- Lead mobile developer practice—overseeing the development of iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch apps. - User Experience Designer, Usability Expert, and Information Architect- Developed new corporate branding, new website, new print art, promotional materials- Involved in sales, building partnerships, proposals, and improving customer satisfaction- Supporting several content management consulting projects in the DC Metro Area.- Supported the FBI Sentinel project as User Experience Lead for two years (see below).

For the past two years, I’ve been the lead user experience designer responsible for designing the user interface for this intelligence agency’s case management system. I have been recognized as a key performer, conducting user research studies, collaborative design sessions, and usability tests, to assemble the right system for a very diverse collection of 50,000 users worldwide.When I began working on the project, the design was in desperate need of a UX presence. I led a team of six user experience designers of all skill levels to identify the needs of the users and create a UI worthy of the FBI. Throughout my time on the project, I’ve encountered various challenges that have exposed me to almost every discipline—including training, business analysis, testing, and planning.While I was a full-time UX consultant, I was also a highly respected web developer—meticulously implementing the user interface I helped design. While my background is in front-end development, I gained experience with Java, Spring, Tiles, and web services. I also have very heavy experience with EXT-JS, XHTML, and CSS. While I am certainly not a developer by trade, I am confident I could tackle any front-end problem that affects the user experience. Key Results:• I led an effort to revolutionize and streamline a new frontend based on feedback I received from user research. After identifying the needs of the users, I proposed a new interface utilizing EXT-JS and AJAX to greatly improve the user experience and the reputation of the program. After helping convince major stakeholders understand the need for this direction, my team and I successfully implemented my “vision” of the program• My design was so impressive; the agency mandated it become a model for all current and future FBI web projects.

I am a User Experience Designer and Information Architect. I work as an independent consultant for many high profile projects that have a core need for user-centered design. Utilizing user experience design methodologies, information architecture, content strategy, heuristics analysis, and usability testing, I specialize in building software that customers love to use.A key advantage of working with me is that I’m actively involved in every step of the software development lifecycle, working with users during design, implementation, testing, and O&M. I also have a background in front-end development, so I can actually implement the solutions I design—a rare commodity among UX consultants. Key Results:• Successfully implemented heuristics analysis, usability analysis, and UI design for four multi-million dollar web development projects. All have resulted in products that are highly accepted by their user base and some have even been used as a model for other projects I wasn’t involved in.• Involved in the web development and design of over 80 thriving small businesses across the country.Here are some the services I offer: cognitive walkthroughs, contextual inquiry, user interviews, usability testing, usability inspection, content strategy, surveys, focus groups, collaborative/joint design, card sorting, functional design, interaction design, user research, visual design, heuristics evaluation, web design & development.I also generate design artifacts, such as prototypes, personas & segmentations, scenarios & capability needs, wireframes & functional schematics, content inventories & sitemaps, taxonomy, style, & consistency.

I was the lead User Experience Designer for WHS. When WHS contacted me to help make their official correspondence management system more user friendly, their application was at the brink of extinction. Years of growth and the merging of almost 20 legacy systems—mainly caused by the DoD consolidating contracts to cut costs—had made this application incredibly slow and unusable. I worked with users and developers to design a new system that would become a building block for all official departmental activities. As their Principle Designer, I built a user interface designed around the needs of over 20,000 users—putting into practice the latest Web 2.0 technologies that made this application a favorite tool by many users and stakeholders.Key Results:• Momentum began to climb after my design had reached the offices of other departments divisions throughout the Pentagon—causing our scope and funding to grow almost 400% in just a few months.• By utilizing JavaScript frameworks such as Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and jQuery, my team and I created a frontend that increased performance and usability—a big accomplishment for a system with a reputation of being slow and difficult to use.

After coming off of an Army National Guard project, building web applications that helped Reservists stationed all over the world, it was a natural move when I joined the Systems team for the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs in the Pentagon. I was recognized as a major key player communicating the needs of over a million Air and Army National Guardsmen, Air Force and Army Reserve, Coast Guard, Marine Corp, and Navy Reservists into a public facing website, two Microsoft Sharepoint powered web applications, and three private intranets.Key Results:• I lead an effort to implement a new public facing website, which went on to win several awards—including the prestigious WebContent.gov award for best design• I redesigned three application portals that were originally very antiquated and no longer meeting the needs of the organization. Two of the applications were given a clean facelift, while the third one was completely redesigned from scratch.

Note: this position is continued to another contract in 2006.

I was the user experience designer for 1800GoGuard.com and Virtual Armory were projects that focused the recruiting and retention of National Guard servicemen across the world. I worked with a small team of developers and led design on a major revamp of both websites. Human Factors was important because the websites were heavily promoted in magazines, television, radio, and Pay Per Click advertising. A bad user experience could equal hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost advertising costs. Research and focus groups were essential to keeping our advertising costs low and increasing the effectiveness of our customer’s website. I also led design on three major applications, including a tool for applying for financial aid, a storefront that received orders for merchandise and giveaway items, and a Content Management System that allowed soldiers to manage content for their units.Key Results:• I was responsible for developing lead generating applications and marketing concepts and optimizing both websites for SEO. Traffic increased over 40%, saving the Government hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising costs.

Working in the laboratory of this Navy aircraft, I was responsible for building and maintaining a flexible Intranet. Utilizing my web design, user experience, and workflow analysis background, I recognized that the project needed a place to share and store knowledge in one central location. I built a portal by designing a SCORM compliant backend that featured all of the lessons learned, how to tasks, and frequently encountered problems and housed them in one central repository. I was responsible for heavy requirements gathering, analytics and making recommendations to benefit their process and core business.

Continued contract as the User Experience Designer with E2C Hawkeye Program.

From 1999 to 2003, I designed websites, assisted in the generation of proposals, web design demonstrations, and story-boards. I worked with various web technologies--innovating storefronts, increasing efficiency, and providing high quality products to our users. Translating customer expectations into precise specifications for our development team, I was able to clarify project deliverables, define schedule, and assign tasks. I constructed reliable, secure e-commerce websites resulting in significant sales increases. I built prototypes for customer proposals that demonstrated improvements to existing sites--taking a validated design approach, tracking user interactions with sites before and after makeover.