JEANNE HALLOCK ENTERPRISE UX DESIGNER

Enterprise UX IS My Passion

I've been designing or developing enterprise applications and internal tools for more than 25 years. I've been working in user experience for more than 15 years.

Currently based in Seattle, I've worked at Microsoft, a start-up dot-com, a global enterprise and done free-lance work. Before working in technology, I worked in small businesses and taught.

As a technologist I've also worked as a tester and a developer. But, I was always more interested in the front-end — how people used a website or application. While learning my third software language, I discovered there was a whole field dedicated to the front-end. I dove head first into UX and found my passion.

My previous work experiences allows me to talk with different team members about their concerns and needs in a way they understand. More importantly it has given me more depth to pull from when creating good design.

My Skills and Competencies

Each charttable shows the number of years of experience I have in each area

UX Design Skills

User Research Skills

General Tools

Soft Skills

  • Empathy
  • Self-motivation
  • Ability to Learn
  • Communication Skills
  • Collaboration Skills
  • Time Management
  • Mentoring & Teaching
  • Positive Reception to Critique
  • Presentation Skills
  • Negotiation Skills

Technical Skills

Soft Skills

  • Empathy
  • Self-motivation
  • Ability to Learn
  • Communication Skills
  • Collaboration Skills
  • Time Management
  • Mentoring & Teaching
  • Positive Reception to Critique
  • Presentation Skills
  • Negotiation Skills

My Design Philosophy

  • Support business goals while empathizing with employees

    My job must support the company's goals first. At the same time, employees will often use the applications I design 85% or more of their day. So, special care must be given to:

    • minimize time thinking about how the application works,
    • minimize the process within the application, and
    • reduce any ergonomic problems within the design.
  • Simplify, simplify, simplify

    Enterprise applications are data heavy by nature. Business owners want to collect and show much of that data. Negotiating is necessary to keep designs as clean as possible so employees are able to complete their tasks and make decisions without having to interpret more data than they need and without making mistakes.

  • Use what employees already know from inside and outside of the company

    Each employee brings their own experience with technology from outside the company. It's important to use UI interaction patterns they're already familiar with. It's also important to use established business language and mental models, first from the industry and then from within the corporate environment. This makes it cheaper to on-board new employees and helps retain old ones.

  • Use tried and true

    Enterprise applications have long shelf lives. That's the reality. Using traditional elements in an application will never win any awards for cutting edge design. But, they keep employees working. By using standard models and language for the industry, employees won't have to second guess how something works and will be able to find plenty of help on line.

  • Research almost everything

    Not only should we be doing usability studies to understand how employees handle our designs, but those designs should be created with UI patterns based on sound psychological and physiological principles. I often research UI patterns to to make sure they work for users, not just because everyone else is using them. I also do research to determine how to modify a consumer UI pattern for use in an enterprise application.

Fun Facts about Me

  • I lived in Italy as a toddler and then in the Netherlands as a foreign exchange student.

  • My hobbies include knitting, playing the mandolin and taking photographic adventures.

  • I won the World Watermelon Seed-spitting Champion for my age group when I was 5.