Shanice Stewart is a recent graduate of General Assembly’s User Experience Design Immersive, with experience in the startup shuffle at Hux and aKoma. In addition to her design chops, Stewart is a wordsmith with a love of literature and research. She’s ready to write a new chapter for a startup with soul.
What’s your current role?
I’m a recent graduate of the User Experience Design Immersive Program at General Assembly.
What startup/tech projects have you worked on?
Most famously, I have worked at Hux as a marketing intern during summer of 2014 while the company was still in Atlanta Tech Village. I hosted a number of customer coffee chats to get a refined grasp of who our users were and how to appeal to them from a branding standpoint. Stanley Vergilis, co-founder of Hux, applauded my writing skills, so we created a blog portion to the site where I shared the chats I had with platform employees and highly engaged customers. With that information, I was able to help with the early stages of crafting a mission statement for the company.
For the last project of my General Assembly course, I worked with another startup, aKoma. I was responsible for coming up with the onboarding process for subscribing readers on the platform. Chidi Afulezi, co-founder of aKoma, was so blown away that he insists that it be included in the official launch of the platform. You can read more about it on my portfolio.
What tech/tools are essential to you?
I use Axure and Adobe Creative Suite the most to improve usability testing by creating dynamic prototypes.
How do you stay informed & on top of emerging trends?
I like to follow companies whose work I really admire on LinkedIn. Those innovative companies are usually setting the trends as well as releasing reports on trends they observe from being so established in the industry. I also follow interesting design blogs on twitter like UXMag and CreativeBloq.
What are your best technical or creative skills?
As far as something that I am closer to mastering compared to Axure, research is definitely essential to me. I like learning about how people uncover insights because it helps me to perfect that skill. Research is fun because one seemingly small nugget of information can lead to such great success.
My best creative skill is writing. I have been writing since I was 7 years old. I write almost every day in my journal. It is the thing that comes the most natural to me of anything that I do or have done.
What’s next on your list to learn?
Next on my list to learn is Visual/Industrial Design. Having spent so much of my free time on Tumblr in high school tumbling into a wide range of stuff, I have developed a very personal and unique taste. So, I want to be more involved in the process of translating research into the final product that consumers enjoy.
Why the interest in startups and the technology field?
Startups provide the opportunity to make your mark and create a great story to tell, win or lose. At a startup, you’re not just a number. You feel intrinsically important. Even if you catch yourself not feeling important, you actually feel guilty about not doing enough because at a startup you matter, just like every second on the clock makes-or-breaks the company.
Plus, technology is such a dynamic industry: it saves lives; it entertains; it connects people; it disappoints you and it inspires you all in one sitting. Who wouldn’t want to be part of that?
Interested in working for a startup, mid-sized company, or a corporate giant?
More than anything, I’m interested in learning. I graduated from The University of Georgia and completed the UXDI course at General Assembly – Atlanta under JD Jordan’s amazing teaching last year. I’m ready to apply all I’ve learned inside and outside of the classroom in a work environment where a good mentor is provided. That is my biggest priority.
