A photo of Thomas Strickland and his wife Helena Fitzgerald on the rooftop of their apartment building in the fall of 2022.
I was born in the South, but New York is my home and where my heart is.
Never forget the humans who benefit from the good work we do.

Bowie and Sophie, a pair of cats

ABOUT ME

HOW DID I GET HERE?

Step by step, I have built a career in the ever-changing User Experience field as a strategist, designer, and researcher for almost 19 years, starting when UX was a nascent part of the digital marketing landscape.

For years, I had a whole speech prepared about what I did for a living. These days, it seems like everyone has caught on, not only about what UX (or XD or XS) is, but how important it’s always been.

As the breadth and depth of my work has grown along with the field itself, I have led projects with clients such as Merrill Lynch, United Parcel Service, Comcast and JP Morgan Private Bank, among many others. My most recent projects include introducing a pocket virtual assistant for Bank of America and building the gateway to an entire virtual world for Sephora.

I’ve described my vocation as “thinking out loud for a living,” or just coming up with simple solutions to complicated problems.

 

 

I am a North Georgia native, born in Chattanooga, transplanted to New York City in 2014. I live in Manhattan, in the Upper West Side with my brilliant wife, Helena, and a pair of strange, beautiful cats.

In addition to many years of UX/XD/XS work, I’ve done a little writing here and there, and I have very strong opinions about music and movies. I love to travel when I can, and when we all couldn’t travel during lockdown, I got really into doing yoga. Lately, I’ve started running as well.

 

How did I get here?

I asked a friend if there were any openings where he worked. He said yes. A week later, I walked in the door at United Parcel Service as a technical writer, hired to develop web content. After a month, I was something called an information architect. I had no idea what I was getting myself into…

Almost twenty years later, my career still surprises me.

 

And I love it so much.