Anita Barraco

Anita Barraco brings three decades of experience across user experience design, visual communication, UI design, web design, multimedia, and UX leadership to Pixels & Priorities. Across two conversations with Metsy Rose and J Schuh, she explores how where we work affects how we connect, collaborate, and lead.

Anita brings a deeply human perspective to both design and leadership. She discusses how dyslexia has shaped her empathy for users, why remote and in-office work each create different opportunities and challenges, and how leaders can support people through trust, vulnerability, curiosity, and genuine connection.

🎧 Episode 020: Remote, Hybrid, or Office: What Actually Works?

🎧 Episode 021: Leading People Across Modern Work Environments

Connect with Anita

• Connect on LinkedIn
• Explore Anita’s presentations on UX leadership and design thinking on SlideShare

More About Anita

Anita Barraco is a UX Manager at Goosehead Insurance. Her career has spanned visual design, interactive design, UI, web and multimedia experiences, usability, accessibility, and UX leadership.

Long before “UX” became a familiar job title, Anita was already building digital experiences around how people perceive, understand, and interact with technology. She describes dyslexia as one of her superpowers, strengthening the empathy she brings to understanding users and the different ways people experience the digital world.

That human-centered perspective extends naturally into the way Anita leads teams. In her conversations on Pixels & Priorities, she looks beyond the debate over whether remote, hybrid, or in-office work is universally better and focuses instead on what people need to work well in each environment. That includes protecting space for deep work, creating intentional opportunities for connection, paying attention to the emotional signals people give us, and recognizing that different people may thrive under different conditions.

Her leadership philosophy is grounded in relationships rather than authority. Anita advocates for servant leadership: understanding what people need to succeed, removing obstacles, providing the right tools and support, and being willing to acknowledge that managers do not have every answer. She sees vulnerability, curiosity, appreciation, and empathy not as secondary leadership traits, but as practical ways to build stronger teams.

Across both conversations, Anita returns to a simple idea that matters whether teams are sitting together or scattered across screens: good leadership begins with seeing the person behind the work.

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