Johnny Servin

From Developer to Designer

During a 20 year career wearing titles like 'programmer', 'web developer', and 'technical marketing engineer', I've been honing a skill most recently referred to as 'design'. Regardless of title, taking on the crunchiest business problems and tirelessly pursuing solutions that makes sense to users and stakeholders has been my passion. I bring the "check your ego at the door" mentality that modern design demands:

• Listening - I ask lots of "why" and "how" questions, and approach problems with a student's curiosity
• Collaboration - Whether facilitating a workshop, sharing a screen, or drawing on a napkin, true riffing only occurs with a "yes, and" mentality
• Iteration - Big to small, general to specific, draw-test-adjust, fail quickly - design success comes from finding a process loop that yields results
• Story-telling - The ability to articulate the problems, the dynamics, the personas and their needs and intentions is key to achieving buy-in and inspiring empathy
• Strategy - I love strategy games with lots of rules, lots of angles, and no luck. I bring the same love to projects - everything has a solution

My goal remains to deliver usable and elegant user experiences, process and service designs, and design-thinking to clients and colleagues. This comes in many forms, from wireframes to prototypes, from user-personas to journey-maps, and from collaborative work-sessions to qualitative research.