David Parmelee
Verified Expert in Design
UX Designer
Sunbury, Victoria, Australia
Toptal member since May 3, 2018
David uses UX research, strategy, and design to help organizations better understand and serve people. Drawing from 18+ years of experience spanning UX, software development, and business, he is the principal UX strategist for a large global nonprofit. He has also helped startup founders secure over $10 million in new funding, with two of those companies acquired by Fortune 500 companies. David is an early adopter of UserTesting.com (over 4,000 sessions as a client), OptimalSort, and Treejack.
Portfolio
David Parmelee Consulting
My UX Design Process
DeKalb County, Georgia, Sitemap
Coaster Crew Redesign
Consulting Site Personas
Experience
- User Experience (UX) - 9 years
- Usability Testing - 8 years
- User Personas - 7 years
- Wireframing - 7 years
- UX Strategy - 7 years
- Axure RP Pro - 6 years
- Interaction Design (IxD) - 5 years
Tools
- Axure RP Pro
Work Experience
Senior UX Strategist
Cru
- Created an innovative new user research method for an organization-level customer experience project (still ongoing). As the principal researcher, I ran extensive user interviews, surveys, and synthesis for over 1,800 participants.
- Served as the organization's leading expert on three industry-standard user research platforms since 2019. I have over 4,000 experience sessions on UserTesting, including over 3,000 as a client (researcher) from 2013 to present.
- Created and ran research studies for a 5,000+ page web property, an intranet, an enterprise application for fundraising, and several mobile apps.
- Earned UserTesting's highest-level certification (Advanced) in June 2024 (current through June 2028).
- Created new proposed information architectures and new product visions for several products.
Product Designer
Hitachi Vantara
- Performed design vision casting to help the company market a hardware maintenance product to a new vertical.
- Created user stories and vision-casting prototypes for a new framework to unite several major product lines.
- Contributed to the team’s kits to standardize project discovery and user research efforts.
- Participated in a workshop in Portugal, which examined ways to relate multiple product lines from the several companies that merged to create ours. Presented to two C-level Hitachi Vantara executives and one of their counterparts from Hitachi Ltd.
Owner | UX Strategy Consultant
Thrill & Create
- Collaborated with C-level executives on user research, information architecture, interaction design, and product strategy.
- Designed the user experience of the DC Trails Hop On Hop Off Tours app, which has received thousands of downloads through the app stores for iOS and Android, and has helped raise DC Trails' average rating on Yelp by 19%.
- Conducted user research, created a new information architecture, and prototyped navigation improvements for a large global consumer goods company, leading to a 20% increase in monthly active users for an intranet web application.
- Designed responsive websites, web applications, and mobile apps for clients, often bootstrapped or funded startups.
- Ran usability studies, card sorting, tree testing, user interviews, and surveys.
- Wrote and self-published UX for Development Shops, an eBook that teaches other technical people about user-centered design.
- Hosted More Than an Interface (>UI), a video series on topics at the intersection of UX and development.
- Graduated from Double Your Freelancing Academy, which helped freelancers use their skills to generate more revenue for their clients. Topics included positioning, market research, services, messaging, automation, social media, and authority-building.
- Used UserTesting.com since 2012 and OptimalSort and Treejack since roughly 2014. I still use all of these tools in my current role.
Software Developer
Bay Bridge Decision Technologies
- Prototyped a new module for the company’s flagship product, a long-term forecasting, analysis, planning, and workforce planning product for contact centers.
- Consulted other BBDT departments on usability-related matters.
- Mentored a new developer weekly on topics that included human-computer interaction.
- Performed maintenance, development, and feature improvements for the company's main products.
- Interviewed candidates for open positions on our software development team. The company hired three of these candidates.
- Collaborated with an offshore development team in Indonesia until Bay Bridge decided to bring all development onshore.
- Successfully recommended better development tools to management after seeing how deficiencies in our team's existing tools hurt team productivity.
Junior Software Engineer
Orbit Logic
- Performed full-stack development for STK/Scheduler, a satellite mission scheduling application for Microsoft Windows.
- Demonstrated ability to come up to speed in a new domain quickly by becoming the company's only developer to earn a Satellite Tool Kit (STK) Certified Rocket Scientist certification after only a few months on the job.
- Won a spot bonus for speeding up a Microsoft Excel macro so much that it gave answers to a potential customer within minutes instead of days.
