Melanie deDon

Current

• User Experience Designer at Dow Jones
• Self-Employed at Freelance Web Designer (Self-employed)

Past

• Application Designer at Optum Health
• Application Designer at United Health Group
• Interface Designer at Marketing Bridge

• Web Designer at Bank of America
• Assistant Producer at Modem Media
• Web Designer at Options Marketing & Visual Communications
• Web Designer at EDP Computer Systems

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Education

• DePaul University

Recommended

4 people have recommended Melanie

Connections

77 connections

Industry

Internet

Websites

• My Website

Melanie deDon’s Summary

- Technical Knowledge -

Programming
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), Extensible Markup Language (XML), Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Java, Javascript, JSP and PHP.

Software
Adobe Creative Suite CS3 (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver), BBEdit, Eclipse, iMail, iLife Suite (iPhoto, iWeb, iDVD, iMovie), iTunes, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook), Mozilla Firefox, Safari and Tortoise SVN.

Web-Based Applications
Basecamp, Backpack, cPanel, Flickr, Facebook, Freshbooks, Jive Clearspace Community, Linkedin, MySpace, phpMyAdmin, phpBB, Sharepoint, WebHost Manager and Wordpress.

Operating Systems
Versatile with several operating systems: Apple OS X, Windows NT, Windows Vista and Windows XP.

Melanie deDon’s Specialties:

usability, web standards, accessibility, user experience design, interface design, information architecture

Melanie deDon’s Experience

• User Experience Designer

  Dow Jones

  (Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; DJ; Publishing industry)

  June 2008 — Present (1 year 6 months)

  Dow Jones Client Solutions powers the financial data, tools, and news on the web sites of top financial institutions and media firms. The User Experience (UX) Designer works with a team of engineers and engagement managers that create these tools for our clients.
  
  Help shape each client's solution throughout the project by utilizing industry best practices, user feedback and your own creative insight through expertise in four UX disciplines: information architecture, information design, interaction design, and visual design.

• Self-Employed

  Freelance Web Designer (Self-employed)

  (Self-Employed; Myself Only; Internet industry)

  January 1996 — Present (13 years 11 months)

• Application Designer

  Optum Health

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Health, Wellness and Fitness industry)

  October 2007 — May 2008 (8 months)

  Bridge the critical link between Web Products Development Team and Business Analysts in the design of web-based applications. Utilize business requirements and wireframe specifications to create application interface concepts. These concepts are put through a review process and upon approval are converted into HTML mockups for developers for implementation, testing and review according to an Agile software development methodology. Lead Designer on the My Cancer Hub online community responsible for implementation and maintenance of UHG branded theme into online community software. Lead Designer for a comprehensive activity program serving seven clients. Prototyped proof of concepts for several online applications presented at quarterly business reviews to Senior Executives. Collaborated on the HTML and CSS development on the My Optum Health public portal scheduled to launch in June 2008.

• Application Designer

  United Health Group

  (Internet industry)

  October 2007 — May 2008 (8 months)

  (see Optum Health description)

• Interface Designer

  Marketing Bridge

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry)

  January 2006 — September 2007 (1 year 9 months)

  Designed and maintained the user interface for the Marketing Library Internet using CSS and applying the latest in Web-Standards technology. The Marketing Library Internet is a subscription-based web application that includes a Standard Edition and a branded Enterprise Edition. Branding the Enterprise Edition required attention to detail, compliance with the clients’ corporate branding guidelines and addressing their individual marketing needs. I customized application deployed Email campaigns to ensure they formatted correctly when processed. Applied my creative skills for customized print collateral projects to ensure cohesion between the clients’ web and print campaigns. Responsible for documentation and maintaining the Marketing Bridge Brand on all company web and print collateral.

• Web Designer

  Bank of America

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; BAC; Banking industry)

  September 1998 — November 2005 (7 years 3 months)

  Worked within a customized Six Sigma workflow process as a Web Designer on projects between business units for the Enterprise Infrastructure Services group of the Global Corporate and Investment Bank. Implemented Bank of America specifications for user interface design on stand-alone and wireless applications. Built structure for content management systems including Fatwire, Vignette and Vignette CMS. Active participant on a Rich Internet Application and Web Accessibility workgroups tasked to make recommendations to the Bank's Architecture Review Board for organization implementation and standards.

• Assistant Producer

  Modem Media

  (Public Company; 201-500 employees; MMPT; Marketing and Advertising industry)

  1998 — 1999 (1 year )

• Web Designer

  Options Marketing & Visual Communications

  (Internet industry)

  1997 — 1998 (1 year )

• Web Designer

  EDP Computer Systems

  (Internet industry)

  1994 — 1995 (1 year )

Melanie deDon’s Education

• DePaul University

  Standards-Based Web Design Certificate , School of Computer Science, Telecommunications and Information Systems , 1999 — 2009

  Activities and Societies:

  Member of National Society of Collegiate Scholars, Alpha Sigma Lambda and Golden Key International Honour Society

Additional Information

Melanie deDon’s Websites:

• My Website

Melanie deDon’s Interests:

Knitting, World of Warcraft

Melanie deDon’s Groups:

AIGA Member

•    Obama for America
•    Interaction Design Association
•    We K(NO)W Guild
•    Golden Key International Honour Society
•    Dow Jones Employees Group
•    User Experience
•    Alpha Sigma Lambda Nat'l Honor Society
•    Web Standards Design + Development
•    AIGA | the professional association for design
•    Bank of America Employees & Alumni Network
•    United Health Care Alumni
•    AIGA Minnesota
•    DePaul University School for New Learning
•    Dow Jones Client Solutions
•    AIGA Minnesota Inhouse Designers

Melanie deDon’s Honors:

ProjectCool Best Personal Site of the Year in 1998.

Awarded second place in Digital Chicago Magazine's "Best of the Web" Awards in 1998.

1998 New Media Invision Awards Festival - Bronze Award for Personal/Group Nonprofit, Noncommercial Site.

Personal Site featured in Website Graphics Series Typography, Navigation and Color books published in 1999 by Rockport Publishers.

Melanie deDon’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• job inquiries
• reference requests
• getting back in touch