Heather Cassano
She is known as a collaborative, creative problem-solver, with a track record of delivering disruptive product innovations within a variety of vertical markets, including publishing, education, social, enterprise products and big data. Heather's qualifications:
- Leadership of a large, global product design team at Google since 2014. Her team is comprised of 130+ user experience designers, researchers, program managers, and front-end engineers and works to create products across Google's publishing and analytics suites (including Google Analytics, Doubleclick, AdWords and others).
- Served as the first Chief Experience Officer (CXO) at Pearson Education ($6B ARR) and Scholastic ($2B ARR) building educational products from pre-school through professional.
- Led a large, global product design team at Yahoo for four years, with a focus on publishing and advertising.
- Has held university appointments for several decades at Harvard, UCLA and Marist College teaching product design and engineering.
- Frequent speaker at industry events, including a recent keynote at the 2016 Women's Techmaker Conference in New York City, as well as lectures at Yale School of Management, the Reframe Design event in San Francisco, the Mobile Innovation Summit in New York City, and others.
- Holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Science & Cognitive Psychology from Boston College, and an MFA from Bennington College in nonfiction writing and literature.
- Primary inventor of two design and engineering patents.
- Expert witness in several user experience lawsuits.
- Featured in "Profiles of Women in Human Computer Interaction" by the Anita Borg Institute at Carnegie Mellon University for women in the field of Human Computer Interaction who have broken through the "glass ceiling" in the industry.
- Head of UX, Google, 2014-present
Heather leads a team of 130+ user experience designers, user researchers, quantitative researchers, program managers, prototypers and program managers across North America and EMEA. This team is working to create a new enterprise publishing & analytics ecosystem for Google that provides highly valuable user experiences to users at the right moment, including a complete rethink of publishing & analytics today. To accomplish this, the team is organized to draw connections and create efficiencies across Google's products and projects that affect the long-term value of Google's advertising experiences. In addition, the team is responsible for driving product excellence, including a consistent scorecard combining quant and qual metrics to drive increased quality for users.
Chief Experience Officer, Pearson Education and Scholastic, 2011-2014
Heather served as the first Chief Experience Officer at Pearson Education, leading Pearson's many user experience design and research teams. Heather's responsibility spanned across Pearson's educational product line from kindergarten through college, and included the design of next-generation user experiences that satisfied the needs of learners, teachers, administrators and parents. Heather also oversaw the company's "Voice of the Customer" program that collects and disseminates data about Pearson's products and incorporates the results back into product development, and the company's user accessibility program, ensuring that design solutions accommodate users with differences. Heather managed 80+ user experience designers, researchers, engineers and accessibility specialists.
Heather was the first Chief Experience Officer at Scholastic, working to create and implement Scholastic's next generation digital learning experiences for students, teachers, parents and administrators. She led a team of designers, researchers, product managers, editorial and front-end developers who's mission includes the creation of holistic, responsive and adaptive user experiences for all of Scholastic's users.
Senior Director, Yahoo, 2007-2011
From 2007-2011 Heather served as the Senior Director of User Experience for Yahoo! leading a large, global User Experience Design organization for the Yahoo Advertising Publishing Group (APG). Her design and research team was responsible for the design of all Advertising, Publishing and Consumer Ad products across Yahoo! including including Yahoo Apt, Yahoo Search Marketing, Yahoo Publishing Network, Yahoo Small Business and enterprise Advertising Experiences. more
Staff Designer, Google, 2006-2007
As a Staff User Experience Designer at Google, Heather was responsible for providing UI Design and Usability support to Google product development teams, including designing and specifying product UIs, analysis and investigation of application usability, and field studies. Experience includes social networking UIs, 3D applications and client applications such as Google Toolbar. more
Featured In
Heather was featured in "Profiles of Women in Human Computer Interaction" by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology as part of the Carnegie Mellon University's Masters of Human-Computer Interaction. Women in the field of Human Computer Interaction who have broken through the "glass ceiling" in the industry were selected.
