Sam CJ Walker

About

Experienced UX Designer with a focus on user experience design for federal agencies, including the Library of Congress and the VA. Skilled in accessibility, research, and design operations, with a history of working in SaaS products and academic research tools. Background in urban planning and transportation, enhancing design thinking with a strategic perspective.

Experience

• Information Architect - Consultant · Department of Veteran's Affairs2024 – 2025

  Mentored designers and engineering teams, empowering them to deliver work that aligned with the VA's Design System and Accessibility standards. Focused especially on the Service Design and Information Architecture of va.gov - assuring consistent navigation, page placement, and workflows for the millions of veterans who rely on the site.

• Lead User Experience Designer - Consultant · Library of Congress2022 – 2024

  I had the opportunity to consult on two contracts for the Library of Congress. A future-facing strategic contract, identifying usability improvements in patrons’ experience of searching for Library items. In collaboration with a researcher and two developers, I delivered detailed documentation of issues and opportunities in the current solutions, and proposed user-centered design recommendations for the next 2-5 years of the Library's technical roadmap. A modernization effort for the Library of Congress's National Library Services for the Blind and Print-Disabled (NLS), consisting of an accessibility-focused, screenreader-first update of the library circulation software serving 350,000 blind and low-vision library patrons.

• Senior Product Designer · Puppet Labs2021 – 2022

  Greenfield work on a new tool, in the B2B SaaS and on-prem DevOps tools space, supporting infrastructure as code. Designed a brand new product for a niche market segment in Configuration Management. Working with a small team of engineers, and collaborating closely with Product and Marketing, designed and developed a working prototype from scratch in 3 months.

• Senior Product Designer · Cayuse LLC2018 – 2021

  B2B SaaS and on-prem software for electronic research administration -spanning grant applications, research project management, federal compliance, auditability, and data reporting. Cayuse was in a stage of high growth - while I was steering the UX practice, we expanded from 5 freestanding products to an integrated suite of 23 products. I introduced Design Operations including establishing an in-house design system and integrating UX into Agile practices. And I hired, mentored, and scaled the UX department from a solo practice to a team of 5. I design greenfield apps, legacy uplifts, and integrated acquired products. And I defined the accessibility business case and technical implementation needs to meet WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines.

• UX Designer · Zapproved2017-01-01 – 2018-01-01

  Created SaaS products for corporate legal teams. Defined features, assisted with user stories and feature requirements, created journey maps and low-fidelity concept sketches, designed features, maintained a high-fidelity product prototype, created detailed specifications for developers, performed UX validation on release candidates. Worked collaboratively with Product and an Agile dev team. Managed a UX intern.

• UX Content Strategist · Zoho Corporation2017-01-01 – 2018-01-01

  User experience education and evangelism for product managers, UI developers, and marketers new to user-centered design. UI microcopy localization for 40 SaaS apps.

• UX Designer and Researcher · Freelance2012-01-01 – 2017-01-01

  Moderated focus groups and 1:1 interviews for research projects in education, transportation, and public health. Recommended updates to qualitative research methodology, wrote and revised interview guides, performed qualitative and mixed methods data analysis, and reported findings to stakeholders. Identified key performance indicators and designed interactive reporting dashboards for nonprofits and public sector departments. Conducted usability audits for mobile and web apps, and presented UX design recommendations and UI responsiveness improvements to stakeholders including founders, product owners, and developers. Designed websites using Wordpress and Weebly.

• Administrative Coordinator · Oregon Health and Science University2016-04-01 – 2016-12-01

  Managed faculty scheduling for 2 clinics and 2 critical care units, coordinated faculty hiring searches, monitored HIPAA and research grant funding compliance.

• UX Content Strategist · The Good2016-01-01 – 2016-01-01

  Designed and implemented usability assessments focused on conversion rate optimization. Conducted qualitative analyses of clients' user engagement data.

• UX Researcher · Empirical UX Design & Research2015-01-01 – 2015-01-01

  Usability research with a focus on user testing: study design, recruitment, moderation, analysis and reporting. Work in consumer & enterprise software, mobile apps, IoT, and e-commerce spaces for clients including Intel and Jaguar Land Rover.

Education

• Portland State UniversityMaster’s Degree, Urban Planning / Behavioral Research Methods
• Marlboro CollegeBachelor’s Degree, Urban Planning / Anthropology
• Code FellowsFull-stack bootcamp
• RewiredObject-Oriented UX (OOUX)

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