Sharon A. Orienza

*** **** *****, **********, ** 15214 Mobile: 412-***-**** Email: ad2tfk@r.postjobfree.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/shaz_designs Skype: sorienza

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sorienza/ Website: https://www.sorienza.com

About Me

I’m a Senior User Experience Strategist and Leader with a master’s degree in HCI. I have over 15 years as a practicing UX Generalist and 7 years as a team leader in various industries: from Healthcare to Financial and Legal as well as Energy Management. The size of the organizations I've been a part of have spanned from startups to Fortune 200s. The bulk of my background lies primarily in the R&D realm for Enterprise platforms, IoT Device monitoring applications and SaaS-based applications.

Work Experience

Cardinal Health – Dublin, OH (Remote in Pittsburgh, PA) • August 2022 – Present

Sr. User Experience Manager

Industry: eCommerce - Pharmaceutical

Currently developing and leading a remote UX Team of 7 fulltime employees and 4 contractors across 4 time zones throughout the United States. Team consists of 3 Lead Product Designers, 3 Junior Product Designers, 4 UX/UI Designers as well as a Systems Design Manager for Project Jarvis: a complete redesign of Pharma’s B2B Order Express eCommerce platform. Partnering with the Strategic Ops Division. I am responsible for developing new processes and guidelines to implement UX processes and research into their Agile process for my team to follow during requirement elicitation and the scoping of work. Implemented and now report out to the governance board the roadmap for current and future IA work as well as the development of a navigation that affords flexibility for future growth. Facilitating Design Thinking workshops throughout the Pharma division of Cardinal Health to consider alternatives to current offerings and services.

Staffed a 6-person team in 6 months’ time.

Grew the team 30% with the addition of 3 more team members in 10 months’ time.

Implemented new UX DesignOps processes where none previously existed. Processes incorporated collaboration with Strategic Ops, Development, as well as Project and Product Managers, reducing the ambiguity of requirements and decreased time to create layouts by several months.

Launched the Onboarding Site which decreased the complexity of onboarding materials and streamlined the onboarding process from months to a couple of weeks.

Currently developing a UX Playbook which illustrates UX Research and Design processes to evangelize UX within the organization – outside of the JARVIS/Pharma project.

Vertiv – Columbus, OH (Remote in Pittsburgh, PA) • March 2022 – August 2022

User Experience Manager

Industry: Critical Power Infrastructure – Enterprise Applications

Several members of the development team and I were brought on from Eaton when the applications we worked on were purchased by Vertiv.

A working Manager for a global UX Team of 4 fulltime remote employees: 2 Product Designers in the US, 1 UX/UI Lead in Italy and 1 Jr. UI Designer in China. Collaborated with the Director of IT and the Strategic Ops team to define UX research and design processes that integrated into current software development and manufacturing processes. Developed corporate presentations to evangelize the ROI of UX throughout the organization and facilitated weekly Design Thinking workshops throughout the NPDI division.

Implemented a DesignOps and project intake system within their SmartSheet processes and deliverables to track and communicate the adoption of UX to Business Stakeholders, Product Management and Development Teams. System was tracking over 23 projects across the globe after implementation.

DesignOps system created identified the high priority/profile projects where the UX team could make the most impact to the company’s offerings.

Doubled the adoption of UX methodology into current projects within 3 months’ time.

SYNOPSYS via Softworld – Boston, MA (Remote/Hybrid) • August 2021 – March 2022

Lead User Experience Engineer (Contractor through Softworld)

Industry: Cybersecurity Software – Enterprise Applications

Accepted a short-term contract role while laid off during the pandemic. Was brought on to help develop the maturity of the UX initiative when their UX Director suddenly left the organization. I led a team of 3 fulltime remote employees: 2 UX Generalists and 1 UI Designer through a continued redesign of an enterprise desktop platform into a SaaS-based application. Project spanned over multiple development teams within the organization. Work included UX discovery research, user and workflow workshops with business and development teams and iterative prototyping with SMEs.

