About Me
Krista Van Guilder | UX Design Lead
In my 20+ years of visual and interaction design for both in-house agencies and consultancies in several different industries creating a lot of different artifacts, I’ve realized a few things about myself.
Design is an obsession
I truly love design. If I can improve everything my fingers touch, I will. And I don’t mind getting in the weeds and getting my hands dirty to make it happen whether it be in my professional day job or my personal life. I mean I agonized over a printed fill-in-form to keep track of the chemicals in my hot tub. Yes I could have made it digital, but it was safer (hey, my hands had to get wet!) to go old school with paper and pencil (and it seemed more official to use a clipboard.)
Co-Creation Advocate
I realized early on that writing original music together with my rock band turned what was interesting on my own, into something that was inspiring and much larger than all of us. I found the same to be true when you collaborate on design projects.
Improving peoples lives
Asking the right questions to uncover pain points and advocating for solving for them for our customers is at the heart of my process. Watching scientists in their lab struggle with equipment or engineers struggling to use software compels me to want to do better for them.
Currently I am a Principal User Experience Designer at the MathWorks leading the team building a new design system, training the design team on Figma, launching our products first dark theme and consulting on a range of additional projects throughout the company.
Previously I was a Senior User Experience Designer at Thermo Fisher Scientific designing embedded interfaces for scientific equipment and instruments. I still get giddy when I see one of our products in a news segment or science documentary.
When I’m not designing or jamming with my band, I can be found in the kitchen cooking up dinner, working on home improvement projects, or nerding out to Star Wars and Marvel movies or documentaries with my husband Chris.
Best way to reach me is via email at kvgcreative@gmail.com but you can also use my contact form (which coincidently goes straight to my email inbox.)
Awards
2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 Graphic Design USA, American Graphic Design Awards
Patents
Display Screen of a Biological Safety Cabinet with Graphical User Interface;
Patent date: Issued Dec 24, 2019; Patent issuer and number: us US D870,739 S
Education
M.A. in Graphic Design
New England School of Art and Design at Suffolk University, Boston, MA. Graduated Fall 2013
B.S. in Communications/Media with Concentrations in Graphic Design and Multimedia
Fitchburg State College, Fitchburg MA. Graduated June 2000
Continuing Education in UX:
Interaction Design Foundation and the Nielsen Norman Group