Professional Statement
Technology should work for people, not make people work for it. Too many systems are designed with little regard to who will use it-instead designed around the requirements of the underlying system. The end result is systems that fail, users that get upset-perhaps even lives that are lost. As the designers of information systems, we have an ethical and moral obligation to make our systems easy and intuitive for those who use it.
Skills
Usability Techniques
- Usability Testing
- Paper Prototyping
- Field Studies
- Heuristic Evaluations
- Personas and Scenarios
- Card Sorting
- Think Out Loud Protocol
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Software Tools
- Microsoft Visio
- Macromedia Dreamweaver
- Adobe Photoshop
Business Apps
- Microsoft Project
- QuickBooks Online Edition
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Technology
- Systems - Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft NT/2000
- Content - Scoop, Movable Type, Plone, XML
- Database - Postgres, MySQL, SQL Server
- Programming - C/C++, Perl, PHP, ASP, VB
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PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
User Advocate, Programmer
2004 -2005Smooth CorporationBellevue, WA
- Increased bottom-line revenue several percent by reworking the dated customer-facing checkout system to improve its appearance, flow and usability.
- Transformed a cluttered, cumbersome point of sale system into a feature rich, intuitive system which improved morale and increased the productivity of the sales staff.
- Improved differentiation company websites by programming a modular product display system and website specific URL addressing. The new system allowed easier integration of a recent buyout.
- Enhanced customer-facing websites by enhancing the product display pages, adding a wishlist feature, and improving the customer account page. All improvements showed a measurable mark on number of items added into the cart, sales leads and on telephone traffic.
Contract Web Developer
2003-2004 Bearcreek Consulting, Inc. Woodinville, WA
- Programmed and maintained various websites written ASP, ASP.NET and Microsoft SQL Server.
Software Developer
1997-2003 Azalea Software, Inc. Seattle, WA
- Based on customer feedback, I improved the user-interface for Azalea’s entire barcode software suite to allow users to easily create barcodes in a WYSYWIG environment. This redesign significantly lowered the amount of product returns and tech-support calls.
- Wrote a barcode plug in that shipped with Crystal Reports. Because of this plug-in Azalea was able to partner with Seagate Software (now Business Objects), greatly increasing Azalea’s revenue.
- Wrote add-ons for Microsoft office allowing customers to quickly add barcodes into their documents, spreadsheets and databases.
Owner
2002-Present Photographica, Arsgraphica Seattle, WA
- Took an unscalable, cumbersome content management system and ported to a modern, database driven system which allowed the website to grow to 6,000 registered users and 20,000 page views a day.
- Created several revenue streams using Google AdSense, Subscriptions and a system allowing users to sell their artwork online.
- Improved the comment system with a vastly improved system which more than doubled the number of comments per story.
- Helped visitors use the website by writing documentation.
Vice President
2002-Present XLAN, Inc. Seattle, WA
- Day-to-day administrator for webhosting company. Tasks include handling customer account management, DNS, mail systems, billing issues and technical support questions.
- Helped design a multi-tiered backend to minimize the impact of system failures. This has allowed XLAN to quickly manage traffic surges and hardware faults thus keeping customer down-time to a minimum.
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Science in Technical Communication
University of Washington Seattle, WA
- Certificate in User Interface Design and Usability.
- Performed usability study of a popular open source content management system.
- Took courses in Advanced Calculus, Computer Science, Statistics, Physics, Project Management, Accounting and Economics.
Associate of Science
Seattle Central Community College Seattle, WA
MEMBERSHIPS
Society for Technical Communication