Implemented a DesignOps system with Project Manager via Kanplan boards within JIRA to track and communicate progression of work to Business Stakeholders, Product Management and Development Teams.

Established regularly recurring discovery meetings with Product Management to deliver user stories and to define workflow diagrams to communicate with Development.

Produced 6 monthly Lunch and Learn seminars that were offered throughout the organization to evangelize UX research and design methods as well as Design Thinking workshops offered by the UX team.

Eaton – Coraopolis, PA • May 2019 – June 2021

Principal Sr User Experience Engineer (Consultant from BWS - converted to fulltime)

Industry: Solar Energy and Electronics – Enterprise Applications; IoT Monitoring Platforms

Brought onboard when several BWS applications were purchased by Eaton. Spearheaded UX Strategy and Design for Eaton’s COE of Applications’ BidManager, Foreseer and Brightlayer Industrial products. Plans combined generative and evaluative research along with product design requirement gathering goals for the build of new SaaS products which monitored IoT devices. Plans were customized to support Business Unit’s, Stakeholders’ and Users’ goals/needs, focusing primarily on best practices within the development confines and complexity of device and integrating software. Structured Roadmaps to identify opportunities and to build out a versatile UX team. Represented UX initiatives during Leadership Project Planning meetings for scheduling and budgeting of projects and coordinating work with Eaton's global teams.

Discovery research conducted re-framed the hypotheses and scopes of two projects, resulting in a savings of over $100K in the first three months that I began in R&D.

Implemented DesignOps processes for requirement gathering which reduced time spent from discovery to development to one-third of its historical average.

Built and led a small hybrid team from scratch. Team consisted of 2 fulltime on-site employees and several remote consultants on an as needed basis: 1 Business Analyst, 1 Visual Designer, 2 UI Developers and several offshore UI Designers and Dev Consultants.

Projects: Edison Metering Application, Lincoln Project for EV Chargers, Project Washington Plant Monitoring, BLI, NTLT Mobile, BidManager Takeoff Studies.

BlueWave Solar (BWS) – Boston, MA • November 2018 – May 2019

Lead User Experience Architect (Consultant – Project Bought by Eaton)

Industry: Solar Energy Development

Developed UX/CX strategy plan to drive product planning decisions based on user research. Research plan outlined a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods that focused on supplying BWS insight into their customer base and determining market opportunities for offerings of alternative energy monitoring. Research resulted in the production of numerous service design assets: identifying personas of potential customers; mapping customer journeys from their initial research of alternative energy options through the progression of applications and portal wayfinding paths found throughout BlueWave’s products and services.

Thomson Reuters via TalentNet – Sewickley, PA • May 2017 – November 2018

Lead Principal User Experience Architect (Contractor)

Industry: Legal, Billing and Matter Tracking Software

HCI contractor for Thomson Reuter's Legal eBilling Software Suite. Contracted for a year and contract was extended for another 6 months until Blackstone bought the software suite.

Developed and implemented UX research strategy and created functional designs for two major redesigns within the Thomson Reuters family of software: transitioning old desktop applications into SaaS, cloud-based models. Through UX Research methods and Design Thinking workshops, I facilitated discovery and design requirement sessions that re-framed initial efforts. UX Design responsibilities also involved the development of the UX research strategy roadmap, writing user scripts, creation and testing of prototypes as well as reporting out findings to stakeholders for approval and resource estimations.

In addition to research and design responsibilities, I led a hybrid distributed/remote team of five fulltime employees and one consultant: 2 UX/UI Designers, 1 UX Developer, 2 hybrid UX Researchers and a Graphic Designer.

Requirement gathering and UX Research and Design initiatives I implemented resulted in a 200% increase in SUS (System Usability Scale) scores: bringing initial testing scores of low 40s for one application up to 80.

