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As the City of San Antonio's first-ever Experience Architect, Louise spearheads human-centered design practices and guides user experience, content management, information architecture, usability, and UX training programs. Her quest to improve user experiences began in 1999 when she became the first instructor of a technical Web Design course with a strong User Centered Design component.
Louise began as Web Design Analyst with the City in 2009, then led the City’s Web Design Team from 2011 to 2019 through standing up the Web Design shared services team and a major redesign and platform change. In mid 2019 she stepped from her role as IT Manager of the Web Design to team to her next role as Experience Architect working with cross-functional teams and reporting directly to the CTO, Kevin Goodwin.
Louise just completed a two-day UX training for the Innovation Academy Cohort 7 and would like to introduce more training opportunities for everyone from content creators to management.
A Certified User Experience Analyst (CXA), Louise served in the U.S. Coast Guard (first job at 17 while still in High School) and has many theatre and film credits. She enjoys mingling art and science; for example, creating fused glass art works using sound waves that make these unseen patterns visible with fused glass.
What led you to a career with the City?
I was working as a consultant focused on SharePoint and UX for a Microsoft Gold Partner but started looking for something more local, not as much travel. From my early career in the Coast Guard, I have always leaned toward service and was interested in the possibility of working for the City.
I saw a posting for what would basically become a Web Design Analyst. I loved the mix of tech and design that you need with Web Design so I applied. The City also had great benefits, so looking at total compensation, a reduction in hours, the chance to service my City, and the job focus itself, it was a good fit.
What does a Domain Architect do?
Facilitates, authors, plans, and designs the experience process to improve the experience of residents, customers, and employees.
Utilizes a variety of skills and knowledge in User Experience (UX), Design Thinking, Human Centered Design (HCD), digital design/interaction disciplines and methodologies. Helping shape CxG (Customer Experience Governance) effort and Total Experience (TX) with principles of Trust, Quality, and Inclusion (access, usable, useful).
I work with colleagues from ITSD, C&E, Innovation, DEIA, and 311 to name a few. We’re working to introduce a Consistent User Experience (CUE) standard, promote awareness, provide training and toolkits (around design language & brand, accessibility, usability, and plain language writing), show how TX improves return on investment (ROI), and metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure how we’re doing.
Can you share some of your experience working on the new City website?
The cross-functional team from ITSD Web Design, C&E and many others are working on the SA.gov transformation. They are the ones that are doing the amazing work of bring the new website to life. My role is mainly as Experience Architect, but I also bring a little bit of experience from previous web transformations.
One of the many interesting tasks is User or Usability testing. This involves asking San Antonio residents to complete a series of tasks while speaking out-loud. There are so many insights with this type of testing method. It helps to inform us if we’re making progress on our three main goals for residents – information and services that are easy to find, easy to understand, and easy to use.
The Web Design team was actually proposing a new, responsive design (works well on a phone or desktop) in 2016, 2018, and again in 2019 but because of the large amount of pages (nearly 15,000 on close to 200 sites) it’s a big project that takes a dedicated effort from every department.
In early 2020, our proposal was for a new design on a new cloud-based platform. A week after presentation of the proposal, the pandemic was declared. Efforts were redirected and the COVID Response website was stood up on the new platform OpenCites. There was a great response to the new site and it won several awards. The COVID site continue to evolve, and Recovery content was added too.
In late 2021, we were able to focus again on the redesign of SanAntonio.gov which gave an opportunity to lean into the Human Centered Design in approach informed by research and data with an emphasis on access for all.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
I’ve always strived to be of service and it’s an honor to be of service to the City and my fellow residents and now, my job as Experience Architect in transformative and exciting. We’re working to improve the customer and user experience, it’s very rewarding.
I’ve always had the good fortune to work on extraordinary teams and that continues with my current position and the cross-functional teams I work with. I love meeting and working with so many dedicated co-workers across the City and I am so excited when what I do helps them and their customers.
Do you have any hobbies?
I enjoy mingling art and science; for example, creating fused glass art works using sound waves that make these unseen patterns visible with fused glass. My hobbies also include home improvement, learning to play the Hurdy Gurdy, and almost anything that takes a bit of creativity.
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