Heather Finn

Resume

Heather Finn

Portfolio: http://heatherf.com

Washington, DC area

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hfinn

I am a product designer, researcher, and developer with a broad range of skills, including user experience strategy, user research, visual design, analytics, and front-end code. I love to solve hard problems to improve the lives of others and make the world a better place for all.

Skills

User Experience

Strategy, visual design, accessibility, user testing, wireframing, prototyping, A/B testing, information architecture, user research, product management

Software & Tools

Figma, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, UXPin, Sketch, Wordpress, Google Analytics, Mixpanel, GitHub, Bubble.io, Nocode tools

Computer Languages

HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Familiar with several backend languages

What People Say about Working with Me

“I would like to take a moment to thank you for giving us the opportunity to work with Heather and AARP. Heather is such a knowledgeable, helpful, and proactive team member. The best compliment is that I would hire her to work for us immediately! Combined with her cheerful attitude, she was such a delight to work with. Thank you again for lending her to us. We got so much out of this 2 month experience. I know our brand and customer experience is going to be that much better because of the insights AARP and Heather gave us."

Colette C.
Founder and CEO
Joylux

"Working with Heather was a dream. She is clearly an expert in the fields of analytics, SEO, web design and writing. Her work was very smart, thorough and clear; it gives us a sound and powerful place to begin drafting the next phase of our website. She was very engaged and even provided useful suggestions on how to present her findings and suggestions to management. Would definitely recommend working with her!"

Carolyn T.
Manager of Digital Engagement
Stop Hunger Now

Professional Experience

Senior Product Designer

FreeWill

February 2022 - present

New York City, NY

  • Design flows, interactions, and experiences on freewill.com, specifically for non-cash giving tools
  • Cut the stock gift flow in half by reducing and consolidating the number of steps to donate stock
  • Designed a new section in our partner portal to allow nonprofits to receive requests for information or tax acknowledgments from donors
  • Redesigned the stock gifts section in donor accounts, allowing donors to download tax acknowledgments and easily identify submitted gifts requiring attention
  • Designed an internal dashboard and workflow tool to support our operations team in processing stock gifts for nonprofits
  • Led multiple experiments to inform product roadmaps
  • Facilitated research and internal design workshops to improve our products
  • Presented company-wide on running tests for product validation and problem framing to help level up the organization in product best practices
  • Designed and built a philanthropic advisor chatbot for our annual hackathon

Lead UX Designer

AARP, Innovation Labs

October 2021 - February 2022

Washington, DC

  • Founding member of AARP's first startup accelerator program
    • Collaborate with a variety of AgeTech startups to help them understand and meet the needs of the 50+ market
    • Mentored six startups with hands-on research, strategy, and design services, resulting in significant changes to thinking and approach for products
    • Conducted user testing, focus groups, and other consumer research to provide insights on the 50+ market for each startup
    • Provided valuable design advice and support to over a dozen startups for improving their products for the 50+ market
    • Clearly defined our offerings and ensured the startup experience is consistent, repeatable, and scalable
    • Identified and built many processes to improve our efficiency as a team so we can spend more time and effort on value-adding activities
  • Provided UX services and support for the first version of the AgeTech Collaborative platform
    • Took a broad vision from the SVP and converted it into a working prototype to gain alignment on direction from all stakeholders
    • Built an MVP to start discussions with potential participants and gain feedback to iterate on messaging and value
    • Defined requirements for a solution for self-service among participants as well as selection of a platform which cut down significantly on the time and cost to develop a custom solution fitting our needs
    • Provided UX consultation on the experience for different participants
    • Defined and built a data dashboard to keep a pulse on the platform experience
  • Initiated and facilitated teamwide discussions and alignment on key strategies
    • Storyboarded and presented the entire startup experience from learning about AARP Innovation Labs to joining the AgeTech Collaborative and beyond
    • Collaborated with the team on a creative exercise to refine our messaging and descriptions of what we do in the AARP Innovation Labs
    • Proposed improvements to the way we use our various brands to strengthen our user experience for external audiences
  • Directly contributed to AARP making the Fast Company list for Best Places to Work for Innovators in 2021

