Shannon has worked in the field of user experience design and research for over 15 years. She has grown to be a respected practitioner in these fields and has presented her work at several UPA (Usability Professionals Association) and CHI (Computer-Human Interaction) conferences and in professional journals and books. She founded Sage Research & Design and the Apple/Claris Usability group. Shannon received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from Rice University in Houston, Texas where she specialized in Human-Computer Interaction.

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Donna McKweon-Leacock, Ph.D.

User Experience Research and Design

Donna McKeown Leacock has a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from the University of Oregon. She enjoys applying user-centered design practices to improve user experiences. Donna has conducted numerous usability studies and field research over the years on desktop, mobile, web and TV applications. She has worked for a variety of companies including HP, Nokia, Intuit, eBay, Webvan, Sun Microsystems, Claris, Microsoft, and IBM.

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Lea Cuniberti-Duran

Website Design, Visual Design

Lea loves communication design and started breathing and thinking design since doodling in her father's design studio in the early ‘80s. Trained in typography, print design and photography, she began her career working as a lay-out designer for Conde’ Nast magazines, in Milan, Italy. In the last several years, she has been exploring traditional and digital media as tools to communicate ideas, brands and concepts. Lea's expertise includes screen, web and print design; she has worked for companies such as Medtronics, Philips Electronics, eBay, Cisco and Openwave. She is particulary interested in visual trends and how designs can be targeted to communicate to specific audiences.

Mekayla Beaver, MS

User Experience Research and Design

Mekayla is a design researcher and strategist. Her expertise lies in understanding and uncovering the factors that determine how people adopt and use products, services, and environments. She guides teams from initial user insight discovery, through the translation of these insights into design opportunities and requirements, and on to final product refinement.   Mekayla has developed and guided innovation projects for a wide range of companies and non-profit organizations including Nestle, Daimler Chrysler, Kraft, Target, Eli Lilly, Design that Matters, and Landcare Research New Zealand. She pulls on experience across a wide range of industries including consumer products, packaging, software systems, in-home health products, medical products, food and beverages, and spaces.  Prior to working as a freelance consultant, Mekayla was a lead Design Researcher and strategist at IDEO, a world renowned design and innovation company. 

Anne Russell

Visual Design

Anne's elegant and innovative designs have been transforming software and web applications for over 15 years. She specializes in online visual design: screen layout and design; design reviews to improve the look of existing products; illustrations; icons; and animations for Windows, Mac, and web-based applications. Her wide range of experience includes financial software, e-commerce, telephony, enterprise software management systems, and biotech and medical applications.

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Stacey Ashlund, MS

User Experience Research and Design

Stacey blends her background in software engineering with a strong focus on user needs to provide a customized user experience. Stacey has worked as a usability professional at MyCFO, Infoseek, Lotus, and Digital Equipment Corporation and consulted for companies of all sizes. Her experience includes interaction design, interface audits, designing and conducting user research studies, competitive analysis, product specification documentation, and project management. She received her B.S. in Math and Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her M.S. in Computer Science from Virginia Tech, where her research focused on Human-Computer Interaction.

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Niya C Sisk, MFA

Website Design, Brand Specialist

Niya infuses business brands with relevant, creative touch points help shape consumer behavior. She strives for the right balance of innovation and consistency in all aspects of brand media. Niya leverages her degrees in psychology and writing as well as her background in the visual arts to create elegant solutions that scale to the goals of the organization. Significant design accomplishments include the initial foundation setting visual design for Final Cut Pro, Claris Corporation. As well as, website portal design for APX Environmental Markets, Vonage Mobile and the Transformation Series for Oregon Health Services University. Sisk's articles on color and semiotics underscore the importance of effective symbol and language cues, and have appeared in Communication Arts Magazine, the Design Annual.

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Other Team Members

We have a wide network of talented colleagues with expertise in user experience and related fields such as web development, software development, project strategy, and IT that can be brought in to lend their expertise to any project as needed. Clients will have an opportunity to approve of all team members brought in to work on their project.