA. CX has matured at USDA and Booz Allen now directly supports the Chief Customer Experience Office at the Office of CX.

Researched and wireframed Farmers.gov’s Farm Loan Discovery Tool and Farm Loan Guides to improve awareness and ease while applying for a first-time farm loan. We built upon research from Phase 1 of the CoE and travelled to three states to get feedback on the paper and digital prototypes.
Laid down the strategy for a department-wide website modernization effort to support the customer need for modern web experiences and compliance with the 21st Century IDEA Act. We created the Digital Strategy Playbook to outline requirements and methods for USDA to reach their modernization goals. Key research activities included workshops with stakeholders across the department and usability testing.
Led the research planning to support the Forest Service’s effort to understand and improve public engagement during all phases of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Led the strategy and research planning to build a comprehensive journey map of the different customers of USDA; a tall order!
Project coordination for the development of a chatbot pilot.

Screen Shot 2019-07-16 at 1.06.22 PM.png

Screen Shot 2019-06-21 at 4.33.12 PM.png

Veterans Experience Office

Booz Allen Contract Lead: July 2019 - January 2020

Booz Allen Design Researcher & Strategist: September 2017 - October 2018

I’ve had the opportunity to twice support Booz Allen’s contract with Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Veterans Experience Office (VEO). In my first 14 months on the contract, I was integral to standing up the structure and practice of how VA can capture and analyze the voices of Veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors. With a focus on six separate VA lines of business, I worked in teams of two and three to establish relationships with stakeholders, scope project needs, strategize research plans, conduct interview-based field research across the United States, synthesize insights, translate insights to journey maps and recommendations, write survey questions, draft wireframes, and coordinate survey configuration with developers. Our work at VEO has contributed to its measurement and design successes, and its recognition as the first government office dedicated to improving customer experience.

I returned to the project in July 2019 as the Contract Lead, responsible for leading a team of 40+ designers, data scientists, project managers, and business analysts. I took on scoping for all incoming projects, contract compliance and risk mitigation on a contract level, integration of teams, liaison with the main client, and mentorship for the growing team.

Below are a few visuals related to my September 2017 - August 2018 project with Education Service with VA’s Veterans Benefit Administration. Myself and my fellow designer conducted all research and created the journey maps. Additional documentation from this project and other lines of business are available upon request.