Innovation Product Designer

AARP, Innovation Labs

Feb 2019 - October 2021

Washington, DC

  • Collaborate with a variety of AgeTech startups to help them understand and meet the needs of the 50+ market
  • Designed and optimized products created within AARP Innovation Labs, as well as guiding research and discovery efforts
  • Designed the HomeFit AR mobile app with chatbot component helping people determine what changes to make their home accessible as they age
  • Designed and built the AARP Community Connections website within a few days to help communities come together during the coronavirus outbreak
  • Completed user research and design for Savo which allows people to connect and help others during times of grief
  • Created the website Hacking Menopause to announce our developer challenge and highlight research around menopause
  • Redesigned the website for Let's Be Well, creating a design system, updating the Shopify theme, and managing the design and technical side of the project
  • Created responsive mobile design for Confetti, including user testing of all actions related to building a book
  • Built, designed, and performed analysis for the first version of AARP Perks, a browser extension for discovering AARP discounts on websites
  • Created wireframes and other early prototypes for testing over a dozen concepts
  • Established processes and templates to expedite the design and development process
  • Directly contributed to AARP making the Fast Company lists for Best Places to Work for Innovators and Best Teams for Innovation in 2020

Principal Product Designer

LearnZillion

Apr 2018 - Jan 2019

Washington, DC

  • Design and develop flows, interactions, and experiences on learnzillion.com
  • Invented a patented content authoring and customization tool that drastically reduces the effort that goes into instructional content design allowing teachers to focus their energy on the content they are creating and not on becoming visual designers
  • Created a customer data dashboard to drive conversations around implementation of curriculum across a district
  • Significant improvements to the lesson builder, improving usability and consistency greatly
  • Designed a way for different customer sites to share collections of content easily
  • Redesigned the user account settings to create a more delightful sign up experience
  • Enhanced our wikipage functionality to allow authors to select different ways to display content, including accordion and card navigation options
  • Continued research and improvement for the slide builder, taking user feedback and optimizing it further

Senior Product Designer

LearnZillion

Jan 2016 - Apr 2018

Washington, DC

  • Design and develop flows, interactions, and experiences on learnzillion.com
  • Improved upon lesson plan authoring experience with user research guiding decisions, significantly decreasing the need for external tools via a visual slide builder on the platform
  • Increased engagement with lesson plans by 15% through display of related content
  • Pushed digital curriculum forward with experiments in virtual manipulatives and HTML canvas
  • Research, design, and front-end implementation for online practice, LearnZillion's first student-focused feature
  • Design and front-end implementation for district assessments and reporting
  • Updated our style guide to make it easier for designers and developers to quickly reuse existing design patterns
  • Expanded internal knowledge and strategy with brown bags on A/B testing and content strategy, as well as leading book studies on Mental Models and Hardboiled Web Design
  • Performed user research and analysis of search, current authoring experience, and prototypes for possible future product features

Product Designer and Front-end Software Engineer

LearnZillion

Oct 2014 - Jan 2016

Washington, DC

  • Areas of responsibility included visual design, interaction design, and front-end development
  • Worked with stakeholders and users to define and plan requirements for new features
  • Designed and wrote front-end code for an integrated lesson plan authoring tool based on stakeholder interviews and user research
  • Added LRMI, clicker, and touch support to content
  • Completed competitive analysis of other education tools on the market, forming the foundation of our competitive analysis library
  • Researched technology integration in the classroom, gathering data from multiple internal and external reports

