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Sharon Austin


Portfolio: sharon-elizabeth.com
Email: sharon -at- sharon-elizabeth.com
Phone: 910-330-2205

Experience


User Experience DesignerOctober 2014 - Present
Northrop Grumman Corporation
Huntsville, AL

  • Providing user-centered design and research support for government and internal contracts
  • Specializing in information architecture work, including content inventories, card sorting, and additional methods
  • Making and collaborating on interface designs with other designers; iterating these designs based upon user and peer feedback
  • Thoroughly documenting interface designs and interaction patterns for later use by developers
  • Creating and conducting user interviews, expectancy tests and usability tests in order to understand user expectations and needs

User Experience Designer/WordPress Support Specialist January 2014 - October 2014
ITS Web Services, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC
  • Analyzing the structure and user opinions of its.unc.edu through content inventories, site maps and analyzing survey feedback
  • Studying user satisfaction and comprehension with a website re-design through usability testing; wireframing for new sites
  • Migrating websites to a WordPress environment and providing customer support for websites hosted in WordPress
  • Writing HTML, CSS and PHP for additional projects as needed; utilizing a Git-based version control system to maintain code

User Experience Intern May 2013 - August 2013
IBM Corporation
Research Triangle Park, NC
  • Created mock-ups for potential modifications to parts of the application called Rational
  • Evaluated existing interfaces as a fresh set of eyes and documented concerns for usability
  • Conducted remote and in-person usability tests; offered usability recommendations based upon the results of these tests
Omeka Theme Developer & DesignerFebruary 2013 - December 2013
Carolina Digital Library & Archives
Chapel Hill, NC
  • Met with University members and affiliates to discuss requirements for websites centered around digital collections
  • Wireframed suggested ideas for themes built using the Omeka web platform
  • Implemented these ideas through HTML, CSS and PHP in a LAMP environment, using Subversion to maintain code repositories
IT Help Desk Student Assistant October 2012 - December 2013
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Government
Chapel Hill, NC
  • Assisted full-time staff in handling Remedy-generated tickets and help requests from School of Government staff and faculty
  • Imaged new computers for staff and faculty and assisted in deploying them
  • Set up peripherals, installed software and handled the setup of other technological equipment as needed
Web Developer InternMay 2012 - August 2012
ICF International
Fairfax, VA
  • Wrote cross-browser compatible HTML and CSS for the Office of Veterans Affairs Intranet website
  • Constructed a map of client offices using the Google Maps API
  • Worked to make PDF documents and websites Section 508 compliant for other government offices

Undergraduate Research AssistantAugust 2011 - May 2012

School of Information and Library Science
Chapel Hill, NC
  • Conducted research on the usability of synchronization tools and analyzed their directionality
  • Aided with populating and writing HTML and CSS to style an online collection of synchronization tools
  • Assisted in developing interview questions to further our research.

Skillset

User Experience/Usability: Wireframes, Usability Testing, Personas, Prototyping, Cardsorting, Content Inventories, Sitemaps
Code: HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, jQuery, Python, Django, Subversion, Git, Responsive Design
Software:Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, Axure RP

Education

Bachelor of Science, Information Science
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill


Activities and Honors

Triangle User Experience Professionals Association, Member, 2012 - 2014
Tennessee Valley User Experience Professionals Association, Member, 2015 - Present