Patrick Ward

I joined Flinto to help them double down on their efforts to improve stability and usability. As a QA Designer, my role was to test the Mac and iOS prototyping apps from the perspective of a designer, surfacing bugs, UX improvements, and areas of potential confusion.

• Develop and iterate on a QA test plan that covered all areas of the app
• Design apps, sites, components, and interactions to test the stability and UX of the app
• Reproduce bug reports submitted through Helpscout and HockeyApp
• Submit detailed bug reports in GitHub and conduct follow-up testing to confirm fixes

I kicked off product research at Buffer and was fortunate to grow and lead a team of five researchers. My main focus was on scaling the rate of learning across multiple products with 60,000+ paying customers and 160,000+ weekly users.

• Recruited full-time and part-time researchers to grow the team and expand our abilities to provide insights to the rest of the team
• Identified and executed higher-level research in support of company-wide OKRs
• Managed the research team through regular 1:1s, performance feedback, and mentorship
• Developed user personas to assist the product and marketing teams
• Cultivated a culture of learning and curiosity across the rest of the company
• Empowered the design team to conduct effective research both on their own and in coordination with a product researcher
• Built a database of assumptions, learnings, and confidence levels across the company
• Conducted both moderated and unmoderated research with wireframes and early designs to quickly identify areas of improvement
• Shared insights with designers, product managers, and leadership to influence product decisions and strategy
• Collaborated with data and product teams to identify areas of interest

I provided guidance to customers who were looking to install or customize Theme Trust themes. This included basic WordPress information, plugin suggestions, and HTML/CSS code snippets.

• Answer questions posted in the customer support forum
• Troubleshoot issues by reproducing them and passing them along the the development team

I joined Parnassus Books when it first opened in 2011 as one of their first booksellers. I eventually moved into the Operations Manager role and helped them to launch their website and ecommerce portal. I also launched and managed their First Editions Club membership program.

I studied anthropology with an emphasis on the way language and symbols impact the way people think about the world.