Abbey McTaggart

About
Picture of Abbey McTaggart

My name is Abbey, and I am a UX and UI Designer in Madison, Wisconsin. I got the bug for user experience design in 2012, and I've been passionately building skills in UX, product design, and front end web ever since.

I work at UW Credit Union, where we unite a community-driven mission and world class technology to serve the financial well-being of over 250,000 members.

From 2011 - 2018 I was at Epic, working on clinical radiology tools and community collaboration platforms. Following that I spent a year at Standard Imaging, establishing foundational UX for a suite of clinical web applications used by medical physicists.

Design

"Far more than design work, a designer's job is to navigate." - Robert Hoekman, Jr.

Every design endeavor is different. I challenge myself to question deeply, to think expansively, and to listen with empathy. I take pride in building collaborative relationships with developers and creating something great together.

My design toolbox:

  • Interviewing
  • Ethnographic Research
  • Workflow Mapping
  • Storytelling
  • Information Architecture
  • Wireframing
  • Prototyping
  • Usability Testing
  • Color and Branding
  • UI Design

I believe that a memorable user experience is crafted through doing solid research, instilling a company-wide culture of empathy, and validating early and often.

Projects

QA StereoChecker - Application Re-Design

A complete re-design and re-build of an FDA-regulated web application used during daily QA of the CyberKnife robotic radiosurgery arm. Performed on-site ethnographic research, transformed and simplified the therapist's workflow, wireframed every screen and interaction of the application, and performed usability testing.

Principles: The Cyberknife is a particularly finnicky modality, and unplanned downtimes derail the clinic's schedule and erode revenue. Empower the radiation therapist to be the first set of eyes to notice concerning trends, allowing them to alert the physicst well before a test fails. Make it easy for the medical physicist to communicate trends to their regional CyberKnife maintenance representative for preventive service rather than urgent repair.

Standard Imaging - UI Standards for Digital Products

Standard Imaging's current imperative is to create "modern, sophisticated" applications that appeal to young clinicians. The company is better known for its hardware than its digital products, so their web applications need to boldly establish the Standard Imaging brand and deliver a memorable experience.

Principles: Use the brand's rich deep blue as the basis for a dark UI suitable for low-light environments in the clinic. Evoke the company logo by incorporating shade of blue, gradients, and circles. Stand out from competitors so clinicians "immediately knows it's Standard Imaging."

Epic Earth - Platform Re-Design

A full analysis of the personas, user goals, and problem areas of a social platform for clinicians. Spearheaded a year-long team process of wireframing, prototyping and development.

Principles: A successful platform has to, at its core, help users achieve a critical goal. Generating usage is much more than just “if you build it, they will come.” If a platform contains a hodge-podge of features for different types of users, no one will feel like the platform is for them or understand its purpose. Define a clear mission and design for a target user. Use interviews and personas to understand user goals.

Epic Earth - Onboarding

Clinicians who visited the social platform did not understand the purpose of the site. Engagement was low, content was not organized in a helpful way. Although it was intended that users would curate their interests, very few users were doing so.

Principles: Set the tone for the platform up-front. Guide users through any critical steps, and only collect information from them that will be used meaningfully. Don’t let users wander the site blindly, but gather a few of their interests up front and then drive helpful content from them. Re-organize content into broad, relevant topics, rather than user-generated free-text topics.

Epic UserWeb - Webinars

A news feed widget highlighting upcoming webinars within the user’s topics of interest. Access to full back catalog of past webinars and their recordings. Although the widget was front and center, users weren’t “seeing” it.

Principles: The list was a static length and often contained non-relevant information, which trained users not to read it. Added pops of color on simple key words (eg. “today”) rather than requiring users to read a date. Focused on the two points in time when a user cares about a webinar—when it is first posted (so they can register and mark their calendars) and as the day approaches (so they are reminded to attend).

Radiant Radiology - Mini-Mode

A minimized state of the EHR for Radiologists, allowing them to view crucial patient information while preserving valuable screen real estate for reading diagnostic images in the darkroom.

Principles: Optimize for quick-actions and keyboard navigation, as Radiologists work incredibly quickly and repetitively. Understand which information matters, and which can be confined to the full-size view. Provide a clear visual state for toggling back and forth between sizes.

Radiant Mammography - Pathology Results

A side-by-side report viewer for mammography coordinators to quickly pull relevant pathology result information and document onto a standard form.

Principles: The coordinators were moving screen to screen to complete their work. Side-by-side panes would facilitate efficient documentation. Tuck advanced features away to keep the form clean and simple.

Code

Born out of the frustration of trying to coax developers to explore the nuances of user interface and interaction (color, typography, animation, etc.), I decided that I wanted to learn to code these things myself. It was empowering to not just describe an idea, but to tweak the code myself in the browser and say “how about like this instead.”

I discovered that I am most interested in development as it relates to the elements that are most tangible to the user like layout, typography and micro-interactions. I have developed a strong eye for tailoring the details of an experience to the specific user in that context.

I work with HTML, responsive CSS, JavaScript, SVG, and animation.

Examples

Sunlit Fields - Site Design and Build

A custom site designed and built to showcase a friend's local CSA farm.

Sunlit Fields homepage

Principles: Keeping costs low was a top priority. By implementing a static site, hosting was free. To facilitate real-time updates, I used Tabletop.JS to make a Google Sheet into a simple CMS.

CodePen

See the Pen Credits - 10 Cloverfield Lane by Abbey McTaggart (@amctagg1) on CodePen.

See the Pen Interactive CSS Box Model Visualizer by Abbey McTaggart (@amctagg1) on CodePen.

Contact
Map showing the location of Madison within the state of Wisconsin
Abbey McTaggart
Madison, WI
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/abbeymctaggart
CodePen: codepen.io/amctagg1