Introduced requirement elicitation meetings which resulted in proof-of-concept prototypes with documentation: significantly improving communication between Business and Development departments while eliminating ambiguity in requirements.

Introduced OKR plan for User Research and identified baseline metrics to determine and illustrate successful outcomes.

Co-founded with 2 other UX designers the design system for TR’s legal application suite. Developed a design kit of over 30 components within a 2.5-month timeframe. Maintained library and coordinated development with UI developers.

Projects: Elastic Search for eBH and Mattersphere, eBH’s Admin Site and CRM tool, eBH Tracking, Billing and Reporting Modules.

Autosoft DMS – West Middlesex, PA • August 2016 – April 2017

Lead User Experience Engineer (Consultant)

Industry: Automotive, Software

Initially brought on to develop their UXD strategy and execute user research for a major software redesign of their enterprise DMS (Dealership Management System) and CRM System. Project involved transitioning the desktop-based DMS software application into a SaaS cloud-based application. Was kept on retainer after initial research work concluded to establish a UX presence that would be embedded within their development team.

Introduced field study discovery work into their work processes and conducted research with dealerships which led to identifying specific user pain points and development opportunities in accounting and sales modules.

Developed and led a hybrid remote team in less than 3 months’ time where none existed before. Team consisted of 4 fulltime employees and 1 intern: 1 UX/UI Designer, 2 BAs, 1 UX Research Consultant and a Visual Design Intern.

Projects: UX Strategy Roadmap, Sales F&I Overhaul, Accounting Module Design.

UPMC Healthcare via Logix Guru – Pittsburgh, PA • October 2015 – July 2016

Lead User Experience Strategist (Contractor via Logix Guru)

Industry: Healthcare/Health Insurance, Software

HCI contractor that developed UXD strategy and conducted UXD research for a major enterrprise software redesign of HealthPlaNET: transitioning the desktop software application to a more streamlined, SaaS cloud-based application. Facilitated discovery and design requirement sessions with SMEs and stakeholders both in-person and remotely. Developed UI guidelines and patterns for junior designers to utilize in developing prototypes.

Supervised 2 fulltime, in-house employees: 1 Junior UX/UI Designer and a Graphic Designer.

Pluralistic walkthroughs I conducted with users of the current app and the usability testing with wireframe prototypes identified previously missed requirements and uncovered opportunities in Hardlines, Pharmacy and Psychology modules of products.

Projects: UX Strategy Roadmap, UX process and Kanban implementation into TFS (web version of Visual Studio), User Research: Assessments, Medication Search and Review, Timeliness and 30-Day Readmit Regulatory Discovery.

FedEx Ground via TEKConnexion – Pittsburgh, PA • March 2015 – October 2015

Lead User Experience Designer (Contractor)

Industry: Logistics

Conducted research projects for a large mobile and cloud-based software development initiative which included competitive research, field tests and usability tests. Conducted brainstorming sessions and requirement gathering sessions with mobile team. Advised Dev Manager on software purchases and resource allocations for development of a UX team. Supervised and mentored 1 fulltime, in-house Junior UX/UI Designer.

Evangelized UXD awareness throughout FedEx Ground by conducting bi-weekly brown bag sessions.

Pluralistic walkthroughs conducted identified gaps between user’s needs and stakeholders understanding of business requirements. Videos of interviews swayed business to re-evaluate several components of the application’s requirements.

Discovered feature opportunities and developed baseline metrics during Pluralistic Walkthroughs.

Reduced Time on Task of scanning damaged packages by minutes per package in the new application.

Projects: UX Strategy, Navigational Hierarchy Mapping, Generative UX Research Planning Initiatives for Dock Manager Mobile and Longhaul/Loadboard projects.

