April 2011 » Present
User Experience Design Consultant
LessInk, Inc. // San Francisco, California

Designing for a broad range of devices from mobile and enterprise web applications to Windows-based collaborative control-room applications for clients such as Mozes, PRO Unlimited and Jupiter Systems.

March 2010 » Present
User Experience Design Consultant
Eleven, Inc. // San Francisco, California

Designing delightful user experiences from early concepts through final wireframes for clients such as Apple, Callaway Golf and Eaton Vance.

March 2010 » May 2010
User Experience Design Consultant
Chegg, Inc. // Santa Clara, California

Performed a UX audit of Chegg.com and subsequent redesigns addressing the experience for textbook search, rental, buyback, ratings and reviews. Produced design recommendations and mockups concerning Facebook and Facebook Connect integration points for the social sharing of textbook rental activity.

June 2009 » Present
Founder and Chief Experience Officer
The Moment Collective // Santa Cruz, California

The Moment Collective creates mobile and web-based data capture, visualization and management tools designed to help people better visualize, understand, manage and change what's going on around them.

September 2006 » June 2009
Co-Founder and Chief Experience Officer
Networked Insights, Inc. // Madison, Wisconsin

Led a multi-disciplinary team of employees in the design and creation of SocialSense, the company's flagship social media data mining and analysis solution (SaaS) that gives marketers a focused understanding of who their audiences are, what they're interested in, and where they're engaging. Led the design and creation of a white-label social network application for use by clients and defined the underlying look and feel across applications. Provided design leadership and forward-looking data visualization design concepts for future functionality through low-fidelity sketches, storyboards, wireframes and high-fidelity mockups.

*Fast Company recently recognized Networked Insights as one of “The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies” for 2012.

July 2006 » September 2006
User Experience Design Consultant
Avatar Imports, LLC // Santa Cruz, California

Conducted a complete overhaul of Avatar Imports fair trade clothing company’s online store. Performed an experience audit of leading online clothing sites in Avatar’s space to identify best practices and successful design patterns. Redesigned the Avatar Imports shopping experience to improve site navigation, usability, page layout, interaction design and visual design.

December 2005 » July 2006
User Experience Design Consultant
Delivery Agent // San Francisco, California

Conducted a heuristic evaluation and subsequent user-testing study to evaluate target users' perceptions of existing product segmentation and general usability of web shopping experiences for ABC TV Store and SeenON! NBC. Redesigned page schematics for ABC TV Store and SeenON! NBC shopping experiences to improve overall usability, navigation, page layout and placement of media and advertising elements based on results from heuristic evaluation and user-testing.

November 2004 » September 2005
User Experience Design Consultant
Mehraban Oriental Rugs // Los Angeles, California

Managed the production and launch of the original Mehraban Oriental Rugs e-commerce web application, serving as liaison between clients, design firm and development firm. Wrote specifications, created introductory Flash animation, defined and documented client's photo production process, and trained Mehraban employees on the photo production process, back-end e-commerce, email marketing and content management tools.

August 2000 » August 2001
Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer
fatbubble Inc. // San Francisco, California

Led a multi-disciplinary team of employees and outside developers from initial concepts through creation of functional requirements, information architecture, prototyping, user-testing and development of the fatbubble viewer – a web browser plugin enabling rating, commenting and sharing amongst instant messaging buddies. Co-inventor on United States Patent 7,080,139: “Method and apparatus for selectively sharing and passively tracking communication device experiences.”

December 1999 » July 2000
Customer Experience Architect » Director of User Experience
Scient Accelerator Unit
Scient Corporation » Sherpa Ears, LLC // San Francisco, California

Involved throughout early brainstorming, user requirements gathering, participatory design sessions, naming and branding exercises for Sherpa Ears – an early social/music sharing site and one of the first startup clients to be incubated by Scient's Accelerator Unit. Served initially as Customer Experience Architect for the client and was subsequently hired into Sherpa Ears as the company’s Director of User Experience.

February 1999 » February 2000
Lead User Interface Engineer
Customer Experience Innovations Center (CEIC)
Scient Corporation // San Francisco, California

Scient was a premier eBusiness Systems Innovator, dedicated to using the science of experience strategy, design, and technology. Third person hired to help grow the creative division (CEIC), co-authored and developed sections of the Scient design approach, assisted in hiring more than 200 high-caliber creatives within the first year. Served as Lead User Interface Engineer and Customer Experience Architect impacting brands such as BenefitPoint and Sephora through early brainstorming, naming and branding, user requirements gathering, participatory design, prototyping and iterative usability testing.

February 1997 » January 1999
Interface Design and Usability Engineer
Web Externals Design and Development Group
IBM Corporation // Research Triangle Park, North Carolina

Served as interface designer and liaison between customer-facing IBM website clients and teams of visual designers, web animators and programmers to communicate and implement user-centered design considerations for high-visibility segments of the IBM corporate web space. Designed and prototyped interface components for IBM web server and content management software, designed and conducted usability evaluations of IBM software products, web-based applications and websites, analyzed usability data and communicated findings and recommendations via summary reports and presentations to IBM clients. Awarded for making significant impact to the usability of the IBM external web standard.

SBIR Grants

July 1994 » September 1996
Creative Director/UI Designer/Multimedia Developer
Software and Multimedia Products Group
American Research Corporation of Virginia // Radford, Virginia

Served as the creative director and liaison between management and teams of videographers, graphic artists and programmers to communicate and implement user-centered design considerations across all products. Managed the development of interactive multimedia and computer graphics software for medical and behavioral applications sponsored by National Institutes of Health, directed the filming and editing of video and art/animation development, designed and conducted usability evaluations of multimedia software, organized content and edited scripts for multimedia productions, recruited and supervised personnel and acting talent for multimedia productions. Promoted to lead designer/developer of graphical UIs for multimedia software products.

Doctor of Philosophy
Industrial and Systems Engineering
Human Factors Option, Human-Computer Interaction Concentration
Virginia Tech // Blacksburg, Virginia

Dissertation "The effects of embedded question type and locus of control on processing depth, knowledge gain, and attitude change in a computer-based interactive video environment." (Sponsored by American Research Corporation of Virginia)

PDF Dissertation  1.4 MB

Master of Science
Psychology
Human Factors Option
University of Idaho // Moscow, Idaho

Thesis "Determining effective display format and content options for in-car moving-map navigation and information systems." (Sponsored by General Motors Research Laboratories)

Bachelor of Science
Psychology Major
Music Minor
University of Idaho // Moscow, Idaho

Co-inventor on United States Patent 7,925,743, "Method and system for qualifying user engagement with a website."

Co-inventor on United States Patent 7,080,139, "Method and apparatus for selectively sharing and passively tracking communication device experiences."