Whitney LaRene

designwithwhit.org

I’m a designer with over a decade of experience including user experience, web design, and front-end development. I've focused my expertise on building design systems that empower other creatives to develop effective, consistent, user interfaces. I'm passionate about creating design systems that make it easier for people to interact with digital products. I believe that great design should be intuitive, easy to use, and visually appealing.

Let’s dig in!

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One of my favorite ways to spend outdoors is gardening, and I've found that it relates to my work as a designer. When I'm out in my yard, I'm always thinking about how different plants will respond to the environment, how they will grow and change over time, and how they will fit into the larger landscape. This kind of holistic thinking is also essential to creating effective design systems.

Like in gardening, designing a system requires me to consider how each component will work within the larger context. I love digging into the details of how the design will be used, who will be using it, and how it will evolve over time. This attention to detail ensures that my design systems are visually appealing, highly functional, and intuitive.

Whether I'm tending to my garden or working on a design system, I approach each task with the same level of thoughtfulness and attention to detail. This commitment to quality sets me apart as a designer, and I'm excited to bring that same level of care and expertise to your next project.

Product Designer, Design Systems 

Mission Lane / New Richmond, VA / May 2022 - March 2023

• Led the development and successful implementation of 15+ new UI components and patterns, ensuring cross-platform consistency and reducing design debt. 
• Facilitated 50+ contributions from product designers into the design system, fostering a culture of collaboration and shared knowledge. 
• Reduced the number of typography character styles by 22%, and updated the naming conventions to ensure complete alignment to code. 
• Revamped design system documentation, resulting in increased usage and positive feedback from product teams, who found it more accessible, and easy to navigate. 
• Provided dedicated weekly one-on-one mentorship to 7 designers, ensuring proper component usage and Figma proficiency. This personalized guidance led to increased design efficiency and a heightened commitment to consistent design system adherence across the team. 
• Developed a comprehensive library of modular components, enabling the generation of numerous design assets for social media. This initiative significantly reduced design team requests for custom asset creation. 

UX Designer 

Sincro, an Ansira Company / Seattle, WA / Dec. 2019 - Apr. 2022

• Led the effort in creating a UI kit that included 80+ UI components and patterns that significantly expedited the prototyping process and mitigated design inconsistencies.
• Authored comprehensive design system documentation and usage guidelines, resulting in a 20% increase in adoption by design and engineering teams.
• Collaborated with the project manager and developers to ship three new features that were designed and tested based on research and customer feedback analysis, resulting in a 30% increase in user engagement and a 15% rise in customer retention on the website building platform.

Web Designer 

CDK Global / Seattle, WA / Sep. 2015 - Nov. 2019

• Successfully designed visually captivating automotive retail websites aligned with dealerships' brand identity and objectives. Accomplished timely delivery of projects in a fast-paced environment, consistently meeting and exceeding deadlines.

Created 5 uniquely branded marketing websites that played a crucial role in acquiring 20+ new clients in the US and Canadian markets, resulting in a 25% increase in sales.

• Collaborated with the team to streamline the QA design processes, resulting in a significant reduction in design-related issues and an improved product delivery timeline.
• Developed and executed training strategies resulting in contractors and new hires confidently working independently after training completion.

Web Production

DataSphere Technologies Inc. / Bellevue, WA / Jul. 2013 - Sep. 2015

• Worked closely with stakeholders to define requirements, translated those requirements into conceptual design wireframes and mockups, and developed them into functional sites using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for a variety of projects.
• Efficiently navigated a small UI Design team environment and cross-departmentally with a larger development team.

Web Designer

Ed-Web Design / Edmonds, WA / Sep. 2011 - Apr. 2013

• Maintained and updated 300+ small business websites.
• Communicated with clients directly to gather information, created wireframes, and unique hand-drawn design concepts to showcase to clients to gain approval before developing designs into fully functional websites using HTML and CSS, WordPress, and ShoppingCart.

Learn UI Design / Online Certificate

Jun 2023 - Aug 2023

The complete online video course by Erik Kennedy - 54 video-based lessons - Filled with strategies and live examples covering all areas of UI Design.The complete online video course by Erik Kennedy - 54 video-based lessons - Filled with strategies and live examples covering all areas of UI Design.

General Assembly / Certificate of Completion

2018

UX Intensive Course

University of Washington

Certificate , HTML5, CSS3 & Responsive Web Design Certificate

2017

~ JavaScript programming basics

~ DOM manipulation, event handling, AJAX and JSON

~ How to combine JavaScript with CSS and HTML for application development

~ Various JavaScript libraries, including jQuery

~ The latest features of HTML5 and CSS3

~ Responsive design concepts and methods

~ Design principles tailored to how sites interact with various devices

~ JavaScript programming basics ~ DOM manipulation, event handling, AJAX and JSON ~ How to combine JavaScript with CSS and HTML for application development ~ Various JavaScript libraries, including jQuery ~ The latest features of HTML5 and CSS3 ~ Responsive design concepts and methods ~ Design principles tailored to how sites interact with various devices

Lake Washington Institute of Technology / Associate's degree, Multimedia Design and Production

2004 - 2011

~ Graduated on Dean's and President's List