The Goal
Put my interaction and interface design skills to work for an organization as passionate about design excellence as I am.
Experience
Interaction Design Development and Feedback
In addition to detailed design and usability reviews of applications for Mac OS X and the two dominant Linux desktop GUIs (GNOME and KDE), I develop original concepts, many of which have met with praise from interaction design experts and software industry veterans.
Web Applications
- Adding web links to Flickr photo notes
Commended by Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield, a similar feature was implemented by Flickr in May, 2005. - Combining Google Maps with the Amazon Yellow Pages for easier location orientation
Web Browsers
- Visually browsing bookmarks
- Selecting a recognizable bookmark visual
- Browsing a history menu visually via thumbnails
- Rating bookmarks out of five stars
- Simplifying online form completion through drag-and-drop addressing and PIM integration
Notifications
- Using dynamic icons to inform the user
- Informing users of instant messaging presence and capability through a dynamic icon
- Notifying users of the availability of new information from their contacts
Desktop Interaction
While most of these designs were created in the Mac OS X environment, there is enough similarity between the major GUIs that they could be easily adapted to others.
- At Andy Matuschak’s invitation, I helped determine the interaction model for the Sparkle application update system, now used in dozens of OS X applications
- Providing easier chapter editing and navigation in digital videos
- Searching globally and in an application-specific context
- Reinforcing interface relationships through the use of zooming animation effects
- Unifying the presentation and management of e-mail, VoIP, and video messaging
- Visually browsing musical collections
- Enhancing Exposé window tiling through use of icons and selection-based desaturation
- Combining Mac OS X’s Exposé, the Dock, and drag-and-drop
This feature was implemented by Apple in Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) - Creating documents using drag-and-drop to the Mac OS X Dock
Praised by Dr. Bruce Horn (formerly of Xerox PARC and Apple Computer, Inc.), this feature was implemented by Apple in Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) - Streamlining print option presentation
A similar progressive disclosure method for the print dialog was implemented by Apple in Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) - Abstracting valid selections from the filesystem hierarchy in Open and Import dialogs
Consumer Electronics
Mobile
User Experience & Visual Design for Wireless Generation, Inc. — Summer 2009 to March 2010, October 2010 to present
As a contractor, I worked on several of Wireless Generation’s education assessment tools for recording student reading scores on mobile devices and reviewing class and individual data on the web. This was my first experience as part of an Agile development team, which fosters better awareness of status and responsibilities than waterfall. Now as an employee, I’m working on data recording and curriculum tools for the web and mobile devices.
User Experience Design for IntraLinks, Inc. — May 2006 to June 12, 2008
Working initially as a contractor (May–December 2006), then as a full-time employee on the ground-up redesign of a virtual dataroom service used by financial institutions and corporations. This required designing for thousands of users while maintaining security and confidentiality. I also designed a number of graphical and tabular reports used to gauge the activity and interest of those using a particular dataroom.
Political Research for Fifty Plus One — October 2004–July 2005
Conducted research and wrote candidate briefing papers for consultant Michael Grossman.
Web Development for W & Co. Design and Communications — June 2004–March 2006
Working as an independent contractor, collaborated with graphic designers to realize web site designs.
WilsoNet Technologies, Summer 2003
Working with design firm W. & Co., my brother and I realized the new design of Northwest public affairs firm The Gallatin Group’s site.
Centerplex, Information Technology Assistant, Tukwila, WA, 12/23/2002–04/30/2003
Assisted with the research/design/implementation of computerized building managment systems, groupware, and networking infrastructure. Also assisted with redundant mail/file/web server configuration using Red Hat Linux and Macintosh workstation maintenance. I designed a custom LDAP directory, took part in implementing groupware to better facilitate inter-office communication and planning, and began a redesign of the company web presence.
Education
Berklee College of Music, Boston, MA, 1/2002–12/2002
Major: Jazz Performance. Musical studies including drumset, harmony, ear training, and arranging.
Seattle Central Community College, Seattle, WA, 9/1999–3/2001
Completed Cisco Certified Network Associate certification prep courses as well as introductory Operating Systems and Unix courses.
High School, James A. Garfield High School, Seattle, WA, 9/1996–6/1999
Graduated with a cumulative 3.2 GPA. Participated in marching band, jazz ensemble, and technology education programs.