Bio: Angela Schmeidel Randall

Angela is the Founding Principal at Normal Modes UX & Usability. She is also adjunct faculty in the graduate degree program for User Experience Design at KSU School of Library & Information Science. In 2015 she is also the Executive Director of the Houston chapter of the User Experience Professionals' Association (UXPA.)

Angela began her career as a subject matter expert at a financial services company during the early days of putting information online. Later she joined Continental Airlines during a pivotal time in the travel industry. During her time at Continental Airlines, we were able to leverage a major redesign with a focus on the user experience to change the entire travel industry from one dominated by travel agents to one where travelers go directly to the airline/hotel/car company to make reservations. That single experience changed the way she viewed UX; it was no longer a "nice to have" but a competitive advantage and a game changer for business. The UX team for the project consisted of 3 people and she went to graduate school full-time throughout. As a result, she believes that you don't need large teams to accomplish HUGE things. She's an advocate of small, nimble teams.

She put herself through college as a UX professional, first at the University of St. Thomas where she majored in International Studies and minored in Religion and Philosophy. After that, she matriculated Rice University to complete an MLS with a thesis that included ethnographic research in China.

In recent years, she has become passionate about preparing the next generation of UX professionals for their careers.

Angela loves creating applications to automate truly atrocious manual processes (her kryptonite), watching people interact with the world around them, building great project teams, and cooking. In her (limited) spare time she loves to take her kids to have experiences that will blow their little minds. She lives with her husband and two young children in Houston, the most diverse city in the United States.