Who I Am

Jack is obsessed with problem solving, and his career in tech reflects that: stints in UX, customer support, and technology consulting. He loves understanding the intersection between people and technology and working to improve the overall quality of others' lives through digital tools.

His background in consulting helps him with people interactions, as well as understanding what information is relevant to which party. His education in Linguistics and Spanish helps him be empathetic to different cultures and standards of living, as well as makes him a global citizen.

My UX Journey

My UX journey has been pretty unconventional. I got my BA in Linguistics and Spanish at BYU, but while studying abroad in the summer of 2015 I realized I no longer wanted to pursue an academic career and explored such avenues as marketing, consulting, speech-language pathology, and professional translation.

Jr. UX Designer, Omadi

2 months before graduating with my Bachelor's, I found the BYUPMA: BYU Product Management Association. Product management sounded like a good intersection between people and technology, and after some exploration, I signed up for a mentorship program.

In February 2018, after 6 months working as a junior UX designer, I got the worst news I could’ve received: I was being laid off. With not enough experience to be a mid-level designer and not a whole lot for a junior designer either, I took a job in customer support at Qualtrics to make ends meet while I tried to figure out my next step in my UX journey.

Masters in HCI, Iowa State University

After roughly two years at Qualtrics, I was admitted to the Master’s program in Human-Computer Interaction at Iowa State University for the Summer 2020 semester. My studies have given me experience in design thinking, UX research, and cognitive science. This has helped me grow as a designer by:

Helping me learn more about the design field in general,
Teaching me about cognitive constraints to consider when designing
Providing real world experience conducting product research
Helping me navigate design constraints,
Pushing me to create handover documentation for more technical stakeholders
Causing me to reflect on the ethics of design and how to best influence users

UX Researcher, Qualtrics

While a grad student, sporadic opportunities came up to do UX research part time at Qualtrics from October 2020-June 2023. During that time I:

Led 3 usability studies and co-lead a fourth
Co-lead a generative study around our digital experience platform focused on usage stats.
Led a product usage study delving into the reasons why our users weren't adopting a specific use case into their processes

This experience truly helped me understand how to work with a cross functional team (typically a researcher, designer, PM, and possibly an engineer) and how to be succinct and relevant with the information I was sharing out.

UX Design Student, Springboard

After almost 4 years of non-design work, and realizing I still truly needed relevant experience designing, I decided to enroll in and got accepted to the Springboard UX Design bootcamp program, which I finished in May 2023. This program opened my eyes to how much I love UX, from discovery research to interaction design, and helped me develop my design skills.

My Interests

Outside of UX, here are some of my other interests. I'm happy to discuss any commonalities with you!

Strength training - I've always had a commitment to health since being in college because of my family's history of health issues. Since June 2017, I've worked with a personal trainer and have seen incredible growth and change in my personal appearance and health. This applies to UX because of my commitment to personal improvement: I have a growth mindset, and it's important to me to overcome obstacles and accomplish what I need.
Travel - New cultures, foods, and people are always an interest of mine. I feel the most alive spending time learning about other languages, new customs, and unique beliefs.
Strategy games - Thinking about strategy is always intellectually stimulating to me. This comes out in playing board games such as Settlers of Catan or Secret Hitler or playing video games (I prefer Nintendo) like Pokemon or Fire Emblem.
Sports - Sprots is fascinating to me. This ties in to my love of strategy: I like thinking about how to win or overcome obstacles in order to achieve a goal.