Carleton
University,
Ottawa, Ontario
Bachelor
of Industrial Design (B.ID),
with High Distinction
Sept. 1999 – Apr. 2004
Dean’s List, President’s Scholarship
Carleton University,
Ottawa, Ontario
1
Yr. Computer Systems Engineering,
Sept. 1998 – Apr. 1999
Dean’s List, President's Scholarship
Experience
Petroglyph, Las Vegas, NV, USA (http://www.petroglyphgames.com )
Sept 2009 – Sept 2010
Petroglyph
is currently working on a new MMO called End of Nations which features
RTS-style combat and long-term character progression with MMO social features.
(http://www.endofnations.com ) As the sole UI
Designer at Petroglyph, I interacted with design,
production, art, and engineering to define how the interface should behave and
be laid out while acting as an advocate for the player.
- Designed, wireframed,
and specified the UI specific implementation of features for systems of
all varieties from the front-end, friends, mail, and crafting to the low
level mouse interaction methods for the world map and ability targeting.
- Worked closely with lead designers
to translate their design requirements into a usable interface that
engineering could implement.
- Collaborated with UI artists and
engineers to create new functionality and ensure it preserved design
intent while staying within established timelines.
- Prototyped new interfaces in flash
to test different alternatives without commiting
engineering resources for a working implementation.
- Performed informal usability tests
and gathered feedback from players.
- Laid out the interface using our
proprietary toolset and create graphics or animations as part of the
implementation.
Vizible, Toronto, Ontario,
CA (http://www.vizible.com)
August2005 – Dec 2008
Vizible was
a small software startup creating a platform that combines the powerful
real-time scripting features of Flash with an open source 3d engine. The
company’s flagship product, the Pogo browser, was being developed with
AT&T. While at Vizible I performed a variety of
roles from designing and developing proofs of concept to defining the technical
implementation of key interactive features.
- Prototyped and specified the
implementation of a high performance interactive navigation method for
dynamically loaded content in a scriptable real-time 3d engine. (http://blip.tv/file/1644235)
- Designed and defined the critical
functionality of our 3d environment creation tool by researching and
specifying the technical requirements for key functionality like direct
manipulators for objects and creating/assigning behaviours
to objects. (http://blip.tv/file/1814288 )
- Defined a large number of new
features in the core c++ 3d client with a focus
on increased visual fidelity (real-time lights and shaders),
improving performance (profiling and identifying slow functions, finding
opportunities for parallel execution and asynchronous function calls), and
improving developer ease of use.
- Designed and executed the graphical
look and feel and 3d environment for a customer demo that won Vizible a multi-million dollar contract.
- Independently created the workflow
to move models from mainstream 3d modelers to our platform and wrote an XSLT
translator for legacy worlds.
- Wrote scripted libraries (e.g.
vector algebra and industry standard animation easing functions) to
increase developer efficiency and improve the fidelity of 2d graphics
shown in 3d.
Alias, Toronto, Ontario,
CA (http://www.autodesk.com)
January 2005 - July 2005
At Alias (now acquired by Autodesk), the
leading provider of computer animation and computer-aided-industrial-design
software, I worked closely with a senior product specialist on a proposal for a
new software product. I drew on my experience as a modeling software user, a
user experience designer, and my programming experience to provide a unique
perspective on the proposal’s direction.
·
Collaborated
with engineering, product specialists, and project managers to determine the
product’s direction and capabilities
·
Contributed
extensive competitive research
·
Worked
with product managers, a senior product specialist, and usability to validate a
proposed concept with the target user group
·
Organized
and recruited a wide range of designers for focus groups
·
Created
interface prototypes in Flash/Actionscript to
communicate with developers
Seaway Networks, Ottawa, Ontario, CA (http://www.freescale.com)
Fall 2004
Seaway
is fabless semiconductor company (now acquired by Freescale) that makes high speed network processing chips.
I was tasked with acting as an external customer to learn and test their
software API for ease-of-learning and reliability.
·
Created
a e-mail scanning application using Seaway hardware and their software API as
well as third party virus and spam scanning engines
·
Application
was used for demonstration purposes at an RSA tradeshow
·
Learned
C++ and C on the job
Corel Corporation, Ottawa,
Ontario, CA (http://www.corel.com)
Summer 2002
In my first co-op term I worked with the
User Experience group at Corel which is responsible for designing the user
experience for Corel’s creative applications (CorelDRAW,
Painter, Knockout 2, etc.). During that time I had the opportunity to
experience the full range of duties carried out by User Experience Designers at
Corel:
·
Wrote
small specs and carried them through working groups, sign-off, and
implementation.
·
Designed
new interface elements for Painter running on Windows XP
·
Integrated
theme-awareness into design process for Painter under Windows
·
Collaborated
closely with other members of the team on large specs
·
Created
visual representations, or mockups, of prototype interfaces to communicate
workflow, appearance, and size
·
Contributed
to the design of a variety of features
