Matt Tarr → UX + Creative

Elevate your brand.

Profile

Let's get better acquainted.

Profile Picture

First things first, I need to confess something: I'm slightly obsessed with great design. I've spent the better part of the last couple of decades helping organizations create successful design systems, improve collaboration between designers and developers, and deliver great digital experiences. Most importantly, I help organizations understand the importance of placing users and customers in the center of every digital project they deliver.

About me

I'm a UX, Digital and eCommerce leader with more than 20 years of customer-centric experience, strategy, leadership, and mentorship. I thrive on the challenge of combining the art and science that drives eCommerce -- analytics, testing, research, and usability heuristics -- to develop user-focused solutions that drive results and elevate a brand's visual impact.

  • Roles Held: Director of UX, Senior Product Designer, UX Design Lead, UX Design System Architect, Creative Director, Digital Art Director
  • Passions: Collaboration, mentorship, team-building, talent development
  • Focus: Design systems, workflow optimization

Skills

Self-assessment of relevant work skills and business acumen:

  • Design Systems
  • UX Design
  • UX Research + Testing
  • Strategy + Leadership
  • Creative
  • Front-End Development
  • Responsive Design
  • eCommerce
Resume

Every day I'm hustlin'.

Wow, I've been busy. Check out my recent work history and education profile below. You can access my complete work history on LinkedIn. Professional references are also available upon request.

Recent Work History

Director of eCommerce (UX)

February 2020 - Present

Conn's HomePlus

As Director of eCommerce (User Experience), I partner with our Product, Engineering and Operations teams to create a best-in-class eCommerce experience for our digital retail customers.

I help drive the long-term vision at Conns.com by identifying and setting digital product strategy, defining our end-to-end UX process and ecosystem, and inspiring our team to place the Conn's HomePlus customer in the center of every decision we make.

Finally, I provide support, vision, and guidance for our UX team by clearly defining our workflow process, including ideation, user-flow analysis, qualitative testing, wireframing, interaction design, UI design, and usability requirements.

UX Manager

February 2020 - January 2021

Chico's FAS, Inc.

In February 2020, my role within the Chico's FAS User Experience team was expanded to provide managerial support for our team of UX researchers and designers.

In addition to maintaining my role as Lead UX Architect for the Chico's FAS Design System and Senior Product Designer, I provided day-to-day leadership and support for all projects and initiatives that required input, research, design production and consultation from our design team. Added responsibilities included evaluating project requirements; allocating design support and resources; providing feedback, coaching, and design/strategic direction for the UX team.

I also played a strategic role in executing the organization’s business goals by identifying and implementing design process and usability improvements, and I served as a key change management agent in ensuring all digital products delivered a best-in-class user experience.

My responsibilities as Lead Architect for the Chico's FAS Design System are listed below in my previous job description.

Senior Product Designer (Lead UX Architect)

April 2018 - February 2020

Chico's FAS, Inc.

I served as the design systems architect for the Chico's FAS User Experience team, bridging the gap between our design and technology teams.

My primary responsibility was to provide ownership, maintenance, administration, and governance of the Chico’s FAS Design System and its components. My role was critical in helping the organization maintain a single source of truth for digital design standards and usage across a portfolio of brands, thus ensuring a consistent customer experience across our media platforms.

My functional responsibilities included:

  • Partnering with brand creative teams, developers, UX designers, and other key stakeholders to evaluate and approve any and all requests for global updates to customer-facing styling elements, thus maintaining alignment of visual presentation across all digital channels.
  • Owner and administrator of the Chico’s FAS Design System and its components (Sketch libraries, web-based Style Guides and Brand Guides).
  • Evaluating, testing, implementing, and communicating any global changes to the Design System.
  • Collaborating with UX designers to make recommendations for improvements and upgrades to the Design System based on industry research and best practices, and implementing any upgrades using a variety of tools and techniques (Sketch, Invision, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Bootstrap, and responsive design theory).
  • Ensuring all digital design elements are produced in accordance with the Design System’s workflow process, recommendations and industry best practices.
  • Providing training resources and documentation updates.
  • Hosting ongoing work sessions with designers and developers to assist in the onboarding, adoption and success of the Design System.

Digital Art Director

November 2010 – April 2018

Chico's FAS, Inc.

I developed a wide variety of creative marketing assets (landing pages, homepages, e-marketing materials, motion experiences, responsive experiences, etc.) for women's fashion retailer Chicos.com, and provided leadership, strategy, and project supervision for the five-person design/production team. I also created campaign concepts and provided on-set studio art direction for both on-model and still life photo productions.

Principal Owner

July 2008 - October 2011

Elevation 7

Owner and creative technology lead for full-service digital creative agency. Primary duties included development and execution of digital projects from concept through delivery; client strategy and campaign development; and day-to-day business management/operation.

Education

Bachelor Degree

1987-1992

University of Kansas

Political Science/English (minor)
Dean's List, 1992

Bachelor Degree

1994-1995

Southern Illinois University

Journalism/Mass Communications
Graduated magna cum laude

Creative Portfolio

Time for some humble-bragging.

I love working on cool projects with really cool people. Here's some recent work that I'm particularly proud of:

Need a speaker for your event?

I love speaking to organizations, student groups, designers, and technology teams about the importance of customer-centric User Experience, and the value in creating successful design systems and collaborative workflows. If you're interested in having me speak to your group or take part in a panel event, get in touch with me!

Expertise

Let's elevate design together.

I help teams deliver great digital products that drive results and elevate a brand's visual impact. How do I do that? Here's a look at my process and focus areas:

1857

Projects Completed

389

Happy Clients

72

Awards Received

2148

Crazy Ideas

5402

Cups of coffee

9571

Hours
Contact

Get in touch with me!

Interested in having me speak to your student group or organization? Working on a project that has you stumped? Have a question? Give me a shout, I'm always happy to talk shop.

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Find me

Houston, Texas, USA

Call Me

Phone: 239.634.5281