Resume

Mixed Media Labs | User Experience Designer | Since March ‘11

Design lead for App.net a new product that helps users create simple & beautiful landing pages for mobile apps
UX design of new features on photo-sharing site PicPlz.com including search, collections & mobile sign-up

Yahoo! Social Platform | User Experience Designer | Jun ‘09 – Mar ’11

Led the design for a new product defining the experience for consuming and sharing content on the web
Designed interfaces that maximize user engagement, lower the barrier for participation and increase traffic
Created designs to support 3rd-party experiences like social gaming on various Yahoo! products
Collaborated with multi-disciplinary teams on effective interfaces that allow easy discovery and exploration
Won internal Hackday with an interactive prototype, now considered for implementation
Facilitated design jams and evangelized Yahoo!’s design practice through recruiting at the University of Michigan

Dishes – Local & Social iPhone App | Personal Project / Co-Founder | Since Jun ‘10

Defined the vision and strategy for a mobile application that redefines the dining experience
Developed an interactive prototype to demonstrate and test functionality
Created and iterated UI concepts, interaction flows and specifications for developer

Yahoo! Developer Network | Interaction Design Intern | May ‘08 – Aug ‘08

Led the redesign of the design pattern library to support scalability, flexible content and a modular layout
Evaluated and improved the various phases of the design pattern publication process
Published and revised design patterns promoting and supporting consistency across Yahoo!’s properties

Sapient Consulting | Interactive Developer | Nov ‘06 – Sep ‘07

Created interactive prototypes as proof of concept and for user testing
Translated visual designs into code and worked closely with developers to ensure integrity of UI
Led and worked with remote teams to manage and execute client projects on time
Implemented ad-serving pilot for online marketing supporting multivariate testing

Enlit – Financial Benchmarking in Education | Co-Founder and UX Lead | Since Jul ‘06

Conceptualized and developed a financial benchmarking and management tool for schools
Led the product design by applying a user-centered design process
Performed user testing and roadmap planning for the product

LeanTrak, Inc. | Information Architect | Jan ‘05 – Oct ‘06

Concept and development of company website & knowledge management system
Design and implementation of a project management tool for multi-billion dollar petroleum company
Design and development of worldwide branding program for a global corporation

Master of Science in Information & Human-Computer Interaction | University of Michigan School of Information | Ann Arbor, MI | Apr ‘09

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science & Media Informatics | University of Applied Sciences | Cologne, Germany | Nov ‘04

Software

Usability Methodologies

Personas & Scenarios, Usability Testing, Paper Prototyping, Heuristic Evaluation, Survey design, Contextual Inquiry, Website analytics

Programming

HTML5, CSS, XML, DOM, YUI, PHP, JavaScript, SQL, Ruby on Rails, SEO, Accessibility

Awarded second place for Library 2.0 Design Competition | Apr ’09
Awarded first place for Social Computing Competition by Microsoft | Mar ’08
Received award for my bachelor thesis at the University of Applied Sciences in Cologne for research and development of “a web application service for individual user-based sorting and ranking of search engine results” | Nov ’04
Received 18month stipend for German-American trainee exchange program | Jan ’05

Fluent in German and English, basic understanding of French.

Photography, Architecture, Triathlon
Member of IxDA, BayCHI, SIGCHI and Information Architecture Institute