PNC Financial Services Group – Pittsburgh, PA • June 2011 – February 2015

Online UX Product Manager, Senior UX Designer

Industry: Financial Services Industry – HR, Customer Care, eBusiness and Payments

Product Manager and advocate for IA/UXD initiatives for Online Banking—Mass Market which covered both B2B and B2C offerings. Previous position: was the Lead UX Designer and Product Manager on the development of Pathfinder, a $10M initiative that presented multiple HR resources, benefit applications and management tools into one convenient portal for PNC employees, and outside HR Management and Administrators.

Conducted user needs assessments and created user-focused, high-end business requirements for over 15 projects.

Defined and published taxonomy structure for the creation of a self-service search for the implementation of a FAQs knowledgebase that could be repurposed for automating 3 Customer Care initiatives.

Partnered with the SEO team to analyze consumer trends and identified development opportunities that helped establish the initial OKRs the produced the redesign of the consumer-facing site.

Coordinated with Risk, Legal and Customer Care Departments regular reviews of progress of product development and training documentation.

Initiatives: Pathfinder, PNC Online Banking Refresh, CRM and Form Integration with Smart Search, FAQ Self-Service Project.

Thermo Fisher Scientific – Pittsburgh, PA • June 2008 – June 2011

Information Architect and UXD Specialist

Industry: eCommerce/Biotechnology Industry

Led IA/UXD efforts for website enhancements on FisherSci.com, a B2B and B2C eCommerce website which generated over $1B in revenue a year. A contributing member of the team that completely revamped both the backend and frontend of the Thermo Conduit site, enhancing the research workflow and buying experience for researchers and lab assistants. Defined the taxonomy structure for the Endeca Search Project and developed and maintained the rules for search results. Guided and directed offshore teams for backend projects such as the Admin Tool for Super Users and Search/Browse functionality on the FisherSci College Bookstore sites.

Executed heuristics assessments and SUS tests of existing sites and the new UX designs to establish a baseline for improvement and created a comparative score to illustrate to Business Stakeholders the UX benefits.

Developed Usability Scripts and facilitated over 200 usability tests.

Spearheaded development and maintained a Pattern Library for the redesign of the Thermo Conduit site.

Conceived, produced and maintained the first-ever Competitive Features Analysis report for Fisher Scientific.

Projects: Search Utilizing Endeca’s Search Engine, Thermo.com eComm Website Redesign, User Account and Admin Screens and Procurement Application Enhancements, DNA Configurator Tool and Lab Design Wizard.

Education

Master of Science (MS), Human Computer Interaction (HCI) • 2016

DePaul University, Chicago, IL

3.88 GPA. Member of Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society, Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE) and Golden Key

UXD Mini-Master’s Certificate Program • 2009 Bachelor of Science (BS), Design

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ SUNY College at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY

UXD Certificate Cum Laude

Practitioner of Human-Centered Design • 2019 Fundamentals of Innovation Certification • 2019

Luma Institute, Pittsburgh, PA Luma Institute, Pittsburgh, PA

UX Product and Strategy Expertise

SaaS Product Design UX Strategy and Plans Wireframing User Flows and Storyboards Iterative Prototyping

SME Interviews Persona Development Lean UX Design Thinking Facilitation Competitive Audits

Conceptual Designs Requirement Elicitation Agile Design Remote Team Collaboration Workflow Diagrams

UX Research Expertise

Qualitative Research Contextual Analysis Wireframing Pluralistic Walkthroughs Quantitative Research

Heuristic Evaluations Affinity Diagramming A/B Testing Usability Testing & Scripting Contextual Walkthrough

Competitive Audits Analogous Research Survey Writing Research Plan Development Customer Journey Mapping

Service Design Tree Diagramming Card Sorts Personas & User Scenarios Information Architecture

Software

Photoshop Sketch Adobe CS Axure JustinMind Google Workspace Balsamiq Optimal Workshop

Microsoft Invision Figma Lucid UserZoom Google Analytics Miro UserTesting

Confluence Jira Mural Visio Adobe XD SurveyMonkey Pendo

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