Reviews

Adlin, Inc

If you’ve already tried to fix a tricky, convoluted problem involving a lot of information that needs to be used in a lot of different ways, and you’ve tested out all the off-the-shelf content management solutions only to find they are woefully inequipped to deal with your particular challenges, call Andy. Seriously. Just call him.

I’ve worked closely with Andy on several big projects in our 10+ year colleague-ship. His brain is wired to get to the root of the problems and opportunities with your content and then match them to existing or custom-created solutions. Andy is passionate about how people experience content and use it to get things done, and his deep knowledge of user experience principles means that everything he touches becomes as easy to use as possible. You won’t find anyone who knows more and he is lovely to collaborate with.

Tamara Adlin, Product Coach, Adlin, Inc

Deloitte Digital

“Andy is an outstanding designer and person. It’s hard to quantify the value he added to our studio and Andy continues to be one of the greatest mentors I’ve ever had. As an associate creative director and UX competency lead, Andy relentlessly advocated for user-centered-design on all studio endeavors. He gave the UX department a strong voice in the company, and always lead by example.”

Jacob Farny, UX Designer, Deloitte Digital

"Andy was one of the first people I met at Deloitte Digital, and he quickly became my best resource. His passion for content strategy and user experience is enhanced by his insatiable drive to learn and then apply - the books he suggested to me are a content strategy class in themselves. His patience, humor, and flexibility helped to keep me and the UX team focused on the content and the customer while responding to an ever-changing environment. I appreciated his leadership, and would jump at the chance to work with him again."

Turi Henderson-Palmer, Content Strategist, Deloitte Digital

Eat This Much

“Working with Andy is an awesome experience. We gave him the challenge of simplifying our overly-complex consumer product (a meal planning web app), but without sacrificing any functionality. He did a ton of research on the problem domain and ended up producing some great designs and documents that we’ll be using for years to come. All of the other recommendations here on Andy’s Linkedin page are spot on with regards to his thorough and well structured approach.

“The best thing about working with Andy, something I didn’t expect, was how great it feels to be confident that your product is moving in the right direction. We were used to making small, iterative improvements on our product, which often led to stabbing around in the dark for our next todos. Andy shined a light far down the path, and his skill at communicating the design process gave us the confidence to follow through on his designs in a way we haven’t felt since starting the company years ago. I hope we have some more projects for him soon.”

Louis DeMenthon, CEO, Eat This Much

Frog

“Andy is one of those systems thinkers with a diamond-saw for a mind. He’s great at finding the fundamental patterns, the underlying structures, and the repeatable themes that gives a good system solution its legs. On top of being a design contributor, Andy can also lead tough design discussions; he wears his authority in a way that inspires confidence, calms nerves, and instills respect.”

Matt Conway, Creative Director, Frog

“Andy and I worked together on a couple projects at Frog. Here’s why I love working with Andy:

• Passion and energy. Lives and breathes his craft. Shares his enthusiasm.
• Ridiculous smarts. Deep knowledge of UX/IA, its related disciplines, and a whole lot of other stuff.
• Fearless. Eagerly gets into the technical and human details of the systems he’s designing.
• Impeccable communicator–in person and in writing. Capable of explaining how he connects the dots.
• Personality. On top of all this, he’s a damn nice guy.”

Mark Wieman, UX Designer, Frog

Gigantic

Whenever you're in a client meeting with Andy, he's the smartest guy in the room, but with none of the ego. You realize it as soon as he starts asking questions or sharing his solutions. You know right away that he gets "it" and is thinking about the problem in ways that other people aren't. He makes clients feel at ease with how he explains very complex topics. I've even had mutual clients with him that won't make decisions on new ideas until they talk to Andy first to get his opinion.

Then, when you work on a project without Andy, you find yourself just trying to recreate his playbook, which he probably handed over to you anyway, because he doesn't care if people copy him, he'll tell you there's more than enough work to go around. And he knows that at the end of the day, the playbook has to be executed, and he will do it better than anyone else will.

We've partnered on Fortune 100 companies, small startups, mom-and-pop shops, health-tech, green-tech, all sorts of clients of all shapes and sizes, and they all get the same level of effort, and it's all tailored to their needs.

Whatever you're going to do with Andy on a project, it's probably going to be done better than anybody else you could hire.

