Mark DiSciullo

My work reflects balancing my left-brain design activities (user research, analysis, information architecture) with my right-brain design activities (visual design, interactivity, storytelling). It’s an effective and fun balancing act!

I have been an independent UX consultant for 15 years working with companies ranging in size from small start-ups to large international corporations. My actual title is User Experience Strategist, as I often play many roles - researcher, information architect, interactive designer, art director and designer.

Here’s just a bit of what we can review in our PivotPlanet sessions:
• Discuss, what, from your current background, can be applied to get you started as a User Experience (UX) professional today
• What you truly need to read up on, follow, and understand to bring immediate value to your clients, your teams, and your projects
• Various aspects of UX, and what's the process for getting it right every time
• The pro's and con's of being an independent contractor verse being part of a larger organization
• How user experience methodologies can be applied to not only web and mobile design, but for improving the quality of life, increasing productivity, and generally making the world a happier place
• And anything else you want to ask about the profession I love!

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I started out in visual design, animation and motion graphics. During the dot-com boom, I transitioned into web design as an art director. As the industry matured, I became more immersed in user experience because it allowed me to be more of an advocate for the people most impacted by my design decisions.

Early on in my career I was involved in a lot of innovative "user experience" projects (I was doing UX before UX was cool!) for Sony, Nike and Kodak. I did a lot of early UX work within the financial industry where my designs were making life easier for people...and also making them a lot of money!

I love gaining insights from the people who will actually be using what I design. That way I can improve upon my ideas and craft the best experience possible. My goal is to create designs that simplify and streamline people’s lives.

My most recent accomplishment was leading the complete UX redesign of all the retail web properties (w/eCommerce components) for the world’s largest membership society, IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers).

“Test twice, develop once." This is one of my battle cries during the design process.
You can test a concept once and make changes. However, if you don't test a second time, you go into development without truly knowing if your changes made the design worse or better. Most importantly, this nugget of wisdom clearly articulates the value UX brings to the table. Development is expensive. UX insures it's done right the first time so your client DOSEN’T have to build/repair it again later.

As a PivotPlanet client, I want you to understand the importance of the UX discipline and how much of an impact you can make in this world. UX is usually just associated with web/mobile design and/or business applications. In reality, UX methodologies can be easily transferable to other areas and can be used to influence and design any product, service, retail space, business process etc.