My work and clients :: Education, e-learning, and information access

Yahoo! (for BranchLogic)
Usability Consultant
6 - 8/06; 10/05 - 1/06

I designed and conducted two studies that changed the way the company approached getting information about new products to users. Both studies investigated the usability and branding issues around novel Web interaction and presentation treatments to create guidelines and patterns for future designs. In the first, which was research about stand-alone online “tours” of products, I conducted stakeholder interviews with product managers, marketers, and brand owners. This series of interviews resulted in a new set of tools for these managers to build and examine the business case for types of advertising and promotion pieces. Other methods used in the research – automated usability test administered to 5,000 people; a survey distributed to 10,000 people; and two comparative in-lab usability studies – led to the development of guidelines and patterns for design for Web features.

 

RLG, Inc. (now part of OCLC)
Usability Consultant
1/-2/06

After working with RLG on a few other usability projects, they invited me to design and conduct Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation (RITE) of a prototype Web user interface for access to meta data and finding aids for archival collections in libraries, museums, and historical societies worldwide. The RITE method collapses the design and testing cycles into one. Starting with a prototype, an interdisciplinary team tests the design with two or three users, makes changes based on those sessions, and then tests again with a few more users over just a few days. The cycle repeated for this project until we had five participants from three different audiences use the service without encountering problems. Within two weeks of usability testing with 20 participants in individual sessions, RLG had a useful, usable, desirable service that after QA testing would be launched to the world on the Web. After a four-month free period, the site now is available for a fee at www.archivegrid.org.

 

Education Finance Partners
Expert reviewer, usability consultant
1/06

Developed two personas (character sketches describing aggregated user profiles) and then used them to perform a heuristic evaluation of an online application form used to apply for private school loans. Conducting the evaluation through the personas led the client to streamline the application to make it more likely that potential borrowers would not abandon the process and to improve applicant’s chances for securing loans.

 

Aplia, Inc. (for BranchLogic)
3 – 9/05

Conducted ethnographic research about how undergraduates study and take notes, which included stakeholder interviews with five sales people and three professors, a literature review about related instructional design issues, and field research with 16 students attending different types of colleges and universities in the San Francisco area. Working with a renown Stanford economist and his staff at Aplia, and excellent designers from BranchLogic, developed new models for delivering digital educational materials that used to look like printed text books that integrated homework assignments, quizzes, learning aids, study guides, and other tools. 

 

RLG, Inc.
11/03 – 3/05

Conducted quick ethnography and iterative usability testing to understand better how undergraduates do research. Results were incorporated into revisions of a large bibliographic database available at www.redlightgreen.com. Also, created a custom focus group methodology and protocol for investigating interest and use by three audiences of RLG’s Archival Resources, which provided online access to finding aids for archival collections worldwide.

 

EPG/McGraw-Hill New Media
3/01–7/01

Designed and conducted contextual inquiry of adults who work in schools on enrollment, attendance, and grades. Generated task sequences, workflow diagrams, user profiles, and insights that the development team at McGraw-Hill used to make design decisions for new Web-based software applications.