Beth Carey
Senior User Experience Architect / Product Manager
New York, NY
Objective
A permanent, senior User Experience Architecture / Product Management staff position in web or software development in New York City. As I search for the right fit, as of June 2009 I am available for freelance consulting in New York City and abroad.
Summary
- 12 years experience architecting and managing product development of user-centered products for high-profile clients in the fields of Web 2.0, video, SaaS, social and creative networking, broadcast, education, mobile, pharmaceutical, financial services and more.
- Expert at producing detailed information architecture documents, including but not limited to site maps, wireframes/page schematics, and process flows. (Email me for samples.)
- Expert at producing large, complex, detailed functional specifications
- History of pleasant and effective product team leadership in product management role
- Accustomed to leading and collaborating on generation of MRDs and PRDs, product roadmaps, and competitor analysis and product differentiation idea generation
- Expert at leading team development, iterative launches and meeting deadlines using either agile development methodology or waterfall methodology
- Expert use of task tracking using software such as Jira and wiki such as Confluence
- I work very well with developers, configuration and systems people, as well as graphic designers, executives above me, and business stakeholders. I have a history of working well with others. I also enjoy mentoring junior level people in information architecture and development management.
- I have many excellent references from past jobs and many work samples.
Experience
Senior User Experience Consultant |
February 2009 - Present |
Consulting for former and new clients in the fields of mobile, social networking and pharma.
Clients include but are not limited to: element^n, G2 and MRM. Projects included work for Zain, Pfizer and BMS Financial Services.
Senior User Experience Consultant |
August 2008 - February 2009 |
- Led user experience design on a large, complex web-based customer-facing property management application for client Nakheel that aligned with their Oracle CRM, CFM and Property Manager databases
- Managed and mentored team of 4 information architects
- Deliverables included detailed functional specifications for property security management, online bill paying, customer registration, social networking, and rules for a dynamically served, scalable user experience
Vidavee, a B2B SaaS, provided web video products and services to existing media, social and enterprise web frameworks. I helped build this product that was eventually bought by Vignette and absorbed into their enterprise services.
- Managed and focused a 30-person international development, user interface design and QA team in agile sprint iterations in New York, Romania, Brazil, and Beirut
- Established and coached the organization in an agile development process which resulted in fast and predictable development cycles and better communication within the company
- Managed development of suite of video software that comprised the company's service: trancoder, streamer, API management (Java, PHP and Javascript), a web-based UI admin tool, and analytics and reporting
- Wrote detailed functional specifications
- Mentored project mangers and engineering team leads in project management best practices
Senior User Experience Consultant |
July 2006 - November 2006 |
- Lead Information Architect on a large Web 2.0 video-based social and creative networking site, massify.com and Rokkan
- Lead Information Architect for other clients including JDS Pharmaceuticals, Sudler and Hennessey and HairPi Salon among others
Director of Product Development
|
March 2005 - July 2006 |
- Worked closely with executives to define product business requirements and produced comprehensive, detailed development documentation including functional requirements, site maps, process flows, page schematics
- Led and focused 5-10 developers and QA people in agile, iterative development based on qualitative user research and analytics
- Led formal user testing
- Maintained excellent rapport with partners and executives, department managers and staff, and mentored select staff
- Worked simultaneously on multiple tasks while dealing with changing priorities; always maintained a strong sense of accountability and ability to meet deadlines
User Experience Manager |
January 2004 - March 2005 |
- Provided clients with project consultation and vision on complex, web-based data management intranet applications. Clients included United Way of New York City, Colombian Coffee Federation, 877-Spirits, Wine Messenger, and Atlantic Philanthropies, among other e-commerce businesses
- Managed client engagements and produced information architecture for web-based applications that were database-driven such as inventory tracking, ecommerce, and resource management
- Produced information architecture including site maps and page schematics, functional requirements and HTML prototypes
- Managed developers and designers in development ensuring that the team met deadlines
- Collaborated on generation of proposals and pitches for existing and new accounts
Interactive TV Producer, Consultant (focus on User Experience) |
2001 - 2004 |
January 2002 - October 2002
- As part of a team, created the production system for Dedicate Live, a live, synchronized two-screen model (web and TV broadcast) iTV program. Worked closely with TV producers, broadcast engineers, executives, and back-end programmers (Dedicate Live aired on Fuse from 2002 - 2007)
- Co-produced Dedicate Live, supervising a team of APs and PAs until the show was easy to produce for non-technical staff
- Directed to Fuse's front-end design and back-end programming vendors
- Submitted the name Fuse, among others, when Much Music USA was planning a name change, and pitched new show ideas to executives
May 2001 - December 2001
- Created and managed production of Urban Bedtime Stories, an enhanced TV, two-screen model (web and TV broascast), proof of concept prototype broadcast.
- Read the Guardian (UK) newspaper article about it, Famous for 15MB
Shared State Productions. New York, NY
October 2001 - January 2002
Co-produced a prototype, Game, for an interactive 3D animated TV show for game console delivery using machinama production methods.
User Experience Consultant |
2001 - 2003 |
Clients included but not limited to: Schoolnet and Friskit.com
Information Architect, Staff
|
1997 - 2001 |
- Gathered requirements and created information architect deliverables including user task analyses, strategy briefs, site maps, process flows (including registration, shopping cart, gift giving, parental control systems, and online banking), wireframes/page schematics, and HTML click-throughs
- Worked closely with clients and in-house team in defining business requirements, functional requirements and job proposals
- Worked closely with developers and designers to ensure that development was consistent with functional and business requirements
- Started as Front End Developer / RealNetworks Administrator
- Produced and supervised production of RealNetworks streaming media presentations using complex SMIL; also did HTML, javascripting, and production design
Clients included Word.com (contributed too), Homearts.com, SportChannel.com and Newsworks.com
Prior to Internet work, worked in film/TV industry and as a litigation paralegal
Education
| MFA in Computer Art School of Visual Arts, New York, NY |
1998 |
| BA in Liberal Arts Hampshire College, Amherst, MA |
1988 |
Professional Development
• Nielsen Norman Group, User Experience Conference, User Testing and Advanced User Testing, Fall 2005• Edward Tufte Day Seminar, The Nielsen Norman Group User Experience World Tour, and SIGGRAPH, 2000
And various other lectures and talks over the years
Languages and Programs
- Adobe Illustrator (preferred), InDesign, Omnigraffle and Microsoft Visio for information architecture diagram deliverables
- Front End Development: HTML, DHTML and CSS coding from scratch, basic javascript, Adobe GoLive, FTP server file updating
- Unix and Linux file management; comfortable on the command line
- Adminstration and maintenance of Atlassian's Jira and Confluence - excellent web-based task tracking and wiki software
- Open Office and Microsoft Office: Word, Excel, Project, Powerpoint
- Production graphics in Adobe Photoshop and ImageReady
- Familiar with Perl, Java, and C
References
Many available upon request.Work Samples
Many available upon request.Last updated May 2009
Contact: bc at bethcarey dot com
Contact
Email:bc at bethcarey dot com
Linkedin:
Press and Published
(MFA Thesis)