Patron Sainte is a design consultancy.
Design philosophy
Kate Pociask is a Life-Centered Designer who uses creativity as a tool for equity. Trained in Design Thinking and Agile Methodologies and specializing in User Experience and Interface Design (UI/UX), she begins with empathy and imagination to address big human challenges like the housing shortage, food insecurity, or the gender wage gap. Her work often begins with a question: How can I help people think differently?
Design
Focus
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Basically anything that has a screen and a user, I design for. Theoretically, it doesnât need to have a screen - it could be voice commands. Usually Iâm producing websites and apps, dashboards or software for internet of things. During projects like these, I am typically working closely with an engineering team.
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Involving community members and/or stakeholders in the design process from start to finish. Balancing the needs of humans with the health of larger ecosystems.
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Great ideas can come from anywhere at any time. You can increase the chance of lighting striking at the time you need it with a great facilitator. Trained by Gretchen Thomas, currently Design Director at Microsoft.
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Thereâs quite a gamut of things I produce within UX. Strategy and scope documents, customer journey maps and storyboards, user flows. User personas, user stories, wireframes, conducting user research, focus groups, field research. Usability reports.
Courses &
Accreditation
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Human-Centered Design Course by IDEO/Design Kit
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Design Thinking by IDEO
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Customer Interviews and Business Model Canvas for Startups. I participated in a program for the National Science Foundation's Innovation Corps, which is a crash course in entrepreneurship. My local chapter of I-Corps was headed by the UWM Lubar Entrepreneurship Center.
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Lots of these are ways that software teams work together to keep projects on track. Scrum, Kanban Boarding and Design Sprints.
Special Tools &
Skills
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Qualitative Research such as user interviews and field studies.
Quantitative Research such as surveys, card sorting, usability testing. -
Creating the âbonesâ of an interface, the skeletal blueprint of a digital product (website, app, dashboard). At this point, there is very little in the way of aesthetics, and instead focuses on usersâ needs or jobs to be done. Wireframes and Prototypes lay out pathways for people to accomplish those things. Prototyping uses static design and some interaction trickery to create a simulated version of how the final product will look and behave.
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Often websites, apps, dashboards. Broadly, the creation of design allowing users to accomplish tasks inside tools or systems.
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Education in broad design, including elements and principles of design, typography, and copywriting (kind of separate, but kind of not). Brand adherent design, brand strategy, and using design systems to build interfaces.
⢠Figma
⢠Adobe CC: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign
⢠Pencil and paper/whiteboard
⢠Keynote/Google Slides
⢠Canva -
Script Writing: Google Docs
Audio Recording: Voice Memos
Editing: Adobe Premiere Pro
Graphics: Adobe After Effects -
⢠English, Native Proficiency.
⢠French, Limited Working Proficiency (ILR Level 2).
⢠Spanish, Limited Working Proficiency (ILR Level 2).
Creative brainpower to spare
Kate has facilitated brainstorming sessions, helping nonprofits and arts organizations reimagine their futures and how they engage the humans they serve. Kate is also a serial entrepreneur, having founded multiple community-shaping ventures. All are rooted in gathering and connection, curiosity, and breaking from the status quo. Her practice thrives on collaboration, conversation, and the belief that better worlds are built together.
Outside of work
Kate grew up on Punk Rock, and while the leather-jacket-and-studs never took, the ethos did. It gave her a lasting appreciation for the naive beginner, experimental and DIY, and anti-capitalist mentality. Kate volunteers with new-urbanist groups, including Strong Towns and Coalition for More Responsible Transportation, using guerilla tactical urbanism to design, build, and deploy improvements to the built environment, creating a more vibrant and life-centered city.
Speaking
Rewriting a Script for Imposter Syndrome
Boss Ladies Breakfast at YP Week 2019
High-achieving women are often plagued with shame and self-doubt. Hereâs what to do when those familiar feelings sneak up on you.
Follow Your Envy
NÅ Studios Talk for Northwestern Mutual
Envy is vilified, I sure the reputation is undeserved. Envy can be a useful wayfinding tool, so long as you recognize it for what it is and catch it before it ferments into something more sour.