My Resume

Professional Experience

DeVry University Online 2007 – 2010

User Experience Specialist

• Performed user testing on various online courses and online course materials including a live electronics workshop lab in which students could view lab procedures and receive assistance with lab issues. Testing was performed in-house and remotely using online meeting technologies.


• Audited online courses and course materials for accessibility to students with disabilities. Made recommendations to course development group and student advising group.


• Created and maintained surveys for DeVry Academics department.


• Categorized open-ended comments from student surveys with text analytic software. Created a report of categorized comments for use by the Academics group that allowed them to easily scan comments for student issues.


• Created content for faculty training seminar to educate faculty on the accommodations for students with disabilities.


• Presented training sessions to Instructional Designers, Program Deans, and DeVry personal on how students with disabilities use DeVry Online Courses.

American Mediconnect, Chicago, IL 2005 – 2007

Project Lead

• Leading a project in which a text-based call center software is replaced with an interactive scripted interface.


• Successfully converted approximately 200 customer accounts to the interactive system.


• Communicated with software vendor regarding bugs in interactive system.

DePaul University, Chicago IL 2004 – 2005

User Experience

• Performed content editing and page layout on the CTI’s Student Technology Guide.
  
• Performed approximately 60 Contextual Interviews with the students, faculty, and staff of the School of Computer Science, Telecommunications, and Information Systems (CTI) for a re-design of the School’s web sites.
  
• Performed a card-sorting activity with CTI students and compiled results into a taxonomy for the new web site.
  

SPSS Inc., Chicago IL 1998 – 2003

User Interface Designer

• Wrote design specifications for many SPSS products including SPSS versions 10 – 12 and SPSS’s charting package DeltaGraph. The design specs were the last step in a process which included competitive analysis, customer feedback, prototyping, and product team feedback.


• Participated in various usability tests for SPSS products. My participation in those tests included: recruiting participants, preparing testing materials, managing equipment resources, facilitating tests, and compiling results.


• Co-authored an SPSS company-wide standard for assuring accessibility in new and existing desktop products. The standard was based on a set of accessibility heuristics I developed. As a student at DePaul, I expanded this set of heuristics.


• Produced 22 computer based training films for the SPSS product “Surveys With Confidence” using Lotus ScreenCam.


• Created new dialogs for Mixed Models procedure in SPSS 11.0. These new dialogs allowed, for the first time, users to perform highly requested “nesting” operations from a GUI.


• Designed and prototyped a data-enhancement wizard, in cooperation with Acxiom Corporation, which would allow SPSS users access to valuable demographic data for use in Statistical calculations.


• Created example graphics for the “Restructure Data” Wizard in SPSS 11.5 which allows user to easily select the restructure scenario they need. See: http://distdell4.ad.stat.tamu.edu/spss_1/restructure.html “Data Manipulation -- Restructure Data” for an example.


• Designed approximately 50 – 100 application icons for use in various SPSS applications.

Tribune Media Services, Chicago IL 1991 – 1997

Accounting Assistant

• Implemented a spreadsheet front-end onto an existing database to automate royalty payments to Tribune Media Services Cartoonists and Columnists. This decreased the time to prepare checks from three days to one.


• Redesigned existing forms to match system input flow eliminating approximately 50% of data input errors, and subsequent corrections.


• Assisted in gathering requirements for accounting system upgrades.

Education

• MS—Human Computer Interaction—DePaul University Chicago, IL—2006


• BS with Honors—Human Computer Interaction—DePaul University Chicago, IL—1999.


• Fine Arts—University of Illinois at Chicago—1979-1983.

Awards and Public Speaking

• Recipient of Ron Taylor award for performance July 2010


• Tutorial accepted for 2003 Usability Professional’s Association: “The DADA Movement: Designing Accessible Desktop Applications”