| Summary
|
| Seasoned Senior
Interaction Designer and manager of user interface design,
customer experience, usability, and documentation teams. Point
man and the competitive edge for transformation of legacy software
and interactive services.
Extensive background in all aspects of multimedia development
and user experience. Creative and insightful, with excellent analytical
and communication skills. Experienced and technically astute.
Integrate, articulate and motivate across tech/non-tech cultural
boundaries. |
Keywords: |
Interaction design, information
architecture, human factors, GUI expert, training, “best practices”,
usability, business requirements, ease of use, workflow, customer
centric, templates, stylesheets, look & feel, behaviors, preferences,
profiles, communication |
| Markets:
|
Financial services,
banking, media, publishing, technology, advertising |
| Skills: |
Style guides, requirements gathering,
use cases, e-commerce, business analysis, portals, site evaluation,
RAD prototyping, storyboarding, online help, CBT, SDLC documentation,
data modeling, graphics, RUP, wireframes, cross-browser compatabiltiy,
animation and marketing presentations |
| Languages:
|
HTML, DHTML, MS Word templates,
CSS Stylesheets, Javascript, XML, UNIX shell, Visual Basic, LotusScript,
Openscript, UML, RUP, Hypercard & SuperCard (Mac), DOS |
| Hardware:
|
Windows PC, Macintosh,
modem, 3rd party data feeds, OCR scanner, camera capture,
audio / video production & editing, LAN |
| Software:
|
DreamWeaver, Fireworks, Photoshop,
RoboHelp, MS Word, Lotus Notes, HTML editors, MS Outlook, PowerPoint,
Visio, Fontographer, Toolbook, SourceSafe, Flash, Rational (RUP)
products, Erwin |
| Professional
Experience |
Solutions: In virtually every engagement, I provide the following range of tools & services as a Senior User Experience Design Practitioner:
Evaluation & needs assessment, business requirements, content inventory, “best practices”, design specifications, stakeholder liaison (business, technical, marketing), prototype site modeling, navigation & structure, task-oriented workflows, CSS & DHTML, templates, libraries, styleguides, taxonomies & categories |
Dec 2007
Current |
US Military Academy
Functional and presentational makeover of a university library website with and eye towards servicing Student Cadets, Faculty, Library Administrators and Visitors.
Challenges: Identify primary audiences and their workflows; Simplify navigation and organization; Enable and support “self-service”; Evolve process tools for “virtual” working environment |
Sep 2007
Current |
Allied North America
“From-the-ground-up” design of a national intranet at construction risk management-oriented insurance company - as a front-end to SharePoint platform.
Challenges: Organize & guide the design process, Reconcile look & feel across multiple organizational units, Gather collateral, Integrate functionality |
| Jun 2007 Aug 2007 |
[ Company Confidential ]
UI makeover for High Net Worth audience at major financial company
Challenges: Identify workflow deltas, UI design for complex applications |
Mar 2007
May 2007 |
Prudential Insurance
As the Senior Colleague on the Interaction Design Team, I worked closely with Business Team stakeholders to craft cohesive design solutions for a new private label product.
Challenges: Identify workflow deltas; Integrate Customer-oriented and Agent-oriented products; Reconcile Customer Acquisition with Post-Issue support; Liaise with marketing design team. |
Jan 2007
Feb 2007 |
Advertising Database
Provided complete visual & functional makeover for an advertising contact management application. Look & feel, continuity, workflows.
Challenges: Delivered the goods thru a virtual-office environment, Integrate new features |
Oct 2006
Dec 2006 |
Modem Media / Digitas
Senior Consultant with well-established design firm, assisting our client - an energy utility company - to make over their employee services intranet site.
Challenges: The legacy internal info site did not satisfy employee needs. Reconcile inconsistency and poor visual design; Support SharePoint platform; Edit out un-useful data. |
Jul 2006
Sept 2006 |
Business Edge Solutions, Customer Experience Consultant
I sub-contracted thru this high-end consulting firm to work with a major financial enterprise, focusing on high net worth market niche.
Solutions: Stakeholder presentations, strategic white papers, website analysis, identifying customer personas and service opportunities |
Jun 2006
Jul 2006 |
Stein Rogan & Partners
Worked with this ad agency to design a compelling 35-page mini-site designed to showcase a new financial service being offered by large banking client.
Challenges: Turn dull, legalistic brochureware print collateral into accessible web-enabled information. |
Apr 2006
May 2006 |
The
NIA Group
Worked directly with the CIO and Marketing Director to deliver a 70-page targeted, customer-centric site that generates viable sales leads redesign for a customer-facing insurance aggregator. Visit the NIA Group site
Challenges: The bland, product-oriented legacy "brochureware" site did not satisfy client needs. Poor visual design, awkward hard-to-use structure, did not reflect enterprise branding. |
Dec 2005
Feb 2006 |
Schoolnet
Designed website prototypes for Teacher Portal and Bulletin Center, provided design documents for new software release of school data-driven decision service.
