User Experience Consultant / Senior Editor Surfline
San Francisco Bay Area
- Current
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- User Experience Consultant at UsableX (Sole Proprietorship)
- Past
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- Senior Editor at Surfline
- Usability Lead at Blue Shield of CA
- Senior Usability Specialist at Xpedior
- Education
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- University of California, San Diego
- San Francisco University High School
- Connections
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124
connections
- Industry
- Internet
- Websites
Lewis Samuels’s Summary
User Experience Consultant, focused on ensuring ease of use through user research and iterative usability testing. Provider of usability consulting services and guidance in regards to usability methodologies, tools, and best practices.
The rest of the time I'm surfing or writing about surfing for various publications.
Lewis Samuels’s Specialties:
• Execution of iterative usability testing -- creation of test scripts, recruitment of subjects, test moderation, documentation of results, and presentation of findings.
• Expert analysis of interfaces -- cognitive walkthroughs and heuristic evaluations.
• Implementation of user research techniques, including user definition, persona development, task analysis, cognitive ethnography, quantitative surveys, and qualitative interviews.
Lewis Samuels’s Experience
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User Experience Consultant
UsableX (Sole Proprietorship)
(Internet industry)
October 2005 — Present (3 years 10 months)
Recent clients include Blue Shield of CA, Intuit, NEC Solutions, and Sun Microsystems.
In partnership with AnswerLab, I've provided usability testing services for Honda, Acura, Yahoo!, eBay, Kraft Foods, and FedEx. -
Senior Editor
Surfline
(Privately Held; Sports industry)
January 2003 — April 2009 (6 years 4 months)
I wrote about surfing for Surfline, a leading surf media provider. Key features include the Power Rankings, a controversial, shamelessly subjective, no-holds barred run-down of the world's top surfers. In the course of analyzing the greatest surfers on earth, I've become perhaps the most hated man in surfing. Despite being hunted by Brazilian pros, written-off by American pretty-boys, and threatened by Australian heroes, I continue to write "the truth," or at least what my third drink of the night inspires me to believe to be true.
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Usability Lead
Blue Shield of CA
(Insurance industry)
March 2004 — August 2005 (1 year 6 months)
Created a formal usability practice within the Blue Shield User Experience Group, ensuring ease of use for all web applications, through iterative usability testing and formative user research.
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Senior Usability Specialist
Xpedior
(Public Company; Internet industry)
February 2000 — December 2001 (1 year 11 months)
Responsible for ensuring the usability of web applications developed by Xpedior, a former leading Internet consultancy.
Lewis Samuels’s Education
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University of California, San Diego
BS , Cognitive Science , 1995 — 1999
- Activities and Societies:
- • Specialization in Cognitive Engineering
• Member, Human Computer Interaction Lab
• Member, UCSD Surf Team - US National Collegiate Champion
• Magna Cum Laude, Golden Key National Honor Society, New Caledonian Society
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San Francisco University High School
1991 — 1995
Additional Information
Lewis Samuels’s Websites:
Lewis Samuels’s Interests:
Travel... Ireland, Portugal, Greece, Australia, Samoa, Tonga, Sumatra, Bali, Tahiti, Spain, France, and Chile. I write articles for surf magazines and go surfing. I wrote a novel about the Cold War, surf culture, and chimpanzees.
Lewis Samuels’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- career opportunities
- consulting offers
- reference requests
- getting back in touch
