Where I learned the craft
Before the professional work, this is where it started: four solo projects at BYU–Idaho where I ran my own research, tested with real users, and let what I found reshape the design. The polish has come a long way since — but the habits started here.
Estimated Budget Calculator
A budgeting tool for students who never keep a budget — so demanding one would have got it ignored. Four rounds of testing, paper through high fidelity, reshaped three screens; the Results page turned out to be showing the wrong information entirely. The sharpest lesson was a process one: feeding users financial info up front to "help" biased them, so I stopped.
Apartment Communication App
A many-to-many problem: tenants, an onsite manager, and a maintenance tech all have to coordinate. I designed around three personas and real tasks, iterating from paper to high fidelity. Usability testing surfaced interactions between the three roles I hadn't anticipated — and that's exactly what reshaped the flows.
Textbook Sharing
An app to help students find all their textbooks cheaper, on a clear timeline. The best part is the testing story: peers immediately exposed oversights I'd missed — no "add to cart" button, no way to choose rent vs. return dates — a clean reminder of why you test before you polish.
KalorieTrak
A calorie tracker built around one insight from testing: people want quick, simple logging, not long sessions. So I prioritized the two screens that carry the experience — Home and Log Calories — and designed everything else to stay out of the way.