Rob Fay

ROB FAY
DESIGN STRATEGIST
THE EXPERIENCE IS THE PRODUCT

ABOUT

ROB SEEKS TO BUILD DESIGN-CENTRIC COMPANIES THAT PASSIONATELY FOCUS ON DELIVERING GREAT CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES.

ROB FAY

DESIGN STRATEGIST

His Mission

ADDRESS ASSUMPTIONS. ENCOURAGE EMPATHY. IGNITE INNOVATION.
ROB IS AN EXPERIENCE DESIGNER. HE CREATES PRODUCTS AND SERVICES THAT ARE EASY AND FUN TO USE. HE TAKES THE TIME TO UNDERSTAND CUSTOMER NEEDS AND GOALS. HE MAKES IT SIMPLER, NO MATTER HOW HARD IT IS.

RESEARCH.

Rob leverages both qualitative and quantitative user data to help inform design decisions. He hears what customers say but focuses on what they do.

STRATEGY.

He views problems from a holistic systems perspective and attempts to break down silos and affect organizational culture change. All in the name of customer-centered problem solving.

DESIGN.

Design does not just apply to products and services. What does it mean to design an organization that is customer-centric? Design-led companies outperform others by 200%! Let’s win together. Reach me at hey@robfay.com to discuss.

WHAT HE DOES.

Rob is a strategic global business professional with over 20 years of business leadership and development experience who identifies market opportunities, develops plans for delivering cohesive customer experiences, and delivers results by leading initiatives through the development process. He is a passionate advocate for the holistic customer experience by developing vision, managing the design of product solutions, and leading research initiatives.

WHAT HE ACHIEVES.

He is able to connect diverse groups of people and identify and communicate stakeholder information needs to executives, technical staff and customers alike. This combination of specialties gives him an empathic ear for listening, an eye for observation, a desire for collaboration, and a passion for taking complex issues and finding simple solutions to please both customers and shareholders.

HIS EXPERTISE.

Rob has a teaching and counseling background, which serves him well as he seeks to convey the importance of gaining empathy for the customer experience. With a background in product design, he knows what it means to advocate for customer needs and goals, and to make data-driven business decisions that reflect both qualitative and quantitative metrics. Some of Rob's expertise includes Training (e.g., design thinking, customer research, product design), Coaching (e.g., agile, LeanUX), Measurement (e.g., KPIs, usability, satisfaction, VoC, CX / UX maturity), Design (e.g., information architecture, interaction design, organizational design, user experience (UX), customer experience (CX), employee experience (EX)), and Research (e.g., interviews, task analysis, usability testing, card sorting, surveys).

Portfolio

ROB HAS WORKED ACROSS INDUSTRIES ON COMMERCIAL, STATE, AND GOVERNMENT PROJECTS.

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), like many federal agencies, is often undergoing long-term digital transformation initiatives. Within the last few years, a vast majority of divisions adopted lean and agile methodologies into its work practices. But as an agency with a patient-first mission, Rob was brought on to help a division lead human-centered design transformation efforts. Rob led the creation of a Center of Excellence, comprised of education, best practices, and coaching. Rob leads design thinking workshops with hundreds of customers, coaches product teams to help them better integrate UX into agile workflows, and demonstrates how service design can break down organizational silos and lead to improved products, services, and policies.
Allegis Group
Rob was brought onto a large software development initiative to create engaging digital solutions to help recruiters, their clients, and job seekers. Given that product development was not this organization’s main focus, they built a team from the ground up, including the formation of a user experience team. Rob created and led a team of designers and researchers. Because design thinking was unknown to the company, In addition to research and design work to support product teams, Rob worked to evangelize human-centered design concepts and its return on investment through workshops and engagement with leadership.
K12
Rob created user experience artifacts to support software development efforts as K12 Inc. prepared for an IPO. He created vision and requirements documentation for three significant system development efforts. He communicated design solutions through artifacts including sitemaps, wireframes, task analysis, competitive analysis, and process flows. He also led the design and development of a microsite to support company marketing initiatives.
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art was seeking to overhaul the digital representation of its collection, so Rob worked with a team by designing some screens representing social capabilities, such as sharing and bookmarking selected works.
Patent Office
Rob worked on three large projects for the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO). He wrote specifications, conducted user research, and designed wireframes and prototypes on both internal patent systems and customer-facing financial transaction systems. He also worked on the organization’s pattern library.
Prometric
Rob conducted stakeholder interviews and created sketches and wireframes to represent an administrative dashboard.
National Institutes of Health
Rob consulted on a redesign of NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) web site. He leveraged web analytics to understand the types of people who visit the site, created personas, conducted a competitive analysis, and made recommendations for site organization based on this research.
Anybill
Rob created wireframes for this project, with the goal that an information-dense set of forms could be simplified for customers.
Santa Fe Flea
Rob worked with a team to create the Santa Fe Flea web site, including social media, rich images, calendar of events, and changing season themes using WordPress.
American Institutes for Research
Rob worked with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to update the organization of their site. He met with various stakeholders and performed multiple card sorts to determine the best customer-centered web site organization of topics.
Blackboard
Rob was instrumental in the research and design behind Blackboard’s flagship product, Blackboard Learn. He created and led the company user and design research program, he created and curated company pattern library to provide consistency in design solutions, he designed and prototyped solutions for communicating specific user experiences on multiple devices, and he developed and implemented metrics to measure and ensure product quality.