Resume & Contact: Steve Kuhn
13 Legrande Avenue, Tarrytown, NY 10591
(h) 914.332.0875 | (m) 917.952.9849 | (e) steve.kuhn@gmail.com
www.tropedesign.com
OVERVIEW
Innovative thinker, team leader, and manager in the design and product management of complex Web applications. Considerable experience in the design and creation of social media, groupware, and e-commerce apps. Thorough grounding in all aspects of human-centered research and design. Solid track record working with multiple roles across the software enterprise. Adept at managing ideas through organizations and presenting and defending work in small conference rooms or large lecture halls. Looking to engage with intellectual challenges bounded by real-world business constraints.
EXPERIENCE
Director of Product Management and User Experience, July 2005 - present
SelectMinds, New York, New York
Responsible for all aspects of product strategy and feature and user-experience design for SelectMinds corporate social networking products. Responsibilities include: competitive research and product strategy; writing business requirements, use cases, and functional specifications for product features; feature prioritization; preparing storyboards, wireframes, detailed screen designs, and prototypes for all product features; consulting with engineering to ensure appropriate feature implementation; regular client and sales consultation for product requirements research; primary user research in consultation with SelectMinds clients; coordination with senior management on product support for major strategic initiatives; prospect and sales support; managing a staff of seven implementing front-end designs for client builds.
Key accomplishments at SelectMinds:
-- Drove strategy and requirements for full-scale product-configuration rearchitecture
-- Formalizing and executing formal product management process
-- Full redesign of end-user-facing interface
-- Full redesign of admin-user-facing interface
Lead, Senior UI Designer, June 2004 - July 2005
eBay, User Experience & Design Group, San Jose, California
Lead UI Designer in charge of Shipping, Payments and Checkout for eBay, the World's Online Marketplace. Responsibilities included: designing information architecture, page layouts and functional flows to meet requirements set by business units (BU) and product management (PM) while ensuring a simple and pleasurable user experience; working as primary UI contact point for BU and PM; managing
design professionals throughout initiatives; continuously presenting in-process artifacts to eBay's wide set of business and executive stakeholders; coordinating initiatives with counterparts at eBay's payments
company PayPal; reviewing projects and providing guidance for junior eBay designers working in the Shipping, Payments and Checkout group. Promoted from Senior to Lead after six months at eBay.
Key accomplishments at eBay:
-- Checkout completion raised from 79% to 86%
-- Payment volume through checkout raised from $770 million to $1.1 billion monthly
-- Checkout completes raised from 700 thousand to 1 million daily (average)
-- Shipping UI Strategy specifying prioritized improvements to eBay shipping features
Instructor, June 2002 - May 2004
Department of English, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Taught user-centered design methodologies for human-computer interaction design in the Department of English at CMU. Classes focused on methods for understanding and quantifying user-group needs, methods for understanding and quantifying business requirements, and methods for iteratively developing
appropriate interfaces based on knowledge of audience and purpose.
Interface Design Consultant, June 2002 - May 2004
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
While teaching at CMU, performed contract interface design, visual design, client consultation and interviews, and usability testing work for World Health Organization in Geneva.
Key accomplishments for WHO:
-- Complete interface prototyping, interaction design, and visual design for WHO's pioneering knowledge-management application Implementing Best Practices
-- Complete redesign of the WHO Intranet
Designer, Product Development, August 2001 - June 2002
ATG, Boston, Massachusetts
Brought into Product Development group to lead a team conceptualizing and designing the functionality and user experience of the ATG Dynamo Portal application. Authored requirements documents and prioritized functionality set with Product Managers. Created storyboards, flowcharts, and mock-ups of UI layouts and functional flow. Worked with engineering staff to ensure satisfactory implementation.
Design Director, February 2000 - August 2001
ATG, San Francisco, California and Boston, Massachusetts
Opened ATG design operations in San Francisco. Recruited and hired team of interface and visual designers to staff ATG's services operations in the West. Resourced incoming projects with engineering
management. Promoted to Design Director for ATG Global Services and moved to Boston in April 2001. Responsible for salary reviews and career development of 12 designers. Responsible for
ongoing excellence of all Design Services engagements, managing and troubleshooting ongoing
projects with separate design teams, and developing expanded Design offerings for ATG Services.
Design Lead, UI Designer, Design Developer, June 1997 - February 2000
ATG, Boston, Massachusetts
Worked in junior, mid-level and senior positions on multi-disciplinary teams which planned, specified, and implemented the user interface and functionality set for complex Web applications running on ATG Dynamo. Clients included Office Depot, Sun Microsystems, Herman Miller and BMG Music Services. Worked as both an individual contributor and leader in the following tasks: creative client presentations; business requirements gathering and refinement; user observation and user questionnaire authoring; user segmentation; brainstorming meetings; storyboarding; interface sketching and refinement; user flow refinement; functionality creation; functionality specification authorship; user testing of prototypes in development; paper and on-screen prototype authorship; use case and user scenario authorship; front-end implementation on ATG Dynamo. As Design Lead, led a team of 4-6 on the creative side of Web application development, planned and resourced team activities with Project Manager and
Technical Lead, and acted as primary client contact point for creative and functionality development.
Assistant Art Director, Freelance Writer, May 1992 - May 1995
Washington City Paper, Washington, DC
Oversaw design and production of tabloid free weekly, circulation 92,000. Wrote music reviews, movie reviews, and arts and news features.
EDUCATION
Master of Design, Communication Planning and Design, June 1997
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
A cooperative graduate degree between the English and Design Schools, focusing on user-centered design methodology and communication in the digital realm.
Bachelor of Science, Journalism and Political Science (double major), May 1992
American University, Washington, DC
Editor of weekly student newspaper The Eagle, when it was recognized by the Associated Press as the most outstanding student weekly in the US. Additional concentration in international studies.
SKILLS / EXPERTISE
User research, interface design (for applications including e-commerce, collaboration, knowledge management, social networking), usability testing, technical writing, editing, creative writing, client contact, requirements research and prioritization, strategy formulation, public speaking, curriculum design, instruction, JSP, JHTML, HTML, CSS, Perforce, CVS, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign.
REFERENCES
Available upon request.