About Me

Kelley Van Pelt
Design Leader

Writing a paragraph about myself is so much more difficult than writing a paragraph about UX design. I am Texas born and raised. Houston shaped my childhood and my current city of Austin has been the scenic backdrop for my college years and raising my children.

Parts of my family have been spread all over Texas since before Steven F. Austin even thought to visit (that's the wild west if you're counting). If you aren't from Texas, I'll say you got here as fast as you could.

For me, user experience design brings together three of my passions: design, psychology, and tech. It is the best opportunity for me to use my empathy in a compassionate way, by taking action to improve user experiences.

I believe good relationships in a workplace team are essential. Everyone has a voice with something valuable to say and we can all improve with insightful feedback - myself included.

I'll leave you with the best advice I was ever given, life experience or otherwise -

Just start, then fail fast and test often.

Company of ONE (or MANY)

Collaboration can't be beat, but the challenge of leading product & UX projects on my own is also sweet.

I have loved my experience leading and collaborating with other UX designers as a team. Innovating with great minds is an amazing experience and an opportunity to learn from each other. Some of my closest friendships are through UX collaboration with other designers.

But I have also thrived with the excitement of leading ground-up UX redesigns for startups and at the global enterprise level. These projects have a shine all their own with wide-open possibilities and truly passionate clients.

Now

  • Working on a new idea
  • Defending user needs
  • Learning watercolor
  • Planning a(nother) camping trip
  • Asking my kids to user test first
  • Travel to Fiji
    Postponed :(
Professional

My Skillset Favorites

Figma
95%
After Effects
85%
Adobe CS
95%
HTML5
75%
Domain Servers
78%

My Experience

When I create for the user, my goal is a product that is useful, useable, and beautiful.

In UX projects I draw on my trusted experience with empathy. It is central to a joyful user experience with less friction.

I believe this is the type of product that leads to user engagement, conversion, and ultimately user retention. It is so amazing to be in a field where empathy and joyfulness are so integral.
About Me
2021

Cision

Full Time - Helping Cision to reduce friction and steer towards a seamless, intuitive experience that empowers users across a diverse and robust PR SAAS platform built on big data.
Design Manger
2020

PackDeck

Contract - Working with another fantastic startup to elevate their enterprise SaaS platform with Design Thinking and UX methods.
Product Designer
2020

Why of AI

Contract - Identifying and discovering clear target users through UX research surveys. Focusing the pivot of product MVP and prioritizing features with data based solutions from user insights.
UX Researcher
2020

The Mom Project - Here Here, Inc

Contract - Helping an amazing startup redesign their website with a new UI focus on User Centered Design and Content Strategy.
UXUI Designer
2019-2020

Immersive Program - UT Austin

Received certification training and instruction in UX/UI design methodology, user-centric design research, design thinking, visual prototyping and wireframing, interface design, storyboarding, visual design theory, web prototyping with HTML5 and CSS, interaction design with JavaScript and jQuery, and more.
Fellow
2009-2019

Van Pelt Design, LLC

I facilitated hosting and server management for variety of clients and our in house website. User experience advisor, also developed, updated, and completed troubleshooting for the content of many client websites. It was my role to create private client ftp access to grid server space.
Website Administrator
2005-2009

MGP2 Photography + Productions

Created complete video deliverables from raw footage, b-roll and scripts. Imported and edited footage, designed and implemented motion graphics, consulted directly with clients and managed or produced all additional elements to handoff video projects as completed deliverables.
Senior Video Editor