WHITNEY HESS is an independent user experience designer based in New York City. She helps make stuff easy and pleasurable to use.

Whitney consults with startups to integrate UX practices into their product development process. When Boxee hired Whitney to help make the beta version of its media center application more mainstream-friendly, she reconceived its navigation, introduced search across content sources, and integrated social features in a less intrusive way. As the Product Lead for Loosecubes, she expanded its space-finder product into a community for independent professionals. Whitney is also an ongoing advisor to RedStamp, purveyors of modern correspondence.

As a senior experience design consultant to Happy Cog, a leading web design agency, she has worked on projects for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Scientific American, and Brighter Planet. 

Prior to going independent, Whitney was on the design team at Liquidnet, an international financial software company. While at Digitas and Tribal DDB, her clients included American Express, The New York Times, Allstate, Claritin, Tropicana, and EarthLink. Most notably, she helped to conceive, design, and test an innovative card search tool for American Express and is named as a co-inventor on its U.S. patent. 

Whitney received a Master’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and a Bachelor’s degree in Professional Writing and HCI, both from Carnegie Mellon University. She writes about improving the human experience on her blog, Pleasure and Pain, and can always be reached on Twitter @whitneyhess.