The Associates
Everyone involved with Fit has experience in customer research as well as product strategy or design. Each has a background in either design or communication, mixed with technology. Each has the ability to facilitate collaboration.
Marc Rettig
Founding Principal
After a twelve-year first career as a software developer, Marc Rettig is now thirteen years into a second career as an designer, educator, and researcher. As someone committed to shipping “design that fits people’s lives”, Marc’s work is to facilitate interdisciplinary efforts to translate customer research into good design and strategy. His personal client list includes BBC, the U.S. Army, Crate and Barrel, Microsoft, Allstate, Caterpillar, Diamond Partners, and Texas Instruments. He has taught both lecture and studio courses at Carnegie Mellon’s Graduate School of Design (where he was the 2003 Nierenberg Distinguished Chair of Design) and the Institute of Design, IIT, in Chicago.
Marc served as Chief Experience Officer of the pace-setting user experience consultancy HannaHodge, where he was responsible for the firm's user-centered process, team culture, and research initiatives. He was a Director of User Experience at Cambridge Technology Partners. Prior to that he was a consultant with seeSpace, VP of Design for Digital Knowledge Assets, and a Senior Architect in Andersen Consulting's Advanced Technologies Group.
Marc has an undergraduate degree in Anthropology and Linguistics, and completed requirements for a Master’s in Computational Linguistics at New York University. Marc frequently speaks and conducts hands-on workshops in industry and academic settings around the world. He currently serves on the advisory boards of UXNet, The Interaction Design Association, and Rosenfeld Media.
Jenna is an experienced researcher and interaction designer whose work spans a wide range of products. As UI Design Lead for Siemens Medical Solutions, she explored the lives, activities, and communication patterns among hospital employees. She then conducted weekly tests of new solutions as part of a design process of her own devising. She is experienced in team process development, group facilitation, user research, usability evaluation, concept development and evaluation, interaction and interface design, and rapid prototyping.
As an interaction designer at MAYA-Viz, Jenna worked on collaborative visual software for the military. She conducted user research on military bases and military exercises, to determine the needs of soldiers in the field. She then created visual and interaction designs based on those insights, for manipulating large data sets, tracking movements of people and equipment, and collaborating across distances in support of critical decision-making.
Jenna has worked on consumer research, usability and design for Texas Instruments (graphing calculators), BBC (interfaces for children), the Carnegie Museum of Art (prototypes of future devices for museum visitors), and the Carnegie Robotics Institute (robot assistant for the elderly). She received her Master's in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University.
Lisa Bloss
Principal researcher
Lisa is an accomplished user researcher and designer who has worked in
a variety of industries including finance, software, fast food and
non-profit. Her roles have included both researcher and art director, making her a good match for Fit's range of projects.
Lisa's past clients include HSBC, McDonald's Corporation, Motorola, J. Walter Thompson, Ogilvy & Mather, and Blue Cross/Blue Shield. This work has given her experience in rapid development projects that demanded intense research and analysis in short timeframes. During this time she conducted extensive ethnographic research into areas such as the behavior of college students as they make convenience purchases and the experience of children as they learn about music. Lisa also has experience working on international projects, which has given her a keen understanding of cultural influences on products and services.
Lisa was a founding member of a user experience team at HSBC, one of
the world's largest financial organizations. During the first half of 2006
she worked in the UK to set up HSBC's European user experience team. She also managed the user research team in both the US and Canada.
Lisa has a Masters of Design from the Illinois Institute of Technology's Institute of Design.
Dana comes from a background in Fine Arts, fine art management, non-profit program management, and event planning. Combined with her endless curiosity, cheerful enthusiasm, and genuine interest in people, this makes her a perfect match for Fit's office. In her first few weeks with us, Dana organized a cross-cultural immersion in Mexico for one of our clients, and she's been rolling full steam ever since.
Dana has a BFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, with an emphasis in Sculptural Studies. She completed further studies at Temple University Rome, in Rome, Italy.
Contact Fit
info@fitassociates.com