Tim Garrison, Partner, Director, Gigantic

Microgroove

“I’ve worked with Andy on several projects and find his approach to UX to be truly unique.

“He has a highly structured process, clearly focused on specific objectives. The resulting recommendations are data driven and not only describe a clear set of next steps toward improving the product, but also highlight previously unforeseen areas to address.

“He always delivers more than was expected.”

Brett Nagy, Technical Director, Microgroove

“I worked directly with Andy on a large-scale software project that involved high-stakes end-user customer interactions. Andy embodies a unique blend of Art & Science, rare and yet crucial in the field of User Experience Design, and I hope this recommendation may provide its readers with a glimpse of what it is like to work with him.

“Andy clearly has a passion for the intersection of technology and human interaction. He has a professional and comfortable demeanor that lets you know this isn’t his first gig. He is constantly researching the field, observing and evolving his practice.

“We were immediately impressed with Andy’s formal process of Discovery, which is clearly born out of a healthy mix of professional experience, market, and academic research. He demonstrated a unique talent for drawing out business goals and measures from both technical and non-technical executives; key to any successful UX project. If our engagement were to have stopped right here (it didn’t), it would have already been extremely valuable for the work artifacts and clarity Andy delivered.

“But then comes the Art…

“With the Discovery in-hand, and through an iterative process involving stakeholders, customers, and developers, Andy delivered working prototypes that for the first time realized the project’s true business goals into a working UX. Honestly, it’s like seeing the clouds part, which is still a big deal here in Seattle.

“I’ve been involved in hundreds of projects, and this was one of the most professional and impactful consulting engagements I’ve encountered. Truly, any software effort that aims to engage end-users towards a business outcome would benefit by working with Andy.”

Phil Coady, President, Microgroove

Moz

"Working at Moz as the UX Manager with Andy was as much stress-free as it was beneficial. Andy continually delivered comprehensive, detailed, and thoughtful project updates and deliverables. Andy was tasked with rethinking and creating a strategy for navigation elements in our SaaS product that had become derelict over time. With comprehensive daily-updates and notes Andy’s value to our team and company was inarguable. Taking on this monolith project was something Andy did with vim and vigor as it was squarely in his area of expertise as an IA professional. I would work with Andy again without second thought if given the opportunity; he truly is a master practitioner of his craft."

Maria Papaleo, UX Manager, Moz

Reachify

"Andy joined the Reachify team as a UX consultant for a few months. While the time was short, the work he produced was extremely thoughtful, thorough, and always aligned with our business objectives. Our product served the needs of several different personas and Andy asked great questions to ensure the UX met the needs of our end users. He has a very pleasant attitude and worked very well with our existing team. I really appreciated his attention to detail and follow up. Would highly recommend Andy to anyone who is looking for a UX expert that is fantastic at understanding complex systems and delivering work that makes it easy for end users to get their job done!"

Callie Davis, Vice President, Operations & Products, Reachify

"Andy is passionate about systems and information architecture in a way that’s truly rare. He’s also a flexible and ego-less partner in the creation of products and design. Andy offers new ideas and perspectives while also internalizing the spoken and unspoken requests from product management. His thorough approach, high integrity, and work ethic make him an rare asset as a UX consultant."

Corinne Sherry, Senior UX Designer, Reachify

"Andy’s UX work is exceptional. He always starts with our goals and objectives and ensures that we have alignment there before sharing his work, which then always meets our expectations. He takes feedback very well and is quick to iterate on suggestions. He works well with all of our team members. I’d highly recommend Andy to support your UX initiatives and accelerate product growth!"

Cindy Lincks, CEO & Founder, Reachify

Rizen Creative

“There was no doubt in my mind when a new project popped up at work that would rely heavily on user experience and research that Andy was the right person to call. What makes Andy so good at what he does is not only his design thinking and know-how (which are scary good) but the way he can articulate what he does to his audience. The skill of design advocacy is priceless and Andy has it. He’s also one of the smartest people I know, yet has a way of sharing his knowledge with people that feels inclusive and collaborative. When I bring Andy onto a project I know it will be handled thoughtfully and he will no doubt be the first person I always look to for UX and design consulting.”

