I attend a LOT of UX events and meetups around town, and virtually, including hack nights, panels, discussions, and workshops. I have volunteered as a UX consultant at Hack for LA events and edited copy for PPENowLA.com. I also like to take photos and design graphics using my photos.
Here are a few of my side projects:
Adobe Creative Jam – Team Adobaes
The Chan Zuckerberg Foundation posed the challenge: Design a mobile experience to provide “stability and protect the livelihoods” of vulnerable farmworkers.” Farmworkers may use the fictitious “ICFW” app to easily verify who they are, sign up for available services, access helpful and verified news and updates.
The Adobe Creative Jam kicked off Thursday morning and the deadline was Sunday at 1pm. Our group was formed the week of the event and we didn’t have time to work on Thursday at all. We brainstormed the overall app navigation and features together and then split up the screens, diverging to sketch, and getting back together during the prototyping process. I forged ahead with research and a persona. I designed and prototyped the News, Profile, and Help screens.
How I Applied the UX Design Process to Create a Custom Face Mask Pattern
I’m very proud to share that I successfully designed a custom face mask…at home…from scratch.
Even more exciting? I did it by combining my apparel design skills from a previous career and my user experience design skills from my current career as a Product Designer. I shared the UX process on Medium along with the face mask pattern, step-by-step instructions, and photos.
PPENowLA.com – UX copy edits and consulting
My edits and recommendations 
Original Website
PPENowLA.com was started by a nurse who noticed that hers and her colleagues hospitals were severely lacking in PPE. A friend of mine volunteered to host their site on Wix and requested help with copy editing. I lent my services for both the site and letters requesting support, as well as making recommendations for section content and labels. The first image includes my recommendations, the website shows the final edits to the top two sections, and the right image is a screenshot of the site as it was first presented.
Video documentation of my first experience splitting wood with an ax
I took some time off in January (after a very busy year) and spent it up in the Eastern Sierras where I learned to split wood with an ax. If you are looking for a fun and productive workout, I highly recommend wood-splitting with a finishing ax (which is much harder)! It should be added to Crossfit routines, in my opinion. We documented the first attempts and I made and edited a short video as a fun side project.
Volunteer Work: MARC.UCLA Email
Original version of the MARC email 
Edited version with my content and visual suggestions
Last year I was enrolled in the Intensive Practice Program at the Mindfulness Awareness Research Center (MARC) at UCLA. As part of the program I took several MAPs courses and attended a lot of daylong retreats. They would like to market a new summer course to the UCLA students. As part of the marketing plan they forwarded me a first draft email that looked like the left image. The email draft on the right shows my visual and copy edits.
maile malin 