Work portfolio

👋🏻 Hi, I’m Erin White - an information architect and digital strategist based in Providence, RI, USA. I’ve been making web things and building tech communities for 15+ years. I consider myself a UX Swiss Army knife.

My skills

Design
- I clearly define problems and design solutions.
- I zoom in to the small details and zoom out to the big picture.
Accessibility
- I enjoy performing accessibility audits.
- I’m working toward an accessibility certification.
Research
- I have designed, led, synthesized, and acted on insights from remote and in-person user research.
Code
- I understand the DOM and know HTML, CSS, and Javascript.
- I can read/mend/repair/commit code.
Content
- I think in content models.
- I write clearly and love creating and maintaining documentation.
UX leadership
- I deliver critique well and thoughtfully.
- I take joy in mentoring junior UX practitioners.
- I’ve led digital teams and set digital strategy for most of my career.
Teaching, publishing, presenting
- I speak regularly at local, regional, and national conferences.
- I blog, publish, and present about UX, inclusive design, and design systems.
- I’ve taught semesterlong UX courses at the graduate level.
Facilitation/client work
- I can communicate about design with technical and nontechnical folks.
- I enjoy working directly with clients.
- I learn fast and collaborate well. ⚓️

You can find me on GitHub.

Past projects

2023-present: Design systems and UX governance for VA.gov

Governance and platform process improvement

On the Governance team, I build out and refine our platform processes and procedures, create and enforce digital experience standards, and help teams balance big-picture architectural needs and product requirements. My team helps product teams understand, use, and contribute back to the VA.gov Design System, while shipping accessible and consistent products.

Observations on working at scale

Contributions to the design system

My contributions include guidance for breadcrumbs, user flows, content types, page metadata, URL standards, information architecture principles, contributing to documentation, and accessibility testing.

VA.gov Design System
Incorporating IA into your design system - presentation at 2025 Information Architecture conference.

2023-present: Freelance work as Humans Make Tech

I take on the rewarding, weird, confounding, educational challenge of web maintenance and repair for small businesses and organizations. My bread and butter is working with clients to make their existing websites better, rather than doing wholesale web redesigns (though sometimes that is in fact the best route).

Working with a variety of content management systems from Squarespace to self-hosted Wordpress, Wix to Kinsta, Pantheon to homegrown PHP, I’ve served as web developer, designer, accessibility specialist, UX writer, technology strategist, and business development partner.

Humans Make Tech

2019: Trans-Inclusive Design at A List Apart and beyond

I wrote about how we can create a more humane web for trans people at A List Apart, the web magazine for people who make websites. Since then, it’s been a connecting thread in my career.

2020: Trans-inclusive library systems, services, spaces

I led a Gender-Inclusive Workgroup to explore how VCU Libraries could better serve trans and gender-nonconforming users and staff. The group’s recommendations covered library spaces, staff, computer systems, services, and culture.

Gender-inclusive workgroup report

2009-2022: Design work at VCU Libraries

At VCU, I was hired as a Web applications developer and quickly became UX researcher, UX designer, front-end developer, team lead, digital strategist, and finally, department head.

Some of my design projects from that time:

Some of my other writing from that time: