PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Microsoft - Bing

[5/2010 - current]

User Experience Designer

A member of the Bing Design Group, I have been responsible for the exploration of new domain features and core concepts which are pushed across the entire network.

Aligned closely with the Travel Project Management team to explore new ways for displaying the travel homepage, flights, destinations, hotels and socially enabled experiences both as results answers and domain specific pages.
Incubation of new feature concepts used to target specific audience segments and to improve category discoverability.
Delivered wire-frames and high-fi concepts for a cross-group collaboration effort to create a multi-network experience campaign focused in brand awareness.

Microsoft - Platform Strategy

[10/2008 - current]

User Experience Strategist, Program Manager

Active in the advancement of the Microsoft Platform through the creation of customer experiences that are data-driven, connected, socially enabled, cloud hosted, contextual and relevant across multiple touch-points.

Aligned closely with industry teams and account reps to influence the user experiences created to demonstrate possible solutions for customer engagements. Delivery of high-level concepts, wire-frames, visual specs and scenario documentation.
Mange the relationship between product teams, field advisors and customers to develop end-to-end solutions resulting in the creation of framework components that can be integrated across multiple projects.
Attend customer visits to gain insight into a particular industry and to better understand specific pain points. Facilitate brainstorming sessions with the goal of getting the customer to find ways to differentiate from competitors through the smart use of software.
Participate in discussions focused on delivering multi-tiered customer experiences that help to promote brand awareness, are marketing driven and technology enabled.

Microsoft - Platform Evanglism

[6/2002 - 10/2008]

Creative Director, User Experience Lead, Evangelist, Product Designer

As a member of the Platform Evangelism team, I held several roles each responsible for delivering a variety of creative solutions. Interaction design, interface design, logos & branding, illustration, visual design, concepts, scenarios, user flows, & animation. I was an influential design resource across internal evangelism teams, cross-group engagements and vendor-hired projects.

Directed every phase of the online experience created for Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference [2008] attended in person by 6,500 people and more than 50,000 online. Coordinated all vendor relations including conference branding, site development, registration and a complete redesign of the way attendee’s navigated session information. Introduced new methods of interaction to support participation during the conference and to increase engagement with content post event. Influenced and enhanced the offline experience through real-time updates during the entire event.
Oversaw all design efforts (User experience, Interaction and user interface) for the family of evangelism-lead, online community websites including Channel 9, Channel 10, Channel 8, Edge and CrossFader. Responsible for the creation and delivery of branding, wire-frames, page layouts, concept sketches and visual specs. Collaborated with the development team to design, prioritize and manage new features.
First person in the role as User Experience Evangelist. Facilitated cross-company efforts to engage influential design representatives to promote Microsoft as a leader in user experience both to the internal and external design communities. Arranged for the participation of external designers to speak at MIX05, MIX06 & MIX07 as part of the UX-focused talks and panel discussions.
Delivered sketches, wireframes, visual specs, illustrations and graphic assets as part of a development team responsible for strategic technology demos. Collaborated with account reps, product feature managers, virtual teams and evangelist to create concepts for customer visits, Longhorn (Vista) feature scenarios and executive presentations. Produced logos, illustrations, data visualizations, animations and influenced design decisions for the entire Developer and Platform Evangelism organization.

Microsoft - Passport, UX Experience Team

[10/2000 – 6/2002]

Product Designer

A designer on the small content management team tasked with improving the user experience of Microsoft’s “single sign-in” service Passport.

Created wire-frames, user flow diagrams and mock ups of the Passport sign-in screens for use on internal and partner sites.
Delivered low and high-fidelity page mock-ups used by usability engineers to test new features related to sign-in and registration. Participated in user testing to identify key issues with the user flow.
Collaborated with usability, project management and marketing teams providing user experience guidance and graphic assets for versions 1.4 & 2.0. Designed the sign-in/sign-out “scarab” used by millions of users on MSN and partner websites

Modern Digital

[6/1998 – 10/2000]

Interactive Coordinator, Interface Design, Visual Designer

Collaborated with a small team of designers, developers and animators to deliver interactive solutions on CD-ROM and early websites.

Attended client meetings, brainstorming sessions and helped define the scope of projects for local and national clients.
Crafted user paths, information architecture, and interaction models.
Coordinated project timelines working closely with designers, artists, animators, developers and outside vendors.
Delivered designs, illustrations, graphic assets and interactive sprite-based animations.

PROFESSIONAL HIGHLIGHTS

Professional Developers Conference 2008

Lead the effort to revise the way Microsoft-hosted conference sites are designed and implemented. Facilitated the creative design and branding of the entire conference. Responsible for information architecture, interaction design, and delivered a complete set of wireframes, content and user flow diagrams. Directed vendor relations addressing all aspects related to marketing, site development, content management and site updates. Redesigned the way attendee’s engaged with session information before, during and after the conference. Introduced the concept of session pages, use of a Twitter feed to accompany live stream of keynotes and dynamic “feature” banner to promote major daily announcements.

Patent Award | Annotating and Sharing Video - 2008

Designed a method providing the capability to annotate, share and read other peoples comments related to a segment of video. Indicator used to mark time stamp of annotation.

Channel 9

Lead user experience designer for Microsoft’s largest developer-focused community website, Channel9.msdn.com. Established site navigation, page layouts, interaction strategy and visual design. Creator of the Channel 9 guy, one of the most recognized logos in the Microsoft developer community. Site currently receives 6.5M unique visits monthly.

MIX05

Team member of the inaugural MIX conference created to engage web developers and designers. Coordinated the User Experience track and arranged the participation of influential external speakers. Responsible for the design and delivery of the conference online experience.

Professional Developers Conference 2003

Developed scenarios, user interaction and visual design of primary customer demos featured in the PDC03 Bill Gates Keynote address.