User Experience Fanatic
Product Designer
Maker of All-the-Things
Front-End Developer
Motion Graphics Artist
Ron Merrell
As a young boy I grew up on a farm in southern New Mexico raising pigs, sheep, and horses. I always loved to draw and wanted to be an artist when I grew up. So I entered Brigham Young University as an Animation major and decided I didn’t want to sit in a cubical and stare at a computer screen all day, so I switched my major to pre-dental. Now I sit in a cubical and stare at a computer screen all day, and I LOVE IT. I have truly found my passion in life. At my core I am a creator, a builder, and innovator. Design is how I create. Life is so much better when it looks good.
Design is not just what it looks like or what it feels like. Design is how it works. – Steve Jobs
I started my career in the tech industry in the shipping department, taping boxes and printing FedEx labels and worked my way up into a web designer role. I then moved on to user interface and user experience(UI/UX) design where I can take my eye for design and make a decent site into a productive and delightful experience for the user and the site owner.
I love design, and I am pretty dang good at it!
What I Do
Testimonials
Ron was always a pleasure to work with. He was focused and positive, especially at a time when things were unstable with our team transitioning from QA to development. As the team learned new programming languages, Ron was always the one in the know. He helped the team learn both Ruby and JavaScript, which was spectacular considering Ron was learning this all by himself. As it became necessary to define processes and Software Development Life Cycles for the team, Ron often took charge and inspired productive discussion on the matter. Later, as Ron and I were moved to the SRS Gamification initiative, he was quick to learn, and even quicker to do. He took initiative to create and Admin Portal for the system and produced a very nice functional login portal inside a week producing work on the front and back end, designing the page and writing necessary web services. He is a productive worker, a flexible person, and a great teammate.
Clients
Resume
13+ Years of Experience
Education
2004-2010
Brigham Young UniversityPre-Dental Program
I started school headed for the Animation program at BYU, when I decided I wanted to be a Dentist, but as fate would have it I ended up working as a designer through college and found my initial passion for design was just too strong.
Experience
2021-Current
ProgrexionAssistant Director of User Experience
- Foster a strong design practice and influence product strategy across three team initiatives , and make a strong impact on product execution and quality
- Lead, grow, and develop an embedded UX design team
- Design for iOS, Android, and web
- Establish and maintain strong partnerships with other departments Progrexion
- Elevate discovery and research skills across the organization
- Lead and share customer-centric research
- Recruit, hire, and develop great designers
2020-2021
Tuebora Inc.Director of UX
- Establish a competitive UI design system and pattern library for our new built from scratch SMB product, specifically designed to be easier to use for a less technical market.
- Played an analytical role by implementing a new User Research program/cadence and presented my findings/recommendations for adjustments in the product features and product strategies to business stakeholders.
- Collaborated with each product department (i.e. product development, design, and marketing departments to align company goals and initiatives and fulfill our product development roadmap.
2017-2020
KeyedIn SolutionsCreative Director
- Complete projects in a rapid pace, using UX user research to inform design decisions.
- Develop and implement new design processes and standards for the company.
- Lead all creative projects in both a hands-on and oversight capacity from pitch to execution, including a top to bottom re-brand, 2 website redesigns (emphasizing SEO, & conversion), video production, document and print material, while growing the company’s ARR total by over 70%.
- Managed all members of the creative team, both in-house and contracted members, offering day-to-day task direction as well as long term professional design guidance, while giving design team members adequate freedom to grow and succeed in their role.
- Create and deliver on an annual creative strategy plan, establishing a core creative vision with tangible creative goals/milestones. Helping stakeholders understand the over all mission of the creative team, while guiding the direction of the department.
2015-2017
Periscope HoldingsSenior User Experience Designer (UX)
Established UX design as the first stage of application development, instituting a user-centered design (UCD) approach.
Overhauled our entire web application to optimize it’s user experience. The newly optimized application catapulted new sales and existing customer upgrades
Researched, strategized and launched UX improvements that allowed us to beat out multiple competitors for a $1.2M multi-year contract with the State of Oregon.
2013-2015
Property Solutions (Entrata)Senior User Experience Designer (UX)
Researched our users’ everyday processes and behaviors via user testing sessions.
Established internal interfaces patterns for rapid prototyping and wireframing.
Coded functional HTML/JS prototypes for quick hand off to development teams.
Conducted remote, in-person, beta, and internal user testing sessions.
2013
Active NetworkUI / UX Designer
2009-2013
Mobile Productivity Inc.Graphic / Web / UI Designer
User Experience Skills
User Interviews
95%
A/B Testing
85%
Moderated Remote Usability Studies
92%
Concept Testing
90%
Design Skills
Web Design
99%
Print Design
99%
Logo Design
99%
Graphic Design
99%
Motion Graphics (GFX)
85%
Coding/Other Skills
JavaScript
75%
PHP
65%
HTML / CSS
100%
Video Production
89%
Video Editing
85%