I am not a designer.

Well, not a formally-trained one, at least. I didn't go to school and get a degree in anything design-related. In fact, I got my degree in astrophysics, and you might be surprised at just how little astrophysics applies to design. I know, it's shocking.

But after getting my bachelor's degree in astrophysics I ended up in a field I'd had a love for (in addition to astrophysics) since I was a child: video games. First I ended up at GameSpy running their flagship site (at the time), PlanetQuake, and then eventually working as a genre producer for the action genre sites under their umbrella. And writing lots of fun articles.

Then I ended up using that experience to move on to Activision, where I worked in online marketing on their slate of "hardcore" titles (which you might think is code for porn but is, in fact, a reference to games like first-person shooters) for three years.

Then came UI design.

I moved on to Raven Software, where I become a UI designer working on titles like Quake 4, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, and Wolfenstein. After Raven I wanted to work on things that weren't first-person shooters in order to stretch my wings a bit, so I went to Gas Powered Games in Seattle and worked on Space Siege and Demigod. Then I switched gears to Uber Entertainment, where I worked on Monday Night Combat for Xbox Live Arcade, and Super Monday Night Combat, a Free-To-Play PC title.

Now I'm at Z2Live, where I'm a UX Designer working on Battle Nations and other mobile games. Now that the majority of my gaming is happening on my iPad, it's great to be able to work in that space, too.

You'll see a lot of stuff on this site that relates to UI and UX design, like case studies and articles about what I think makes for good game UI design and good UX. This isn't because I think I'm some sort of maven of UI design, it's because of what I started off saying: I'm not a designer. But since I get paid a good sum of money by people I like being employed by to actually do UX design, I figure it behooves me to continue expanding my horizons in the field by trying to explore it more on a regular basis.

Oh yeah, I do other things, too.

When I'm not doing things that are game UI/UX-related I can be found doing any number of other activities:

Raising my herd of four alpacas.

Using their fleece to handspin and knit my own yarn. I've been a knitter for about twenty years, and a spinner for about ten.

Belly dancing with Skin Deep Dance in Seattle. I also occasionally teach in addition to performing.

Playing video games. (You might know me as Hellchick if you're an old-school Quake player.)

I like hearing from people.

You can find me online in a few places, but publicly on Google+ and on Twitter. Feel free to find me.