About Me
As a side job at Cal Poly — where I studied Print/Graphic Communications — I worked in the College of Science & Math IT department, troubleshooting students' and professors' hardware and software. The same questions came up day after day, and I'd watch what people were trying to do and how they tried to do it.
After a few detours through marketing and business, watching Ready Player One convinced me to use my design brain on new interactions in virtual space. Now, after working with machine-learning services, I spend my career as a UX researcher interrogating automated decision-making — when I'm not working remotely from a van traveling North America with my dog, chasing waterfalls and Roadside America.
On the side
Tools on the bat utility belt
Just what I'd reach for first to get the job done.
- Zip-ties & gaffers tape
- Multi-tool card
- Compass
- North America museum pass
- Eye drops & decongestant
- Doggie bags, every pocket
- Figma / FigJam
- Qualtrics · Typeform · UserInterviews
- AI prototyping & IDEs
- Salesforce · Salesloft · Braze
- Jira · Trello · Confluence
- Zoom / Meet — not Teams, please
- Tableau
- Heap · Mixpanel
- Looker · Snowflake · Sigma
- Airtable · Smartsheet · Zapier
- Gemini CLI · Claude Code · OpenCode
What collaborators say
"Dillon exhibits a rare balance between the analytical and the empathetic approach to problem solving, which serves him well as a quantitative analyst."
"Dillon has a way of making all the magic happen without leaving me feeling like I'm out of the loop. He's incredibly knowledgeable."
"Dillon was always very quick to find a solution to challenging situations. He worked very hard to make sure things were done well."
Presenter & workshops
- SAP (internal) — Designer Enablement'21
- JobScan × ACCD — Beating the Resume Bots: Getting past Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)'20
Recognition
Press & interviews
Awards & fellowships
- Graduation with Distinction — 1 of 13, GPA 3.89 @ ArtCenter'21
- UX Research Fellowship @ ArtCenter × Cedars-Sinai'21
- Excellence in Art @ EA Rose Valley Jam'20
- "Best Use of Activ5 SDK" @ SD Hacks'19
- Student Leadership & Development Grant @ ArtCenter'19