For the past several years I’ve been head of product design and user experience at UrbanSitter. I lead the design across platforms (iOS app, Android app, and mobile web). We’re a small, scrappy start-up with a product that users love! It’s been a amazing deep-dive learning experience (after several years at interactive agencies). Need a sitter? Use UrbanSitter to book a sitter recommended by a friend or another parent at your kid’s school?

Over my professional career, I’ve designed products that help people save energy, save money, and save memories. I’ve helped clients with ambitions of creating peace, creating happiness, and creating revenue. (Ask me which was most difficult.) Notable clients over the past 15 years include Snapfish, WebEx, Dwell, Blurb, Western Union, and Aetna.

I lead cross-disciplinary teams from initial strategy through design and development. The secret to my success is a well-established collaborative process. It calls for ninja facilitation skills and the courage to ask the difficult questions. I have a number of tricks to create empathy for the user and to guide teams into making a good decisions. Research, sketching and iteration are always part of the mix.

I have a BA from UC Berkeley in Political Economies of Industrial Societies (which I can say has been helpful in understanding complex systems). I also studied production design for film at the AFI and studio art in Italy at SACI. I moved to San Francisco in the very early days of the web when all the links were blue. Since then, I’ve lived in Boston and Milan but found myself back here in the fog with rainbow links, my husband and two daughters.

Email
marsha@marshaplat.com

LinkedIn
www.linkedin.com/in/marshaplat/

Twitter
@platdujour