ux/ui designer | accessibility advocate & specialist | front-end developer
In case you were wondering....
A little more about me
Tiffany Pender. UX/UI Designer. Accessibility Advocate & Specialist. Front-End Developer. Coffee and Tea Drinker. Lover of Cupcakes, Tacos and Gummy Bears. Unofficial Gamer. Geek.
Yes, you read that correctly. I am a knowledeable unicorn! I love the web and being creative, I have 10+ years of experience in developing appealing, inclusive and functional platforms and applications. I strive to create beautiful, intuitive, accessible designs that lead to a positive user experience.
When I'm not designing or coding, you can find me gaming on Xbox/Playstation/Switch, cooking, painting, watching a movie, or checking out what's new and interesting in the wonderful world of "webdev" and accessibility (my open tabs are limitless).
a11y = accessibility
Design & Ethical Values
Here are a few things that have guided me along the way.
Progress is not made if everyone's not included. In my journey through UX/UI design and software development, one of my biggest takeaways has been that it's dangerous to go alone! That may be a Legend of Zelda reference, but it reigns true.
Collaboration and inclusion of people with all sorts of different perspectives makes for better experiences when designing, researching, building, making your way through life, and so on. And in that journey I've also learned that everyone has a valued role to play.
I believe in:
A11y & inclusion needs to happen across all layers of a team and company. It is not solely about checking off a legal requirement. Creating better experiences in products and workplace culture for ALL should always be an important goal. This includes hiring minorities, disabled people, women, LGBTQIA+ people, including assistive technology users in research studies, and co-designing.
Gaining perspective by including the users who interact with what we're building informs our decisions in a powerful way. It allows for the building of products and services that make sense and are useful to customers. It helps us to have empathy and think about the humanity of the user.
Burn-out is real. No one person can accomplish all of the things (or a great number of the things) alone. Take the time to build a culture where everyone realizes that we're all human. We need time to think, strategize, be creative, focus, and take breaks to recharge.
Really, what's the rush? In the long run, when you spend the time, energy, and effort up front to really understand the problem you're trying to solve and plan for discovery, research, et cetera, you will come out in the end with a more thoughtful end result.
I know that I personally, will always be an advocate for diversity, inclusion, a11y, and equity, in my work. But it is also important that I feel those same things in the environment in which I work. I'm not an unfeeling robot only present to churn out work.
