Dan Hiester

Experience

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  Vector Solutions Law Enforcement

  Sept 2009 - Nov 2014

  Jr UX Designer (Visual Designer)

  This was a mature, agile startup dedicated to helping first responders save lives, through training management, professional networking, and an online training marketplace.My work with the training management suite included a drag and drop tool for designing database queries; a system for navigating between the dozens of screens related to a training program; an in-house CSS framework to enable the agile development team to adopt a component oriented development style; and much more.For the professional networking platform, I designed an onboarding experience that used red notification dots to walk new users through the features of the platform—having them carry out tasks, rather than showing pictures of the tasks. Show less

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  City of Bloomington, IN

  Dec 2014 - Jun 2016

  UX Designer / Frontend Architect (UI Specialist)

  The City of Bloomington’s IT Department builds and maintains the city’s website, and systems used by government employees serving the public.I led a redesign of the city government website with an updated, friendly, and responsive design. I used secondary user research to win buy-in for reorganizing the navigation based on our constituents’ needs, rather than sorting them by City department.I redesigned a road closures tracker for drivers to see when and where roads are scheduled to close. The app replaced a manual process, helping City employees deliver more helpful information with significantly less effort—and won a Code For America Technology Award. Show less

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  Goodthings

  Jan 2017 - Mar 2019

  Frontend Engineer (React)

  Improved the accessibility of Mind Yeti, mindfulness & meditation app for children, by adding captions to meditation sessions.During a major redesign of Mind Yeti, I designed and implemented telemetry trackers to give the product team insights on whether our new navigation was being used, or overlooked.While creating a hand-held guided tour app using React, I worked closely with designers to componentize designs, and repurposed a WordPress instance as a UI to give content specialists control over what content and visual elements appear in the React app. Show less

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  Sterling

  Apr 2019 - Nov 2022

  I contributed to a new React application that will replace a legacy platform, while acting as a UI and IxD expert embedded in the engineering team. This positioned me to be an advocate for users and a thought partner with Product Managers, leading one of my managers to call me their team’s secret weapon.I also contributed new features to components in the company’s internal React component library, and implemented smoother keyboard interactions for a workflow that was heavy on mouse clicks. Show less As a UX Designer working remotely with a team based in Malaysia and the Philippines, I redesigned the workflow for new hires uploading identification documents. My design offered more transparency to candidates, making them more informed about which documents to upload, and why it helps them move forward in the screening.Protected candidate privacy by designing external and internal facing UIs that facilitated requests for sensitive information via secure systems.Designed features using the design system built by the US org’s UX and engineering teams, and helped the engineers I worked with make a plan on how to ramp up. Show less Worked on a redesign of a signup for SMB owners to order background checks. Our MVP had a long and dense signup form that confused and intimidated customers from signing up.Created a style guide with React.js, and components written in JavaScript and TypeScript. By collaborating with the team’s designer on visual details like font sizes and grids, I enabled engineers to build pages that looked great, without needing pixel-perfect mockups.Upon launching the redesign, we doubled the conversion rate of new small business owners signing up and ordering background checks, compared to the MVP.Contributed design ideas to group brainstorming sessions, in which I started with the user problem, and designed down to the technology layer. Show less

  • Frontend Engineer (SDE II)

    Jan 2021 - Nov 2022

  • UX Designer

    Jul 2020 - Jan 2021

  • Design Engineer

    Apr 2019 - Jul 2020
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  Goodthings

  Dec 2022 - Feb 2024

  UX Designer / Web Developer (Elementor, Webflow) / Webops / Automation Integrations

  Goodthings is an all-remote marketing agency headquartered in Seattle with clients in industries ranging from AI to housing construction.Rebuilt layouts in a WordPress website from rigidly designed template pages to flexible pages with Elementor, creating a style guide that enabled cross-functional partners to create bespoke page designs that stayed on-brand.Redesigned internal search results listings to a layout that is faster and easier to skim.