Engineer Design

Alex Janavaris

**** ****** **, *** ****, CA ***** 713-***-****

**********@*******.***

Skills

Team Collaboration/Evangelizing Mentoring Team Milestones

Formal Lab Studies Heuristic Analysis Card-Sorting

On-site Studies Storyboarding Persona Analysis

Contextual Inquiry Task Analysis Group Elicitation

Rapid Low-Fidelity Prototyping Statistical Analysis Affinity Diagrams

OVO Studios TechSmith Morae Advanced Office

Professional Experience

Telenav 2010 – Present

Senior Manager of UX Research

• Develop and instantiate proven methodologies to integrate into the development lifecycle

for existing and future products

• Determine research solutions best suited to implement with regard to roadmap and

product vision while maximizing its ROI and impact

• Coordinate research and related strategies across all product and project stakeholders

• Prioritize research efforts across 10+ existing and emergent product areas

• Specify and build internal usability facilities for in-house studies, focus groups,

walkthroughs, and numerous other uses

• Evangelize and promote early discovery and ethnographic research for emerging and

potential future products

• Create internal usability and research standards and processes for all Telenav products

• Source, specify, coordinate and supervise vendor engagements

• Educate managers, peers, and other associates of related techniques, methodologies,

and theoretical underpinnings as they relate to research and ethnographic efforts

Microsoft – Health Solutions Group 2008 – 2010

Senior UX Researcher

• Design, facilitate and analyze UX studies –participatory, discovery and iterative lab

studies

• Report findings and recommendations to key product stakeholders and developers to

meet milestone goals and user expectations

• Initiate and conduct focus groups and other early discovery exercises for all Health

Solutions product platforms and initiatives

• Research, organize, align and implement best UX strategies, methodologies and

techniques best suited for lifecycle development process

• Determine UX budget for all consumer Health Solutions efforts

• Coordinate usability efforts in 6 interrelated product areas, and integrate solutions with

responsible program management and development teams

• Assure secure and trusted environment considerations instantiated in all efforts

• Promote W3C accessibility adherence

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• Align and coordinate development visions, scope and research efforts across consumer

and enterprise initiatives

• Evangelize UX Best Practices and methodologies across teams

• Source, specify, coordinate and supervise vendor engagements

• Direct and supervise agency (CSG) personnel

Microsoft (Volt Services) 2007

Usability Researcher II

• Perform on-site contextual inquiries for Zune and competitive iPod products

• OOBE observations during onsite investigations. Documentation of issues, commentary

and artifact usage

• Mapping to persona types and affinity diagramming representative persona types based

on initial focus group categorizations

• Discovery of ‘happy path’ installation workflows and workarounds

• Report results and issues to team for triage, and Coordinate with Project Managers to

integrate potential fixes into milestones

Microsoft (Volt Services) 2007

Usability Engineer II

• Facilitate, collect and analyze scenario and task based data for Windows Mobile usability

studies

• Assess product design requirements, and recommend persona and segment-specific

specification structures and strategies

• Investigate and analyze deep-dive formative studies

• Carry out baseline summative assessments across various platforms and report results

and recommendations to Product Management

• Generate and submit design anomaly discoveries and design recommendations to triage

• Conduct competitive reviews and analysis of comparable products and design paradigms

• Perform heuristic analyses, review and redesigns of summative data collection reporting

templates to assure consistency and standardization of results

Ciber, Inc. – Bellevue, WA 2007

User Experience Consultant at Corbis

• Plan, design and construct in-house Usability facilities for formal lab studies and rapid

prototype evaluation

• Design, conduct, and analyze Usability studies and evaluations on a new and emerging

B2B platform using business specific persona models

• Conduct competitive reviews and analysis to keep abreast of industry trends and designs

• Evangelize and promote Human Factors and Usability best practices within organization

to integrate into the development lifecycle

AT&T (formerly Cingular Wireless) – Bothell, WA 2006 – 2007

Premier Solutions Research Manager

• Introduce Human Factors and Usability Best Practices to organization to promote and

integrate into the development lifecycle

• Develop and champion Human Factors research methodologies in B2B ecommerce

environment

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• Manage Premier Solutions Research Group to increase revenue while exceeding

customer expectations

• Achieve best in class usability performance metrics and goals across multiple business

segments

• Championed Usability and Human Factors on many multi-disciplinary requirements and

specification JAD teams

• Design, conduct and analyze usability lab studies to measure customer responses,

expectations and application performance issues

Sumtotal Systems – Bellevue, WA 2006

Human Factors Engineer

• Introduce Human Factors and Usability best practices to organization to promote and

integrate into the development lifecycle

• Conduct heuristic analyses of products to determine adherence to Best Practices and

Usability guidelines

• Perform contextual inquiries to model client task and workflow scenarios for design

specification and integration optimization

• Plan, design and construct in-house Usability facilities for formal lab studies and rapid

prototype evaluation

• Mentor engineering and development teams in appropriate and proven Human Factors

methodologies and procedures

Symantec Corporation (formerly Bindview Development) - Houston, TX 2005 - 2006

User-Experience Consultant

• Design, conduct, and analyze Usability studies and evaluations on a wide range of