Career
Heather has spent the past two decades in senior leadership positions while continuing to retain hands-on design experience. I've worked for a variety of companies including:
Google
Scholastic
Pearson Education
Yahoo!
Symantec Corporation (aka "Norton")
Digitas
Sun Microsystems
Hewlett Packard
Microsoft
Acacia Design, Inc.
Industries and Verticals
Heather has designed and implemented user interfaces in many different industries and vertical markets including:
Advertising
Automotive
Developer Tools
Education
Enterprise
Financial
Health Care
Mobile
Retail
Social and Entertainment
University Appointments
For the past eighteen years Heather has held university appointments at Harvard, UCLA and Marist College, teaching user experience design and research, programming languages, writing and literature.
Recent Speaking Engagements
Heather was a the keynote speaker at the 2016 Women's Techmaker Conference in New York City, and speakers at the 2014 Reframe Design event in San Francisco and many other conferences. Watch Heather's keynote
Education
Heather holds a BA in Computer Science and Cognitive Psychology from Boston College and an MFA from Bennington College. More
Recent Publications and Press Releases
Heather has been widely published in the areas of media and user experience design, and creative non-fiction writing. See publications and press releases
Expert Witness
Heather has provided services as an expert UI witness in a federal copyright infringement case (CATC vs. Catalyst, 2002-2003).
Patents
Heather is the Primary Inventor for two UI-related Patents:
Method and apparatus for providing collection browsers. Inventors: Heather A McIntosh, Eswar Priyadarshan, Alan Ruberg, Timothy Shea. Assignee: Sun Microsystems (Mountain View, CA). Patent 5,630,042. 13 May 1997.
Application navigation. Inventors: Cassano, Heather M., Eric Bollman, Chris Jaffe, Nina Shih, and Lin Su. Assignee: Yahoo! (Sunnyvale, CA). Patent 8,171,429. 1 May 2012.
More
Heather is the proud mother of five children and lives in New York's Hudson Valley. In her spare time, she enjoys creative writing, reading (a lot!) and Pilates.
She is known as a collaborative, creative problem-solver, with a track record of delivering disruptive product innovations within a variety of vertical markets, including publishing, education, social, enterprise products and big data. Heather's qualifications:
- Leadership of a large, global product design team at Google since 2014. Her team is comprised of 130+ user experience designers, researchers, program managers, and front-end engineers and works to create products across Google's publishing and analytics suites (including Google Analytics, Doubleclick, AdWords and others).
- Served as the first Chief Experience Officer (CXO) at Pearson Education ($6B ARR) and Scholastic ($2B ARR) building educational products from pre-school through professional.
- Led a large, global product design team at Yahoo for four years, with a focus on publishing and advertising.
- Has held university appointments for several decades at Harvard, UCLA and Marist College teaching product design and engineering.
- Frequent speaker at industry events, including a recent keynote at the 2016 Women's Techmaker Conference in New York City, as well as lectures at Yale School of Management, the Reframe Design event in San Francisco, the Mobile Innovation Summit in New York City, and others.
- Holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Science & Cognitive Psychology from Boston College, and an MFA from Bennington College in nonfiction writing and literature.
- Primary inventor of two design and engineering patents.
- Expert witness in several user experience lawsuits.
- Featured in "Profiles of Women in Human Computer Interaction" by the Anita Borg Institute at Carnegie Mellon University for women in the field of Human Computer Interaction who have broken through the "glass ceiling" in the industry.
- Head of UX, Google, 2014-present
Heather leads a team of 130+ user experience designers, user researchers, quantitative researchers, program managers, prototypers and program managers across North America and EMEA. This team is working to create a new enterprise publishing & analytics ecosystem for Google that provides highly valuable user experiences to users at the right moment, including a complete rethink of publishing & analytics today. To accomplish this, the team is organized to draw connections and create efficiencies across Google's products and projects that affect the long-term value of Google's advertising experiences. In addition, the team is responsible for driving product excellence, including a consistent scorecard combining quant and qual metrics to drive increased quality for users.
