Charu Ahuja Email & Phone Number

New York, Ny, Us

Established and manage the consumer engagement and usability research functions which serve to better align expert-led product testing with consumer needs.

New York

HGTV / DIY Network / Food Network / Cooking Channel / Travel Channel / Great American Country / uLiveManaging usability research and the usability lab at Scripps Networks Interactive. Conducting usability/user testing for all the Scripps brands. Amongst other methods, offering remote viewing, remote testing, web and mobile studies with and without Eye-tracking.

Conduct weekly iterative user studies, competitive benchmarking, perform card sorting, heuristic/expert reviews, q-sorts, field studies, developed Personas, which helps to better meet the needs of Small Business customers. Established the Usability program, onsite lab facility, hired and manage the team. Evangelizing findings and providing actionable recommendations to cross-functional teams. Studies include testing of the online storefront, customer account management application, complex applications (website builder tool, hosting control panel, e-commerce website management tool, etc.), mobile applications and websites, etc. Developed wireframes, workflows and requirements for revenue generating online storefront, online community and web applications. Worked in cross-functional teams and in an Agile team. Developed web strategies to align with corporate goals.

Conducting usability research with customers of a large-scale consumer electronics retail website and developing wireframes, interaction and ecommerce transaction flow diagrams. Worked with customers to identify online purchase decision-making criteria, post-purchase expectations and ideal UI experience. Created wireframes and interaction diagrams. Consulted on the visual design and development of user interfaces. Worked in an Agile team to integrate UX and found creative ways to conduct early usability testing without coded prototypes.

Provided IA consultation to philanthropic Community Foundations across America (Billion dollar industry) and consequently shared methods and learning with other foundations. Working directly with clients in a discovery process to identify their project's intent and requirements. Articulating relevant principles for organizing information that balances user expectations and business needs. Producing detailed site maps and descriptive content outlines. Developing, conducting and analyzing usability research.

Multimedia Developer:Conducted consultations with faculty members and developed multimedia components for courses. Conducted research on upcoming educational technologies. Created and conducted training seminars on Blackboard Vista for faculty members. Conducted usability testing, research and recommended information architecture. Educational Consultant:Provided support for software and hardware to enhance teaching. Conducted workshops and consultations for educational technology. Developed and maintained a dynamic ASP/Access back-end for the center website. Developed an office management solution using FileMaker Pro. Performed statistical analysis of usage data for budget and grant reviews.Instructor:Provided specialized workshops on producing interactive educational software for online and CD-ROM media using Director and Flash. Developed custom PHP/MySQL and Flash website and content management system.

Developed W3C compliant websites; created CD-ROM applications software.

Melbourne, Australia

www.eWebWatch.com (2000): Producing preliminaries for a finance-based website.HomeLand Networks (2000): Producing a graphical user interface for an online virtual mallStar Safe (2000): Creating a functional prototype for software which tests the training provided to hospital nursing staff6 Billion (2000): Producing an interactive demonstration for a network game based on a board game - 6 Billion ®National Youth Week 2000 (2000): Collaborating to develop a website for the Department for Education Training and Youth Affairs (Ministry of Education - Australia)Studio Learning (1999): Coding in Lingo for a multimedia presentation CD-ROM containing a paper written by Dr. Kathy BlashkiSound in Multimedia (1998): Creating a framework for a website which demonstrating ways in which sound is used in MultimediaDinner Plain (1998): Producing a prototype of a website for an Australian ski resort - Dinner Plain

Singapore

Front-end development and design for a financial portal on LycosAsia targeted towards first-time investors which allowed them to monitor the stock market and provided tips for better investment.