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Who are we?

Rachael Harr

My education and work experience have been a continuous exploration of the relationships between businesses and users. As an undergraduate at Drexel University, I studied design and merchandising. The blend of business and design appealed to my analytical and creative sides, respectively.  My work experience includes doing marketing for a top women’s apparel designer, sales and merchandising under a fashion industry veteran and product development for a home textiles manufacturer.  Working in production, wholesale and retail, I gained a thorough understanding of the linear process to deliver a product or service to the user. I learned how each segment added appeal to the customer, but, for me, the value of working with the customer was always overlooked.

It was not until I pursued my Master of Industrial Design degree at University of the Arts that I discovered an integrated, collaborative design process. By involving users as co-designers in the earliest stages of ideation through development, the “guess work” was removed. I have experience applying a user-centered approach to a range of projects involving organizational, cultural and social systems. In addition, I completed an internship with a service design firm using methods such as observation, interviewing, analysis, storytelling and feedback to understand the high and low points of a user’s experience . We analyzed how the tangible and non-tangible components — products, communication, people and environments — could work together to shape richer experiences, causing increased loyalty and sustainable growth. The projects I have worked on through school, as well as my internship, affirmed many of my previous convictions, and I finally felt my work was contributing to improvement of human experiences.

I have worked on several projects involving internal business processes, ranging from looking at how to improve communication during meetings to how to create a collective understanding of role responsibilities and workflows. Although my experience involves working both with internal participants of organizations and their external customers, collaborating with specialists from disciplines unique to the issues being solved allows a user-centered design process to be applied to a broad assortment of challenges. I enjoy collaborating across disciplines, because it allows designers to expand our knowledge base and make more informed decisions to most effectively serve clients and users. This thesis blended my background in consumer products, packaging, marketing and sales with an improved, more holistic view of the consumer goods market. Rather than creating another product to offer consumers in the wide array of goods already out there, this project looked at the role of products and retail within our culture, how they affect peoples’ spending, and in turn, how consumption affects our economy.

Jeff Lopez

As an undergraduate at James Madison University, my studies were based in fine arts and design. Merging these two fields gave me a unique set of skills, enabling me to think visually, find creative ways to represent my ideas, appreciate the value of feedback and idea sharing, and embrace failure as a means to continue towards a better solution. My professional experience includes both managerial and technical positions, with my most recent occupation involving working on a diverse team at a large custom printing company. Though each individual on the team specialized in a unique area, everyone worked towards a common goal. This strategy not only stressed the importance of communication, but also bringing experts together to achieve something that no single person could. I was aware that such organizational systems existed in the design realm, and experiencing it firsthand partially influenced my decision to further my studies in design.

The Philadelphia Green Kitchen project, the first team initiative in which I participated during my graduate studies, introduced me to the concept of thinking in systems. I found that the project wasn’t just about making something; rather, it was about the big picture – solving a problem within the context of our culture, society, and basic needs. In addition to this, discovering the benefit of a user-centered approach substantially changed my design methodology. Interacting with actual people within the target audience bolstered our research and afforded more accurate design direction, resulting in a more applicable design solution. I utilized this approach again during an internship by becoming involved in a project that brought members of a Philadelphia neighborhood together for a workshop in which they determined a practical solution to a city problem.

Other important design concepts and principles, such as affordances, interactivity, and feedback, have been addressed in projects throughout my graduate studies, helping to improve ease of use and develop solutions that engage users on multiple levels. My most recent project, a collaborative effort involving students with different backgrounds, paired my team with a business partner to find ways to expand marketing opportunities and establish a brand identity. By analyzing information, identifying a target audience, and developing storyboards to illustrate concepts, we were able to create a range of approaches to connect with potential consumers.

Please contact us at rharr@uarts.edu and jlopez@uarts.edu if you have any thoughts or questionsabout our work.