As you probably have already guessed, my name is Kelly Towle and I’m a Front-End Developer / UX Designer. What you might not have guessed is that while these are my areas of focus and expertise I’m additionally savvy in the realms of Flash, Website Analytics, and Information Architecture.
In regard to Front-End development: I strive for scalability, semantic markup, and efficiency. In other words, I don’t do CSS hacks, I don’t use tables for layout (unless I’m building an HTML email), and I follow W3C standards. While I use Dreamweaver and other IDEs (Coda, EditPlus, ExpressionWeb — in a pinch) I never go outside the code view – WYSIWYG editors and I aren’t on the best of terms. That said, I’ve done a lot of work building templates for CMS-driven sites, so I’m well aware that the average person updating content may not be hip to my best practices — and I can generally work with that.
Lately I’ve transitioned over to a User Experience role, which means that instead of coding on a daily basis I’m brainstorming, creating wireframes, conducting usability tests, and preparing analytics plans/reports. It’s pretty interesting stuff, and because of this experience I have a much deeper appreciation for what goes into taking a project from concept to execution.
At present, I’m looking for opportunities to relocate to the Seattle area in either a Front-End Dev or UX role. If you know of a position like that, by all means check out my resumé here.