about

I am a 9-year web development, graphic design, and information architecture veteran. By day, I am a UX Director at ARS Interactive, thinkars.com. By night, I am a javascript ninja. I also teach the occasional class in web development or wordpress.
ARS, is a 200+ interactive agency where UX is defined in very broad terms. I'm responsible for some of the design, some of the server-side development and all of the client-side development for our clients (Sears, Kmart, Kenmore, Craftsman, Whirlpool, PBS, and Proctor & Gamble). I specialize in making micro admin systems that hook into larger legacy admin systems and overcome their original limitations.
When not sleeping, I'm working on node.js applications. Currently, I'm building a visual social news reader, love.freeflow.io, in my spare time. I've also recently helped build a redis database monitor, administrator and visualizer for managing redis stores, reddish.freeflow.io and participated in Node Knockout, the-indecisives.nko2.nodeknockout.com.
BTW: I also know PHP, MySQL, Photoshop and Illustrator and have a background in art and print design. I also used to be a volunteer fire fighter and renegade bronze caster (but those are different stories). Motto: Anything you can do, I can do better with Javascript.

Information architecture and user experience focused redesign for GreenCupboards.com.

Re-architected a several hundred page legacy website into five seperate but related websites to better fit the needs of the business.

User flow wireframes for my.freeflow.io, a web-based social media aggregator.

Design of love.freeflow.io – a magazine-like social news aggregator that seeks to provide an aesthetics and content oriented interface aimed at relevance to the user and ease of consumption.

Logo and site design for Reddish – a real-time GUI for the redis key-value store.

Design and front-end development for Chattablocks – a local news and goverment information aggregator. The site collects public records, crime reports and news stories and is designed to assist in discovering what's happening around you.

Designed and developed an online real-time multi-player game as part of Node Knockout – a 48 hour node.js programing competition.
Of the ~300 teams that started my team placed in the top 25 overall and top 10 for design.

Developed a real-time social news aggregator that extracts and inlines shared content. Written in coffeescript using node.js, socket.io, underscore, backbone, and redis.

Designed and developed a custom CMS that integrates with local MLS data. Written in PHP.

Designed and developed an online real-time multi-player game as part of Node Knockout, a 48 hour node.js programing competition.
Of the ~300 teams that started my team placed in the top 25 overall and top 10 for design.

Developed a custom CMS to manage and update product information in real-time for the Sears Deal of the Day promotion. Interfaces between the Sears product API, third-rd party vendors and Sears.com. Written in PHP.

Coded a website takeover for the 2009 Sears "Christmas in July" promotion. Liquid layout with parallax and custom jquery plugin development.

Creative direction for All Aboard Toys. Encouraged the use of large "emotional" images and focused the site redesign on the imagination and joy that toys bring into the life of children.

Provided creative direction for a redesign of Kenco's several hundred page legacy single website into five seperate but related websites to better fit the needs of the business. Focused on clean design that conveyed a modern image inline with Kenco's cutting egde logistics practices. Color coded the five sites to provide company seperation under the Kenco umbrella.

My team's proposal for Kmart Holiday 2010, "Live Your Christmas Story". 24-hr turnaround.

Managed the front-end development of shop.pbskids.org. Tight deadlines made the launch of this highly customized Magento site challanging but it was delivered ahead of expectations.

Managed the front-end developement for this very complex Magento ecommerce site. Custom widgets, custom checkout and multiple stores made this project challenging.

Successfully launched the redevelopment of kenmore.com during the 2009 Holiday season.

Managed the development of the 2011 Kmart Back to School online experience. Live product data updates from the Sears API, custom filtering, custom list building and sharing. Native experience on Kmart.com.

Managed the development of the Kmart Matchmaker promotion. Dynamic product data updates from the Sears API, custom filtering, cute "matchmaker" drag and drop to display matching washer/dryer pairs, product carousel and slideshow.

Managed the implementation of the Sears Buy More Save More promotion. Custom admin, JSON feeds, Sears API integration, custom "add to cart" bundling.