Enterprise level Data Compliance and Vulnerability software applications

• Perform heuristic analyses of products to determine adherence to Best Practices and

Usability guidelines

• Champion Human Factors principles and sound Usability methodologies to product

teams

• Assess compliance to standards and common look and feel across multiple platforms

and modules

• Perform contextual inquiries and heuristic analyses for rapid iterative development cycles

DST Systems – Kansas City, MO 2003 -

2005

Human Factors Specialist

• Lead HF contact for four product areas – Smart and FAT Client, WEB and Standards

• Mentor project teams on user-centered design methods, such as contextual inquiry and

usability testing methodologies

• Perform business workflow analyses of client stakeholders (web and application) to

determine optimal design specification and adherence to Best Practices and usability

guidelines

• Ensure application of current user interface design standards, while establishing new

design specifications and guidelines for next generation design implementations

• Structure and conduct contextual inquiry sessions at client facilities. Analyze collected

data and corroborate findings to Business Analysts, Design and Management Teams

Landmark Graphics Corporation – Austin, TX 2000- 2003

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User-Centered Design Specialist

• Championed Usability and Human Factors on many multi-disciplinary design teams

• Defined and implemented MSF based usability lifecycle design process

• Designed, conducted and analyzed numerous usability lab studies to measure customer

responses, expectations and application performance issues

• Conducted many on-site user workflow studies to translate user requirements into

product specifications

• Provided specific application design recommendations from heuristic analyses, user

surveys and participatory walkthroughs that improved the user-experience

• Presented study results, recommendations and low-fidelity prototypes to design,

management, marketing and sales teams

• Incorporated extensive video recording and editing of participant product interactions to

demonstrate user difficulties to various product teams and designers

• Mentored Human Factors methodologies and techniques to domain scientists and

physicists

International Business Machines – West Palm Beach, FL 1999 – 2000

Human Factors Specialist

• Conducted and analyzed accuracy and throughput studies for various speech recognition

applications and transcription devices. Improvements increased participant satisfaction and

learn-ability while dramatically reducing error rates

• Analyzed and presented findings and recommendations from numerous user studies,

task analyses, cognitive walkthroughs, and throughput analyses of IBM’s voice

transcription software – ViaVoice Millennium

• Adherence to functional specifications assessed throughout development

• Two technical review papers submitted and accepted to IBM publications journal

Austin Usability & NMSU – Austin, TX & Las Cruces, NM 1998

Consulting and Research Assistant

• Designed, conducted and analyzed a competitive review of three major computer

manufacturer’s support web portal sites

• Designed and conducted a task analysis, heuristic analysis and expert review of a major

medical web site

Digital Equipment Corporation 1984 – 1998

Air Force Communications Support Facility, White Sands, NM

Senior Engineer

• Provided hardware and network anomaly resolution for the Network and Systems

Integration, Consulting Services, and Multi-Vendor Services groups

• Analyzed and provided recommendations to improve mission critical fault information

display systems

Dona Ana Branch Comm. College – Las Cruces, NM 1987

Electronics Instructor

BDM Management Services 1983 – 1984

High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility, White Sands Missile Range, NM

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Systems Engineer – Systems Services

• Developed and tested systems acceptance guidelines for command and control systems

and subsystems

• Provided technical support for maintaining data processing equipment and associated

peripherals

RCA Service Company – Roosevelt Roads Naval Base, PR 1983

Systems Engineer – Systems Support and Acceptance

• Authored and implemented systems service guidelines and procedures

• Remediate systems anomalies and assure compliance and operations

Control Data Corporation – NASA/TDRSS Facility, White Sands, NM 1980 – 1983

Senior Engineer – Engineering Services and Support

• Engineer-In-Charge of systems support and services

Northern New Mexico Comm. College – Espanola, NM 1980

Electronics Instructor

Los Alamos National Laboratory – Los Alamos, NM 1978 – 1980

Electronics/Biomedical Designer and Cryogenic/Vacuum Technician

Education

New Mexico State University 1996 – 1998

Graduate Studies in Engineering Psychology MA - ABD

New Mexico State University 1994 – 1996

BA in Engineering Psychology – High Honors, 4.0 GPA

North American Technical Institute 1978

AS in Electronics Engineering Technology

Organizations

• Member of the Usability Professionals’ Association

• Officer and Treasurer of the Puget Sound UPA Chapter

• Board of Directors and cofounder of the Austin UPA chapter

• Member of ACM SIGCHI

• Officer and Treasurer of the Austin ACM SIGCHI chapter

• Member of the American Psychological Association

• Phi Kappa Phi Academic Honor Society

• Phi Theta Kappa Academic Honor Society

• Psi Chi Academic Honor Society

• Golden Key Academic Honor Society

• Alpha Chi Academic Honor Society

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