Brijean Brennan, Art Director, Rizen Creative

School of Visual Concepts

“I recently attended Andy’s class, Emerging Technologies in UX, at the School of Visual Concepts. This was one of the best courses I have ever taken. Although it was only a single day, I would have loved this to be an entire weekend. Andy’s class was very hands on and allowed the students to work through the process of designing emerging technologies, and not just sit and listen to a lecture. He timed his lecture very well to give us background and understanding before diving in. I would highly recommend Andy as an instructor and hope to take another class from him in the future.”

Tova Soroka, Workshop Participant, School of Visual Concepts

Seattle Children's

“Partnering with Andy on work for Seattle Children’s has been nothing short of a fantastic experience. He brings a perfect blend of analysis and design to his projects, along with great presentation skills in explaining concepts large and small to stakeholders.

“Andy is quite frankly the dream contractor you hope to have on a project. Not only by being on time and on budget, but also in finding the perfect balance for meshing business objectives with end-user needs and communicating with both developers and designers. I would definitely work with him again in a heartbeat.”

Vanessa Casavant, Senior Digital Content Strategist, Seattle Children's

Shoreline Community College

"Andy was brought on to help us with developing our program page templates, navigation and most importantly, our taxonomy. He brought focus and structure to what is otherwise an extremely daunting and complex project – especially for a small organization such as ours. Knowing our budget constraints, Andy was able to provide several proposals at each stage of the process with varying budgets and deliverables which really helped us move through the process. Andy’s ability to build customized service packages made it possible for us to stay within budget while getting the most of Andy’s many talents/skills. His periodic check ins in between phases was invaluable as he kept us on track to meet the agreed upon milestones.

"Andy helped us develop an effective contextual user interview survey and then worked with us to synthesize the results. The journey map that he produced with the data from the survey has been instrumental is not only developing the program navigation strategy, but also developing other communication strategies throughout our campus.

"After working with Andy on the first phase of the project, the team realized that we couldn’t imagine working through the rest of the project without him. His expertise and in-depth knowledge in user experience and taxonomy is exactly what is critical to developing an effective website.

"Side note: I met Andy through General Assembly, where I was a student in his taxonomy class. In addition to being a brilliant UX professional, he can teach. This is important because he knows how to explain his work to people who may not understand the lingo. If you don't understand something, he's really great at explaining to you in terms that you can understand. Critical skill when doing this kind of work with such a range of stakeholders."

Adam Staffa, Associate Director of Web Strategy, Shoreline Community College

Simpson Center for the Humanities

“I can’t speak highly enough of Andy Fitzgerald’s project work and leadership at the University of Washington’s Simpson Center for the Humanities over this past year. He has facilitated much more than a re-architecting of our website. He’s catalyzed a re-thinking of our entire approach to communications in a networked world.

“Andy’s many accomplishments include:

• Grounding communications strategy in a thorough and multi-faceted research process
• Consulting and/or engaging all major stakeholders in the creative process
• Keeping a collective focus on goals throughout the re-envisioning the site’s architecture, functionality, and look
• Developing contextually-sensitive solutions to complex relational and representational issues
• Writing detailed specifications and leading technical development
• Managing the project on limited financial and personnel resources

“Even before the site goes live, the new strategic thinking he has fostered among staff evidence the effectivity and care of his approach. Andy’s work ethic, intelligence, and perceptivity make him someone I would recommend without hesitation for your web information architecture and content strategy needs. I can be contacted at work on his behalf.”

Miriam Bartha, Associate Director, Simpson Center for the Humanities

Wintr

“Andy is a very good designer, likely due in large part to the fact he is a fantastic human. We’ve had the pleasure of working together on multiple projects, each significantly dense and of specific subject matter, all of which required a very high level of design thinking as well as empathy for how others may use, interpret, and understand a concept and content. His execution always evidences his unique process of consideration in a way that makes the solutions seem obvious. In the event that an idea does need explaining, Andy’s cerebral prowess extends to being a really good people person. He’s a hands-on leader and good at coaching peers and clients through all aspects of the design process: identifying, planning, ideating, proposing, and critiquing.

Plus: He can write!”

Taylor Winters, Managing Director, Wintr

World Health Organization

“It was an absolute pleasure working with Andy as he provided us with an expert review of the web platform, with actionable next steps and clear guidance throughout. He is a very strong communicator with expert knowledge and background in the area. We really appreciated the hands-on detailed approach throughout and he was very adaptive to our timelines and requests. We would have no reservations in using Andy for future projects or recommending him to other colleagues or peers.”

Jack Fisher, Technical Officer, World Health Organization