This is where I currently work. Experience Leads play a critical role at HUGE. They are the nerve center of our design process and take a hefty share of responsibility for the success of large-scale projects. Experience Leads oversee an interdisciplinary team through research, strategy development, concepting, product definition, and design.
Responsible for leading all User Experience Design initiatives within ABC Digital. Tasks include: managing the development of user interfaces across digital platforms, supporting the content and business requirements of the department through site optimization and user testing, and providing design & development roadmaps to executives and division directors. Also worked on the 2011 & 2012 Academy Awards website (oscar.com).
GMMB
For one amazing year, I worked with some of the most forward-thinking social cause designers and creative strategists. My projects were AIDSTAR-One and EDD.org. One experience I recommend every digital person has, is putting their skills toward creating change.
Taco Bell: Corporate Portal / Intranet
I spent about a year and a half working with Taco Bell’s internal Creative Services and Communications divisions to create the first ever owners and operators portal system. Our biggest challenge was bucking the notion that portals have to be ugly. I worked closely with the Sr. Art Director and Director of Communications to come up with a robust, information-heavy website that was “easy on the eyes”.
Waiting for Superman: Website Design
While at Participant Media, I had the pleasure of being the lead IA/UX on the website for the movie Waiting for Superman. This breakthrough documentary provided us the platform from which to create a site that help people “create good”. In contrast to traditional online movie marketing, the WFS website is designed as a hub for the cause - a place where supporters can go to learn more about education and take action in their cities.
When ABC decided to cancel its soaps and embark down a new path of daytime programming, we knew that the website would have to change as well. Instead of squishing content from The Chew into ABC’s traditional dot com format, we broke away and created a website that is now the #2 most hit website in ABC’s line up.
My first reaction to being assigned to the WowWee Toys account was an audible WTF. However, years later, I am so thankful I know way more about toy robotics than I should. For 6 months, I buried myself in consumer and competitor research, producing to-date what I consider one of my biggest professional achievements: A 100+ page digital product strategy for a MMP virtual world, digital franchise development and dot com redesign.
We lovingly call this project “the scoop on poop” because..well, it is! I call this one of my feel-good accounts because no matter how difficult it got, it was great knowing that my time and effort were going towards fighting a leading killer of children in impoverished nations. My role on this project was as lead UX, but I also working closely with the client on content strategy.
For the ABC Family Gift Giver App, I took an existing set of specifications developed for the iPad and reverse engineered the interface and interaction design for iPhone and Android mobile devices. A key challenge with this project was making sure that the interfaces across devices remained consistent despite having being designed separately.
AMEX Members Project: Facebook Application
To expand its reach, American Express developed a Facebook version of its voting application that allows users to vote for who they think is the most deserving charity. For this project, I worked directly with the Creative Director & Sr. Art Director to architect and specify each of the interaction states and workflows.
Boston Scientific iPhone/iPad App
Interaction design and wireframes (with annotations) for a iPhone app by Boston Scientific targeting physicians. The purpose of the app was to deliver relevant product information and multi-media demonstrations to physicians about their cutting edge neuro-technologies. Here’s the final product!
Now granted, my contract on this one was shorter than a blink of an eye. But two great things came from being the starter IA on this: befriending the folks at welikesmall and learning how f***ing cool expensive strollers are!
No matter where I went, somehow at&t always followed me! From 2005-2008, I worked on a number of projects for this telecom giant, ranging from banner ads, to microsites to interactive annual reports.
Sometimes the most brilliant ideas only see about 10 minutes of sunshine ;(. I know it may seem strange to put a defunct ecommerce site in your portfolio, but I had such an amazing experience with this client and his product, that I thought I would do a shout out anyway. Vuru.com was the first large-scale, highly dynamic, custom CMS & fulfillment engine I ever worked on. By the time I finished, I think I tallied my hourly to be something around $3.15/hr. But, despite the low pay, this was one of the most challenging and rewarding sites I have ever worked on. Not only was the technical difficulty extremely high, but we were also attempting to redefine and disrupt an entire industry. Sure, the business ended up closing, but to this day I still have nightmares about the million and one ways to dynamically generate drug labels….
Much of my education in complex backend systems and CMSs comes from the work I did with Jeremy Pound, Jason Palter and David Cann at Pound Interactive. Quick, nimble, inventive and risky, Pound Interactive is a firm that defined the concept of breakthrough interactive development back when everyone still called it web design.