Challenges: Capture requirements and workflow; Conform design to Sharepoint platform |
Jul 2005
Sep 2005 |
Standard
& Poor's
Led design team in creating a UI model for rules-engine-driven financial portfolio advisor site. Overcame numerous issues within an aggressive delivery schedule, provided documentation leadership in delivering this private label product.
Challenges: Capture requirements and workflow; Design for private label environment |
May 2005
Jun 2005 |
Credit
Suisse First Boston
Strategic redesign of legacy B2B websites for residential mortgage lending divisions. Develop strong brand identity, migrate to a common, integrated platform and roll out the web-based service as a private label that provide a “re-brand-able” business front-end for strategic partners.
Challenges: Improve usability; Identify and add functionality; Competitive analysis |
Jul 2004
Apr 2005 |
Bunge
Global Markets
Design leadership for a complex intranet-based suite of services for this global commodities firm. Focus on trading and fulfillment, risk management, strategic planning, reporting, customer assistance. Successful international rollout of flagship trading service in spring of 2005.
Challenges: Rework legacy interface to focus on user experience: Define best practices, clarify business requirements. Design user assistance collateral. |
May 2004
Jul 2004 |
Kyocera/Mita
This international copier/printer company needed to make their
web-based Dealer Order Management System both usable and competitive.
Challenges: Fix legacy interface. Capture workflows
and integrate applications.
|
Dec 2003
Feb 2004 |
City
of New York / CityTime
Design leadership for a complex web-based Time and Payroll
Management application used by 200,000 city employees
at 80 city agencies.
Challenges: Integrate services across
multiple agencies. Provide an efficient interface,
best practices, functionality, navigation and ease of use. Translate
workflows from multiple agencies into a common vision
based on user experience..
|
Mar 2003
Jul 2003 |
Deutsche
Bank Equity Research
Usability engineer and interaction designer for Global
Equity Research website and intranet preferences
management fulfillment system.
Challenges: Integrate branding across
the banks’ incompatible international corporate sites. Enable
cross-selling of enterprise services. Implement substantial
new competitive functionality. |
Dec 2001
Jul 2002 |
Staff: Morgan
Stanley Equity Research
Usability champion and interaction design architect for flagship
Equity ResearchLink client-facing website, which
pushes equity research to Morgan’s institutional investor client
base.
Challenges: Provide competitive edge
in terms of usability engineering. Focus functionality
on search, customer profiling & preferences and fulfillment.
Liaise to Business Unit with weekly presentations
& consultation. |
Mar 2001
Jul 2001
|
Consulting: Ernst
& Young
Creative and technical writing, documentation, interactive design
and strategic consulting on implementation for range of internal
Ernst & Young initiatives. |
Jan 2000
Feb 2001 |
Staff: Immersant
(Bowne)
Lead "human factors" expert, usability analyst and
interaction designer at this corporate-oriented internet service
bureau design shop.
Challenges: Leverage Bowne’s position
into the emerging web-based electronic publishing arena. Attract
and satisfy corporate clients. Lead web e-commerce
initiatives. Pioneer the Customer Experience
practice. Point man for initial “quick strike” client contact: Instrumental
in closing and defining the majority of major new client projects:
including Paine Webber, T Rowe Price,
EquiServe, Bank One. Largest
performance bonus in NY/NJ office. |
| 1998-1999 |
Information
Architect and Interaction Designer
BT&R
|
(10
mos.) Redesigned highly complex international talent payment
system. (VB, style guidelines, Erwin, data modeling, documentation,
workforce training, RoboHelp) |
PostalWorks
|
(3 mos.) Packaged
functioning prototype of an integrated Web-delivered email
Direct Marketing Campaign Manager tool. (Documentation,
Visual Basic, HTML.) |
AT&T Labs
|
(3 mos) Interactive
Voice Response (IVR) design for Customer Call centers. Project
Lead on $850,000 proposal for cutting edge Natural Language
Speech Recognition. |
Sumitomo Bank
|
(2 mos) Documented
mainframe processes and data feeds through Unix scripts
for mission-critical financial transactions processing development
group. |
CD-Now
|
(1 mo.) Prototyped
a “wireframe model” for improving usability of customer
interface for music-oriented consumer Web service. (Visual
Basic, HTML, documentation) |
Block Trading
|
(1 mo.) Designed
GUI for speed-oriented high performance broker trading tool
for small order execution stock house. (HTML, workflow,
graphics) |
NBC Market Research
|
(4 mos.) Redesigned
the UI for a legacy client-server application enabling marketing
staff to research, analyze, strategize and report on Nielsen
TV viewership data. (Visual Basic, requirements gathering,
documentation, workflow, graphics) |
|
May 1997
Jan
1998 |
Staff:
Dow
Jones Markets, Interface & Documentation Manager
Supervised user experience and documentation practice for e-commerce
Transactions Development Group (TDG).
