Frontiers of Interaction 2011 - Whitney Hess "When I speak my mind"
Channel: frontiersof
Date: 2012-02-06

As a child, Whitney was repeatedly scolded for being too opinionated. She was told to mind her own business and keep her feelings to herself. But today she is convinced that having strong opinions and the courage to express them — along with the willingness to stand behind them — has been the greatest factor in her success. It has also been her greatest source of distress. 

Whitney Hess is a user experience design consultant based in New York City. She helps make stuff easy and pleasurable to use.

Whitney consults primarily with startups, most notably Boxee, House Party, NeedFeed, and RedStamp. In addition, she has collaborated with Happy Cog on projects for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Scientific American.

Prior to going independent, Whitney was on the design team at Liquidnet, an international financial software company. Previously, she was an interaction designer at Digitas and Tribal DDB, where her clients included American Express, The New York Times, Allstate, Claritin, Tropicana, and EarthLink.

Whitney received a Master's in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and a Bachelor's in Professional Writing and HCI, both from Carnegie Mellon University. She writes about improving the human experience on her blog, Pleasure and Pain .