Digital User Experience Manager

World Wildlife Fund

Jun 2011 - Sep 2014

Washington, DC

  • Managed the design and user experience for the WWF website: worldwildlife.org
  • Worked with stakeholders to define design for online campaigns by facilitating design discussions around goals and audience, creating interactive wireframes, and creating layouts using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
  • Wrote and managed the nonprofit's first Digital Brand Guidelines to ensure design consistency across digital channels
  • Defined the design direction for the August 2012 site redesign, including the responsive design and strong use of imagery
  • Designed and wrote code for WWF's first responsive donation form, using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript along with integration with Convio/Blackbaud's API
  • Implemented the nonprofit's first A/B testing plan, resulting in improved layouts leading to higher conversion rates:
    • 83% increase in e-newsletter sign-ups from the main sign-up form
    • 12% increase in conversions for the Online Gift Center
    • 35% increase in e-newsletter sign ups from the homepage while simultaneously improving revenue from the homepage by 50%
    • 26% improvement to mobile revenue in the Online Gift Center and a 23% increase in mobile conversion rate
    • 12% increase in conversions from the Advocacy Center homepage
    • Lowered the bounce rate on the homepage by 14%
    • 0.5% increase in online year-end donations
    • 12.9% increase in click-throughs on the Travel Program page, lowered the bounce rate by 23.2% and more than doubled the conversion rate for click-throughs to partner tour company
  • Launched the first in-house user testing plan, incorporating site surveys and remote testing tools to help drive design updates on the site
  • Designed and wrote the code behind the popular and responsive game series Animal IQ, making it quick and easy to replicate for other species by writing extensible code and detailed documentation
  • Assisted with code updates in Ruby on Rails for the WWF site and Content Management System

Web Producer

World Wildlife Fund

Oct 2008 - Jun 2011

Washington, DC

  • Managed the daily content updates on the web site through the Content Management System
  • Designed and wrote code for the nonprofit's first mobile web site
  • Designed and wrote code for new page layouts on the site, including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript development and integration with the back-end of the Content Management System
  • Managed a quarterly e-newsletter through Convio, including HTML build-out of the back-end templates
  • Designed and wrote code for the popular Find Your Inner Animal quiz in Flash and integrated it with WWF's CRM software, resulting in hundreds of thousands of new e-newsletter sign-ups
  • Created and managed donation forms through Convio, including the nonprofit's fully customized donation forms using the Convio API
  • Analyzed and refactored code on the site to reduce page load time
  • Award for Outstanding Contributions to Marketing Communications

Volunteer Experience

I have provided over $100K in services for free to nonprofits.

Web Design Consultant

Jan 2023 - present ● Richmond, VA

Website audit of their current site. Ongoing consultation for improving their site.

Web Designer

Jan 2023 - present ● Washington, DC

Redesigning pages within the current site at https://dashdc.org. Providing technical support to make website updates easier for the organization.

Web Design Consultant

Jan 2023 - present ● Arizona

Website audit of their current site. Ongoing consultation for improving their site.

Web Designer

Dec 2021 - present ● Newtown, PA

Website audit of their original site. Designed and built out a new site using Shopify at https://beasage.org.

Web Design Consultant

Nov 2021 - Feb 2022 ● Williamsburg, VA

Completed a re-imagining of their website through interactive wireframes. Designed and built out a new site on Wix.

Web Designer

Nov 2020 - Mar 2021 ● Charlottesville, VA

Worked with the organization to reimagine their website at yellowdoorfoundation.org to help raise awareness and funds for the nonprofit.

Web Design Consultant

Dec 2015 - Dec 2017 ● New York, NY

Worked with the founder to design and build out front-end of the site.

Web Designer

Nov 2016 - Dec 2017 ● CA

Worked with the founder to design and build a Wordpress site at https://wanderlove.org.

Web Site Auditor

Jan 2016 - Feb 2016 ● Raleigh, NC

Completed a thorough review of analytics and provided a detailed analysis with recommendations for the goals, audience, content, and design of the site.

Web Designer

Oct 2015 - Dec 2015 ● New York, NY

Worked with the founder to redesign the nonprofit's existing site, using style tiles and wireframes to define design direction.

Web Designer

Feb 2015 - Jun 2015 ● Oakland, CA

Worked with their Co-Founder & CEO to redesign and build the nonprofit's existing site at upwardroots.org.

Web Designer

Sep 2014 - Dec 2014 ● San Francisco, CA

Worked with their Founder and CEO to plan, design, and develop a one page web site.

Education

University of Nebraska

2001 - 2005

Omaha, NE

  • Bachelor of Science (BS), Management Information Systems
  • Internet Technologies Concentration
  • Psychology Minor
  • Graduated Magna Cum Laude