Summary

I have been a UX designer in the game industry for over fifteen years, always as an advocate for people new to playing games as well as experienced players. Working with MMOs over their entire lifetime means that I have had experience not only with the initial design and launch process, but also with the continuous, committed iteration and development needed to keep players loving the games over the years. I use Figma and Visio but I also appreciate what a pencil and graph paper can do for quick collaboration and iteration. As part of getting my designs to look like my vision, I learned Cryptic Studio’s proprietary UI scripting language and am now the company’s expert in it. While my recent work has been in the games industry, I graduated from the University of Saskatchewan as an electrical engineer with formal education in control and instrumentation systems. Through my career in engineering, I gained experience in project management, client interaction, and software design. I also found a particular interest and talent for user interface design, obtaining my Masters’ Degree in Computer Science with a focus in Human Computer Interaction.

Software Skills

  • Figma
  • Visio
  • CSS
  • HTML
  • Cryptic Engine
  • Jira
  • C
  • Javascript

Senior User Experience Designer

Cryptic Studios
Apr 2009 - present
  • Designer and implementer, since launch, of the UI for Neverwinter Online, a massive multiplayer online game on PC, Xbox and PlayStation, launched in 2013 and still active.
  • Designed and implemented the initial PC and console UI for Star Trek Online, a massive multiplayer online game launched in 2010 and still active.
  • Company expert in UIgen (the proprietary UI scripting language) and responsible for company-wide support and training of artists and programmers whose work intersects with it.
  • Created and contributed to many pitches and design documents.
  • Feature owner for many improvements and updates involving contributions from multiple disciplines.
  • Designed and improved interfaces for several in-house editors and tools.

User Experience Designer

Conformia Software
Jan 2006 - Mar 2009
  • Responsible for UI design of a Web-based process management system for drug and alcohol manufacture, scalable from early stage R&D to late stage production and clinical trials.
  • Developed and maintained low and high fidelity prototypes, and interface policy documentation.
  • Met with clients to determine use cases and test designs.
  • Supervised an offshore team of three to six implementers.

Teaching Assistant

University of Saskatchewan
Sep 2003 - Dec 2003
  • Marked assignments and final project for class of 38 upper-year computer science students.
  • Developed and presented a weekly 1.5 hour tutorial that reinforced and expanded on class material.
  • Curriculum for class included the Tcl/Tk and the Java Swing toolkits, the principles of user-centered design (with an emphasis on low-fidelity prototyping) and usability evaluation with both heuristics and user testing.

Project Engineer

International Road Dynamics
Aug 1991 - May 2001
  • Programmed in C/UNIX for a variety of applications, from kernel-level signal processing and control applications to user interfaces (using X and Motif).
  • Performed on-site installation and training for commercial vehicle operation systems using Weigh-In-Motion technology.

Education

  • B.Eng (EE) University of Saskatchewan (1991)
  • B. Sc. (Computer Science) University of Saskatchewan (1991)
  • M. Sc. (Computer Science, HCI) University of Saskatchewan (2004)