Challenges: Primary client
contact in developing all aspects of UI design and analysis.
Define best practices. Implement full range of
System Develpoment Life Cycle documentation and processes
for Windows and Web environments.
Projects: Electronic trading, foreign exchange, commercial
paper and decision support, involving live market data feeds and
custom databases. Developed “Design Resource Center” platform
for the entire group.
|
Feb 1994
Jan 1997 |
Staff:
Instinet
(Reuters)
Interface Design expert for the Order Management System
(OMS), Instinet's flagship electronic online stock trading
and portfolio management service. Also provided a central
pool of design resources and usability engineering to software
development groups throughout the enterprise.
Challenge: Provide the competitive edge
to OMS by designing an efficient, integrated, comprehensive, easy-to-use
tool that would allow the firm to define the broker's
desktop. Support internal project development groups
by establishing common branding and best practices across the enterprise (Installation Tracking, Billing, Soft Dollar
Management, Clearing History, Transaction Analysis, Customer Database
integration). Implement enterprise-wide Intranet.
Work closely with internal clients to bring them up to speed on
the new technology and migrate their legacy applications to Web
format.
- Responsible for integration and compliance with Reuters performance
standards. Championed Usability Testing and Analysis at Reuters
Usability Lab. Prototyped and documented new features.
- Created enterprise-wide Design Resource Center online database
- Designed and produced more than 50% of the content on of
our intranet site
|
| 1990-1993 |
Long
Term Newspaper
Association of America
Designed and developed Electronic Sales Assistant (ESA),
a cutting-edge interactive online sales presentation and marketing
self-service support system.
Challenges: Enable the NAA to effectively support
the Sales and Marketing staffs of more than 100 member
newspapers across the US.
Solutions: Designed a customized easy-to-use graphical
interface browser, straightforward workflow, context-sensitive
online help system, "how to" examples, a fully illustrated
"step-by-step" user guide |
|
1981-1990 |
Owner
& Creative Director: The
Communication Studio Inc.
Established and successfully operated one of the first
user interface design / usability service bureaus in
the country, providing services to Fortune 500 and international
clients. TCS also designed, programmed and marketed successful
computer software products that were marketed to major industry
players.
Selected TCS Clients:
| AT&T
Bank of America
BBDO
Booz-Allen Hamilton
Citibank
Dun & Bradstreet
IBM |
Indiana
University
Information Industry Association
NBC
Nynex
Pacific Bell
Prime Computer |
Prodigy
RCA Engineering
Sony Corporation
Southern New England Tel.
Texas Instruments
Telerate
Welles, Rich & Green |
|
|
1974–1980 |
Video
Production & Animation
|
Television News Research |
Supervised
a video editing staff of 4 in the creation of a comprehensive
video "talent bank" of newscasters from
the Top U.S. Television Markets |
|
Buckminster Fuller’s Worldgame |
Producer/Director
for multimedia documentary of Buckminster
Fuller’s 1979 Worldgame Conference at University
of Massachusetts |
|
Automation House Video Studio |
Built and operated
one of the first local production and Live Injection Points
for Manhattan Cable TV |
|
Municipal Cable Project |
Managed staff
of 6 as we built and operated one the first community-operated
cable TV station in the United States (Somerville,
MA). |
|
Lisberger-Ladd Animation Studio |
Created cartoon
sequences for ABC Network children’s weekly
program "Make a Wish" |
|
|
Education
|
|
New York University |
 |
Master's degree
in Interactive Telecommunications Program (1981) |
|
MIT |
 |
Technical courses in animation and video;
active with the Media Lab (1976-77) |
|
Boston University |
 |
Master's degree in Educational
Media / Instructional TV (1974) residency at WGBH New Video Workshop;
educational merit scholarship |
|
Tufts University |
 |
BA in History (1972) Founding
member of The College Within; self-directed projects in light
& color, video and communications; Taught course on "Viking"
in the Experimental College; Naval ROTC and work scholarships
|
|
State Art School |
|
Oslo, Norway (1971) courses in graphic arts,
sculpture and color theory |
| References
|
| Available on request.
|
|
vaughan1@optonline.net