Jason Schklar

Current

Founder at Initial Experience Consulting (Sole Proprietorship)

Past

User Experience Specialist, Social and Community Features at Amazon.com
Producer & "Usability Guy" at Big Huge Games
Games Usability and Playability Specialist at Microsoft Game Studios

User Interface Designer at SPSS, Inc
Research Analyst at IRI

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2 more...

Education

University of Illinois at Chicago
Trent University

Recommended

7 people have recommended Jason

Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Computer Games

Websites

Jason Schklar’s Summary

Experienced game producer, designer, and user experience consultant. My goal is to partner with creative and technically savvy people to create fun, immersive, and awe-inspiring user experiences.

I bring to the table a strong background in game development, user experience research, and a commitment to iterative design. I thrive in an environment where honesty, hard work, and a sense of humor are valued.

Specific areas of design and user experience expertise include:

- Initial experience
- Discoverability and usability of core game play mechanics and UI
- Overall game enjoyability and playability
- Designing learn-as-you-play tutorial modes that help broaden your audience without alienating your core market

Producering expertise includes:

- Mentoring and supervising game production staff
- Providing due diligence review of schedule and milestone requirements
- Improving internal and external communication processes

Game Titles Shipped:

- Rise of Nations (usability guy and tutorial co-designer)
- Rise of Nations: Thrones & Patriots (producer & usability guy)
- Rise of Legends (producer, usability guy, and tutorial co-designer)
- Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge (usability guy and tutorial co-designer)
- Jade Empire (usability guy)
- Catan for XBLA (producer, usability guy, and tutorial co-designer)
- Ninja Blade (external producer & provided design direction on core combat, controls, and tutorial)

Social Computing Feature Work:

- Amazon.com community contribution pipeline: Customer Ratings & Reviews, Video Uploads, Tags,
Product Comparisons, Profile Creation
- Amazon.com powered SNS applications on Facebook & LinkedIn

Jason Schklar’s Specialties:

Broadening Your Audience, Making "Learn as you Play" Tutorials Fun and Helpful, Game Design Direction, User Experience, Usability, Playability, Tutorial Design, User Centered Design, Game Production, Mentorship of Junior Staff, Social Computing, Writing, Editing, Producering

Jason Schklar’s Experience

Founder
Initial Experience Consulting (Sole Proprietorship)

(Sole Proprietorship; Computer Games industry)

May 2008 — Present (1 year 7 months)

Game designer, producer & user experience consultant.

Recent gigs:

Production, Design Direction (Japanese Action Games)
- Design direction on combat, boss encounters, and initial experience
- Due diligence review of schedule & milestone deliverables
- Supervision of production staff

Design, UX (Action RPG, Casual MMO, and Wii Games)
- Ensure game is friendly and accessible to casual players
- Review all UI (game shell, menus, HUD)
- Usability study of core mechanics and tutorials

UX (Social Computing Site)
- Ensure personal & social utility are clearly messaged
- Improve the "try before you buy" experience
- Integrate the site into existing social computing habits

Usability/Playability Testing
- Onsite lab set up & subject recruiting
- Supervision of lab personnel
- Help set key metrics for success

Game Pitch Reviews
- Help turn cool IP and story into compelling gameplay
- Provide editorial feedback on pitch docs
- Identify UX risks and mitigations
User Experience Specialist, Social and Community Features

Amazon.com

(Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; AMZN; Internet industry)

January 2007 — April 2008 (1 year 4 months)

There's more to Amazon.com than just searching & browsing for products. I worked on tools that encourage customers to become active community members on our website and allow them to share their passions with the world.

- Consulted with various feature teams on how best to add social computing and casual game components to existing community features. This included providing analysis of competitor social computing and casual game sites.
- Conducted heuristic evaluations, cognitive walkthroughs, rapid iterative feedback sessions, and usability studies on community and personalization features on the Amazon.com website and on applications we published on other social networking sites.
Producer & "Usability Guy"

Big Huge Games

(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Computer Games industry)

January 2004 — January 2007 (3 years 1 month)

Production work included:

- Coordinating with project leads to make sure we were always making the best decisions for the game.
- Making sure that artists, designers, programmers, and QA staff were fully engaged and on the same page by identifying dependencies and eliminating roadblocks.
- Managing (and staffing up) the production department.
- Wrangling publisher demands and keeping the development side of the relationship smooth.

"Usability Guy" work included:

- Co-designing "learn-as-you-play" tutorials for Rise of Legends (PC) and Catan! (XBLA).
- Providing in-house usability and heuristic evaluations on core gameplay controls and features.
- Ensuring that our internal scheduling efforts included time for iteration in the publisher usability labs.

Titles shipped:

- Rise of Nations: Thrones & Patriots (PC, expansion pack)
- Rise of Legends (PC, original title)
- Catan! (Xbox Live Arcade version of the popular boardgame)
Games Usability and Playability Specialist

Microsoft Game Studios

(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; MSFT; Computer Software industry)

September 2001 — January 2004 (2 years 5 months)

Worked with developers to turn consumer feedback into better camera, controls, feedback, and gameplay design. The main goal was to help designers connect with players in an accessible and entertaining way from the first time they hit the Main Menu through the critical first hour of gameplay and beyond.

Research methods included:

- Rapid Iterative Usability Testing
- Survey Studies
- Expert Review
- Competitor Analysis
- Deep Gameplay Analysis (both instrumented and survey data)
- Prototype Analysis
- Focus Groups

Titles shipped include:

- Rise of Nations (PC)
- Crimson Skies (Xbox)
- Jade Empire (Xbox)
User Interface Designer

SPSS, Inc

(Public Company; 51-200 employees; SPSS; Research industry)

September 2000 — September 2001 (1 year 1 month)

Designed user interfaces for Windows and web based data visualization applications.

Responsible for requirements gathering, writing functional specifications, creating Flash GUI mockups, and conducting usability studies.
Research Analyst

IRI

(Privately Held; 1001-5000 employees; IRIC; Market Research industry)

October 1999 — September 2000 (1 year )

Conducted data quality analysis of extremely large (over 100 million records) databases of live consumer package goods sales data. Responsible for all aspects of sampling, modeling, and report writing.

Developed powerful and easy to use data extraction and manipulation tools for clients who needed to access very large flat files and relational databases. Created menu-driven applications using JCL, SAS, SQL, and Syncsort on Windows, Unix, and MVS platforms.

Jason Schklar’s Education

University of Illinois at Chicago

MA , Social Psychology and Legal Decision Making , 1994 — 1998

Published a variety of papers and book chapters on legal decision making.

Presented academic papers at a variety of national and international social science & law conferences.

Student editor, Law & Human Behavior.

Science editor, American Psychology & Science Student Council.

Research Fellowship, American Bar Foundation

Recipient, Leonard Eron Award for Outstanding Scientific Contribution

Recipient, University of Illinois at Chicago Fellowship
Trent University

Hons. B.Sc. , Psychology , 1989 — 1993

Activities and Societies:

Various student council positions (College President; University Student Council Treasurer).

Recipient, Trent University Scholarship.

Recipient, Trent University Faculty Association Prize.