Chief Experience Officer, Pearson Education and Scholastic, 2011-2014
Heather served as the first Chief Experience Officer at Pearson Education, leading Pearson's many user experience design and research teams. Heather's responsibility spanned across Pearson's educational product line from kindergarten through college, and included the design of next-generation user experiences that satisfied the needs of learners, teachers, administrators and parents. Heather also oversaw the company's "Voice of the Customer" program that collects and disseminates data about Pearson's products and incorporates the results back into product development, and the company's user accessibility program, ensuring that design solutions accommodate users with differences. Heather managed 80+ user experience designers, researchers, engineers and accessibility specialists.
Heather was the first Chief Experience Officer at Scholastic, working to create and implement Scholastic's next generation digital learning experiences for students, teachers, parents and administrators. She led a team of designers, researchers, product managers, editorial and front-end developers who's mission includes the creation of holistic, responsive and adaptive user experiences for all of Scholastic's users.
Senior Director, Yahoo, 2007-2011
From 2007-2011 Heather served as the Senior Director of User Experience for Yahoo! leading a large, global User Experience Design organization for the Yahoo Advertising Publishing Group (APG). Her design and research team was responsible for the design of all Advertising, Publishing and Consumer Ad products across Yahoo! including including Yahoo Apt, Yahoo Search Marketing, Yahoo Publishing Network, Yahoo Small Business and enterprise Advertising Experiences. more
Staff Designer, Google, 2006-2007
As a Staff User Experience Designer at Google, Heather was responsible for providing UI Design and Usability support to Google product development teams, including designing and specifying product UIs, analysis and investigation of application usability, and field studies. Experience includes social networking UIs, 3D applications and client applications such as Google Toolbar. more
Featured In
Heather was featured in "Profiles of Women in Human Computer Interaction" by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology as part of the Carnegie Mellon University's Masters of Human-Computer Interaction. Women in the field of Human Computer Interaction who have broken through the "glass ceiling" in the industry were selected.
Career
Heather has spent the past two decades in senior leadership positions while continuing to retain hands-on design experience. I've worked for a variety of companies including:
Google
Scholastic
Pearson Education
Yahoo!
Symantec Corporation (aka "Norton")
Digitas
Sun Microsystems
Hewlett Packard
Microsoft
Acacia Design, Inc.
Industries and Verticals
Heather has designed and implemented user interfaces in many different industries and vertical markets including:
Advertising
Automotive
Developer Tools
Education
Enterprise
Financial
Health Care
Mobile
Retail
Social and Entertainment
University Appointments
For the past eighteen years Heather has held university appointments at Harvard, UCLA and Marist College, teaching user experience design and research, programming languages, writing and literature.
Recent Speaking Engagements
Heather was a the keynote speaker at the 2016 Women's Techmaker Conference in New York City, and speakers at the 2014 Reframe Design event in San Francisco and many other conferences. Watch Heather's keynote
Education
Heather holds a BA in Computer Science and Cognitive Psychology from Boston College and an MFA from Bennington College. More
Recent Publications and Press Releases
Heather has been widely published in the areas of media and user experience design, and creative non-fiction writing. See publications and press releases
Expert Witness
Heather has provided services as an expert UI witness in a federal copyright infringement case (CATC vs. Catalyst, 2002-2003).
Patents
Heather is the Primary Inventor for two UI-related Patents:
Method and apparatus for providing collection browsers. Inventors: Heather A McIntosh, Eswar Priyadarshan, Alan Ruberg, Timothy Shea. Assignee: Sun Microsystems (Mountain View, CA). Patent 5,630,042. 13 May 1997.
Application navigation. Inventors: Cassano, Heather M., Eric Bollman, Chris Jaffe, Nina Shih, and Lin Su. Assignee: Yahoo! (Sunnyvale, CA). Patent 8,171,429. 1 May 2012.
More
Heather is the proud mother of five children and lives in New York's Hudson Valley. In her spare time, she enjoys creative writing, reading (a lot!) and Pilates.
