Interaction Designer & User Experience Consultant B. O'Neill: Boston, New York 11/19/10 4:29 PM

Brian O Neill, User Experience & Interaction Designer

abqcx6@r.postjobfree.com

www.rhythmspice.com

1-347-***-****

Cambridge, MA

KEYWORDS

User experience web designer, interaction designer, information architect, design management, web-standards

expert, web developer. Usability testing, customer research, persona development, design process management

with AGILE. Design technologies: XHTML, HTML5, CSS, dHTML, Javascript including JQUERY, AJAX.

Comfortable working in Ruby on Rails, PHP/MYSQL, Drupal, Cold Fusion (CFML), ASP, JSP/STRUTS. Search

Engine Optimization (SEO) specialist. RSS. 508, WCAG, Accessibility expertise. Wireless/mobile. IxDA. Sectors:

Financial services, active trader, brokerage, travel industry, survey science, data visualization, language

learning, designing for boomers and seniors.

CURRENT POSITIONS

Independent consultant: user experience & interaction design

I have been designing websites and applications since 1996. In 2007, I became a full time independent

consultant doing business as Rhythmspice Media. Many of my clients are startups who need help designing

useful, usable, and beautiful web applications. Often times, this means introducing design thinking and design

processes to companies who may have a sales or technology-driven practice that is leaving the human element

in the background. As each project is different, I have developed my skills over time to provide design+business

goal definition, IA, UI/visual design, front-end development, accessibility, low-cost usability/design research, data

visualization, and team development services. I believe all of these skills are required to design software that

delivers great user experiences. See my LinkedIn profile for references, my web portfolio, and my client list.

TravelDragon.com, Founder & Chief Design Officer

In 2009, I redesigned and became a partner in TravelDragon.com, the world's first search engine of trips and

accommodations from boutique and experiential travel operators from around the world. Currently, I am acting as

CDO, managing the product ideas, design, and development along with my partner and CEO, Kathy Dragon.

Since joining, I have created a lead-capture system and robust trip-entry CMS that feeds the reults of the

faceted search engine I also designed and built. Additionally, our travel content can be syndicated out to social

media outlets automatically, which helps achieve our goal of reducing the time operators need to spend

marketing their trip inventory. I also architected the original database model for the app, and have since

upgraded it to allow TravelDragon to become a white-label product for business-to-business deals. Recently, we

improved our operator registration process, speeding up the on-boarding of new travel providers.

PREVIOUS FULL TIME EXPERIENCE

Eons.com, Director of Design and User Experience

Internet startup founded by Jeff Taylor, former CEO of Monster.com

February 2006 - February 2007

Lead the information architecture, interaction, and visual design of the original Eons.com site. While hiring

and managing a team 2-3 designers plus a brand agency, launched seven products/verticals in about six

months during August 2006 ranging from content/blog publishing sites to life-goal and social-media

applications.

Designed authentication systems to encourage customer sign-up leading to 100,000 registered members in

the first year of business.

Helped integrate Agile and User Experience methodologies by growing the technical skillset of the design

team members. This enabled releases every two weeks with each designer responsible for most of the

front-to-back design work on their assigned product.

Conducted and began a usability / user validation program to put a check on the rapid Agile development

style embraced by the engineering and product groups.

Architected, prototyped, and coded much of the original front-end XHTML/CSS for the site, employing Web

Standards methodologies to reduce page load time, maintenance, and accessibility burdens.

Architected the design and the underlying data model for the Travel vertical (which currently lives as

TravelDragon)

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Interaction Designer & User Experience Consultant B. O'Neill: Boston, New York 11/19/10 4:29 PM

BrownCo (BrownCo.com) & ETRADE Experience Design Lead

BrownCo was a division of JP Morgan Invest, LLC (JP Morgan Chase) sold to ETRADE in 2006.

January 2005 - February 2006

As part of an entire trading system and website overhaul, conducted user research, ideation, and design of

the information, interfaces and experiences of the BrownCo active trader customers.

Helped BrownCo s Product Management team learn how to ideate and build visual models of customer s

goals/tasks to facilitate the design of the site and insert a better UCD methodology into their project

lifecycle.

Designed interfaces for key areas including the portfolio area of the site. Conducted usability studies to

validate concepts prior to development.

Lead the adoption of Web Standards methodologies (structured XHTML, CSS, and ECMA Script) and

managed the creation of all front-end CSS and markup

Was a primary bridge between the Engineering and Experience Design groups, enabling more realistic

design with less need for business analyst involvement.

Primary consultant for web accessibility issues and was a member of JPMC s Access Ability networking

group, dedicated to universal design across JPMC's products.

Consulted for ETRADE on how to build and integrate UX Design into software and product development.

Fidelity Investments (Fidelity.com) Lead Designer, Information Architect

August 2003 - November 2004

Terra Lycos Lead Designer for Financial Products

July 2000 August 2003

SmartPlanet.com (subsidiary of ZDNet/CNET) Web Designer

August 1999 - May 2000

EDUCATION

Northern Arizona University, May 1999

Graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Music in Instrumental Performance (Percussion)

Languages

Spanish: Intermediate writing and speaking skills

Brazilian Portuguese: Advanced speaking skills; intermediate writing skills

Honors and Professional Affiliations

Interaction Design Association (IxDA)

Usability Professionals Association (UPA Boston)

Graduated Summa Cum Laude with a 4.0 major discipline GPA and 3.93 cumulative GPA

Percussive Arts Society member

Winner of Exotica Album of the Year at the 2006, 2007, 2008 Hawaii Music Awards

Winner of two solo concerto competitions for orchestras in Arizona (1999)

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