RYAN HOWELL
Designer | Educator | Data Wrangler
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I'm a designer who fell into working with data a decade ago, and have been converted from a person who considered himself artistic to a person who plays around with the word science a lot. I've spent almost my entire career in the education sector. I love studying how schools work, and I love designing digital tools that both have an impact, and that people love to use.
I believe that most of the tools that exist in the education space are sorely lacking, and are not intentionally designed. The meteoric rise of data use in the day-to-day operations of our economy is also necessary in the education space, and too often, the tools that are at our disposal are rudimentary, expensive, and frustrating to use. I believe that the tools we use should be fun to use, powerful, and should push us to think critically and use data more effectively.
I've spent the last decade working at the intersection of education, technology, and design. I work to design and build tools that will empower schools to more effectively share and use data. I've designed tools as a UI designer, I've developed them as a lead developer, and I've worked on teams of developers to create a vision and then see it through to implementation.
To understand the context behind most of the products highlighted in this portfolio, it is important to understand Democracy Prep. Democracy Prep is a charter management organization that builds and supports charter schools around the country. I have worked on the data team at DPPS for the last 8 years to provide support to CMO leadership, principals, and teachers, ensuring that schools collect and analyze data to directly impact student outcomes. The most interesting work I've done throughout my career has been with Democracy Prep.
Working closely with charter school leaders and staff has lots of benefits. From a product design and support standpoint, I’m extremely close to the users of all of the tools I design. I also have freedom to work in schools directly. For four years, for example, I was the scenic designer for the high school theater program. Often when I describe my work, I use the theater program as an analogy. Designing and producing data systems is very similar: You are responsible for building a structure, wherein someone else tells a story.