About | isral Duke, Designer

What I Do

I am a Product Designer. Some will say I’m a full stack designer. Whichever you call what I do in your organization, this means I do Interaction Design, User Interface Design, User Experience Design, and User Research.

As a plus, I can even do some coding — but I am not a frontend developer. This means I can have meaningful production discussions to bridge the gap with frontend developers while I focus on the users’ needs and the business goals.

My Journey

I began life as a graphic designer. But as I designed web sites and sports marketing iPad apps, I noticed that some user interfaces were easier than others to understand. This led me to learn about the principles and psychology behind information architecture, user experience, user interface, interaction design, and how the mind interprets information on screens. Since trying to help my grandmother send and receive cat photos on her phone, I began paying attention to and learning about accessibility.

Accessibility is Important

It’s immoral to lock out users. It’s also bad business to deflate your potential customer base. My W3C certification for semantic markup and accessibility empowers me to meaningfully contribute to team efforts. At any stage of planning and design, from research to information architecture to development, I can contribute to a meaningful, accessible experience. To this end, I recently gave a talk at a local Google Developer Groups chapter about creating Accessible, Friendly Content.

What I Want in Work

I want to work fully remotely so I can spend time with family in the United States, Europe, and the United Kingdom. At work I want to help produce digital experiences which produce real life value for people. So, tell me what’s on your mind?

Personal

In my free time, when I am not doing grad school work, I like to draw, read, and ride bikes with my wife, get coffee with friends, enjoy warm weather, and go to art museums and galleries. A perfect day for me is spending the whole day with friends at coffee shops and art galleries (preferably those with a mixture of classical and abstract art).