About Me

My name is Hunter Paramore, and I love making things. 

This site is not only a portfolio of some of my work, but also serves as a journal of sorts where I can write about various projects that I have worked on. I find that capturing the process and writing about them is a great way to deepen my learning about it. 

That is what many of the other pages here are about. For this one however, let's chat about myself for a minute. 

UX/Product Designer and Researcher at Nu Skin (3 Years)
Lead Designer at The Mutual App. (5 Years)

Previous Work Experience:
UX Designer at Stotion (5 Years)

I have well balanced eye for design, including layout and hierarchy, and a strong sense of rigor to the design process. (Ideation, sketching and brainstorming, prototyping, testing, iterating and then iterating again after the product is released) You could say that I have a refined taste for what looks good, both in art and UI design. I studied art for 4 years at BYU Idaho and have a Bachelors degree in Art, with an emphasis in graphic design. (focused on print and UI)

Several of my hobbies include Airsoft, Drumming, Listening to Power Metal, playing video games, Dungeons and Dragons, and making my own products and games. I am also into 3D printing, 3D Rendering for product design, and laser engraving/cutting. 

Protecting the customer from the business is one of my core focuses within any project or product. As I work more and more with larger companies, it becomes clear that once a business starts making money, their core objective is to continue to pull as much of it out of the customers as possible, many times at the expense of dark practices, poor user experiences, and cutting corners. It also has to do with business and customer integrity, and the obligation that we have to protect the customers from the business. 

Luckily, there is a happy medium between the two. As a company starts to care more about their customers, customers will align with them and become more loyal. That loyalty translates into them using the product more, sharing it with others, and ultimately benefitting both themselves and the company. 

1. Protect the customer, and have their back through ethical design practices.
2. Serve others by providing the tools, knowledge, and assistance to help them work more efficiently and achieve their goals.
3, Make things make sense to everyone through direction, transparency, information architecture, and through removing distractions and debt.

Let's focus on those a tad more;

I strive to research, write, and test ethical practices. To create experiences that make the user understand that we have their back. Starting somewhere as an MVP, and then ideating into a better experience and product, as well as testing for KPI's. Essentially, it is the same job as those people at Disneyland who are constantly scrutinizing the park and its guests, looking for how they can improve it, even at a cost to them. 

As an example, what if all ice cream and snack vendors at Disneyland were specifically instructed to replace a treat that a child dropped for free, and with great flourish? How great would that be as a child, AND as a parent if the ice cream sundae that your three year old just spilled all over the floor was replaced with a new one, and willingly by the employee? Without the parent having to either assume that they wouldn't, or have to get the courage to even ask? How amazing! It turns a sad event with tears and potential anger or frustration by the parents into a wonderful experience... all for about 40 cents of ice cream. 

I aspire to be the guy who people come to to learn about something. To that end, I do feel like I do that pretty well already, but I want to continue to do that. To lead by example. I do sometimes feel like others don't take it seriously though, which disheartens me. I feel like I have the holy grail of how to do things, and am sad when I see others not taking advantage of features, knowledge, or asking for help. Especially when my own drive to learn can be completely upended when I learn of a new or better way to do something. Suddenly the new better way is correct, and I switch all of my efforts to supporting that more optimized way. I frequently drop everything to help others out, and always will. Am I a know it all though? Well, with some things I tend to have a lot of knowledge about sure, but I am also always learning from others both in person and online. It is amazing to do something like Jiu Jitsu and to learn a specific move that completely changes how I deal with certain grapples and fights, and instantly putting that into practice to test it has helped me learn quickly.

Creating a game plan is something that I do very well. At a macro level, having a sitemap, flow, and sound information architecture helps literally everyone else. One of the biggest helps that I do with our product teams is building out and showing complex flows and journeys so that there is context beyond the small section of the timeline that the projects touches. Creating transparency to this, removing distractions, and optimizing how the work is done is of upmost importance to me. I go out of my way to make things easier for others. I also have an acute BS meter that I feel is helpful when dealing with features, projects, and people who try and complicate or add unnecessary baggage to it. That being said, the moment I understand the Why, I will instantly become the biggest advocate for the new direction. I can make decisions quickly and decisively, and move forward with the result. 

I also studied at the college of "Move fast and break things" and have a masters degree in "Seeking forgiveness, rather than permission" when it comes to certain things. I will get the job done.

I have been doing product design, user research, and user experience design for the past decade and know how to do it effectively. I love User Interface design, and love trying out new ways to allow users to interact with our products. I also love game design and try to cross those two whenever appropriate. 

The companies I currently work for (NuSkin and Mutual) both benefit a ton from having good, sound research put into the products. Those changes literally translate into thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, which we also track because we prioritize KPI's and analytic tracking. 

One of my favorite things to do, and something I have been doing to great effect at both of those companies is through creating and maintaining an exhaustive design system that is built in Figma, and backed with code in our libraries. 

I am also a very hard, very fast worker. I also am pretty candid and will tell you what I think (what I really think) because being clear and having expectations between all is the best way to work with others.

Oh also... what is my biggest weakness? Well... you are experiencing that now. I sometimes tend to write a lot more than is necessary. That's not always a bad thing, especially with documentation, however being more succinct is something I am working on. 

Thank you.