- Began to occasionally work remotely in this role. Also occasionally worked remotely during my next position and have now worked remotely almost exclusively as an independent UX consultant.
- Regularly collaborated with the company's president, Vice President, and other upper management as the only full-time developer responsible for STK/Scheduler.
Associate Software Engineer
Integral Systems (acquired by Kratos Defense & Security Solutions)
- Performed Java web services development for phase A of a large U.S. government contract.
- Performed full-stack development for a small C# thick-client application for Microsoft Windows.
- Filled the role of a configuration management (CM) specialist temporarily while Integral was looking to hire one.
- Maintained project schedules for multiple development teams and releases in a Microsoft project.
- Chaired weekly change control board (CCB) meetings for a project team of about 30 people.
Programmer Analyst
CSC (sector merged with SRA International to create CSRA)
- Performed integration testing for a financial application which has processed refunds for tens of millions of U.S. taxpayers.
- Served on multiple tiger teams alongside senior subject matter experts as a result of recognition for high performance, despite having only a few months of industry experience at the time.
- Created test plans, coordinated test execution with related specialists, and validated test results.
- Successfully shipped multiple releases of IRS PRIME CADE and assisted in code reviews.
Education
Advanced Certification in User Experience
UserTesting - Australia
Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science
University of Maryland - College Park, MD, USA
Certifications
Satellite Tool Kit (STK) Certified Rocket Scientist
Analytical Graphics, Inc.
Skills
Tools
Axure RP Pro, Excel 2010, Apple iWork, Apple Pages, Apple Numbers, Vim Text Editor, OptimalSort, Treejack, FogBugz, Mercurial, Satellite Tool Kit (STK), Usertesting.com, Miro, Adobe Experience Design (XD), Google Slides, Google Sheets, Google Docs, Apple Keynote
Platforms
WordPress, Windows, Figma, OS X, Mobile, Android, iOS
Languages
C#, C++, Visual Basic 6 (VB6), Java, HTML5, CSS
Industry Expertise
Transportation & Shipping, Education Technology (Edtech)
Other
User Testing, UX Research, Web UX, UX Design, Research Synthesis, User Research, Usability Testing, Wireframing, User Experience (UX), Tree Testing, Unmoderated Remote Usability Testing, User Surveys, Personas, User Personas, Research, Research Analysis, Web Design, Registration & Sign-up, App UX, User Interface (UI), Design Consultation, UX Audits, UX Analysis, UX Assessment, Rapid Prototyping, Tourism, Social Networks, Communities, Competitor Analysis & Profiling, Roadmaps, User Modeling, Windows UI Design, Quantitative User Research, Software Development, User Interviews, Stakeholder Interviews, Empathy Mapping, Website Audits, Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), User Onboarding, UX Process, UX Wireflows, Consulting, Freelancing, UX Prototyping, Responsive Design, Agile Software Development, Usability, Card Sorting, Remote Usability Testing, UX Strategy, Ideation, Interaction Design (IxD), Information Architecture (IA), Critical Thinking, User Flows, Analytical Thinking, User-centered Design (UCD), App Design, Annotated Wireframes, Notes, Infragistics, Web Services, IBM Mainframe, Persona Design, Goal-directed Design, Cluster Analysis, Sitemaps, Business Development, Business Positioning, Prototyping, iOS App Design, Cross-platform, Redesign, Website Redesign, Navigation Redesign, Visual Design, ZURB Foundation, Theme Customization, Attractions, Pitch Decks, Product Vision, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), Mobile Web, Landing Pages, UI Design, Web App Design, Online Shopping, Desktop Web Design, Mobile Web Design, Foundation CSS, Financial UX, SaaS, iPhone, UX Flows, UI Audits, Fortune Global 500, Fintech, Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), Digital Agencies, eCommerce UX, Biotechnology, Microcopy, Product Strategy, Qualitative Research, User Stories, User Requirements, User Retention, Client Management, Conversion-driven UX, Ebooks, Typography, Color Schemes, Content Management Systems (CMS), Empathy, Market Research, Market Research & Analysis, Use Cases, UI Style Guides, Sketching, Project Planning, Project Management, Writing & Editing, Scrum, Agile UX, Human-computer Interaction (HCI), User Experience Design, User Empathy, Product Design
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