Muthu Kumar (ucdarchitect.com)

User Experience Architect / Strategist, Investor

Columbus, Ohio Area

Current
Past
  • Secretary at Usability Professionals' Association Hyderabad Chapter
  • User Experience Designer at Andale
  • eBusiness Consultant/Project Leader at Intiqua Technologies Pte Ltd
  • Sr Interaction Designer at Teembrains Technologies Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India

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4 more...

Education
  • IDL, Chennai, India
  • Bharathiar University
Recommended
Muthu has 10 recommendations 10 people have recommended Muthu
Connections
500+ connections
Industry
Information Technology and Services
Websites

Muthu Kumar (ucdarchitect.com)’s Summary

Career Highlights:
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10 years of industry experience in providing user experience thought leadership for organizations (including Fortune 500) with the goal of creating usable enterprise wide software applications in the following domains.

• Insurance (Allstate, Nationwide, ERIE, Sun life, Safeco)
• Sales and Auction Management (Andale/Vendio)
• Banking (OCBC)
• Publishing (Sourcemedia)
• Auto (Manheim Auto Auctions, Suzuki, Ashok Leyland)
• Technology (Linksys)

Fast facts:
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- Worked for top IT consulting and product development companies (Sapient, Capgemini, Andale)

- Client facing user experience design professional with pre-sales and team management skills

- Applied user centered design methodology for 25+ large scale web based projects

- Managed/mentored team size of 5-12 interaction designers/developers

- Have international working experience (USA, India and Singapore)

- Have been a active member/presenter at UPA Chapters and other Human Computer Interaction groups.

Affiliations:
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Usability Professionals Association (UPA)
IXDA

Online Presence:
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Website : http://www.ucdarchitect.com
Blog : http://ucdarchitect.blogspot.com

Contact:
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Cell Phone Number: 1-713-540-5729
Email : muthu.kumar (at) yahoo.com

Muthu Kumar (ucdarchitect.com)’s Specialties:

Information Architecture
User Research
Audience Segmentation
Experience Design
Participatory Design
Usability Testing
Touchpoint Design
Patterns & Best Practices

Muthu Kumar (ucdarchitect.com)’s Experience

  • User Experience Lead / Information Architect

    Nationwide Insurance

    (Privately Held; Insurance industry)

    January 2009 — Present (11 months)

    - Plan/manage/execute all facets of the user centered design process for large scale customer facing applications and websites.

    - Consult on projects as the user experience design expert

    - Prototype navigation models and interaction designs for demonstration and usability testing

    - Act as liason between User Experience staff and internal and external business and development partners

    - Research and prioritize user requirements and functional requirements

    - Document functional requirements

    - Work closely with visual designers, user researchers, business leads and application developers to design and develop user experience documentation including sitemaps, wireframes, task flows, interaction designs, use cases, flow charts and navigation models.

  • Manager - Information Architecture

    Sapient

    (Public Company; SAPE; Information Technology and Services industry)

    March 2008 — January 2009 (11 months)

    • Planning and managing the user experience design track for enterprise application design and executing all facets of the user centered design process.

    • Collecting/defining/prioritizing requirements from appropriate business stakeholders and end users, translating findings into task flows and design specifications.

    • Applying user centered design methodology to create detailed user experience strategy documents in support of enterprise web applications and portals.

    • Preparing wireframes and prototypes for proposed designs in continuous interaction and feedback from the client. Developing organization-wide usability standards and points of reference.

    • Managing onsite and offshore teams to get work done as per project plans and schedules.

    • Establishing, tracking, and sharing success metrics for User Centered Design.

    • Working closely with business analyst and technology teams to ensure that design specifications are implemented in the desired fashion.

  • User Experience Architect

    Allstate Insurance (Contract)

    (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

    October 2007 — February 2008 (5 months)

    Responsibilities include:

    --> Collecting business requirements from clients and appropriate stakeholders, translating findings into task flows, functional requirements and design specifications.

    --> Leading and executing all facets of the User-Centered Design process (gathering user and usability requirements, contextual inquiry, design UI architecture standards, interaction patterns and user interfaces)

    --> Creating low, medium and high fidelity prototypes

    --> Leading and executing Usability evaluations

    --> Defining and implementing standards on moderate to complex
    projects for user interface designs and user-centered design processes

    --> Working closely with technical development teams to ensure that design specifications are implemented.

  • Senior User Experience Analyst

    Kanbay - A Capgemini Group Company

    (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

    May 2005 — September 2007 (2 years 5 months)

    Managing the progress of user experience team, work closely with the business analysts & project managers in building/reengineering User Interface Design Models for web based products and services.

    Creating Task flows, Design Guidelines doucment, Conduct focus groups, client interviews, and observation studies to determine further user motivation and current usage habits on software applications for Insurance & Finance Domains.

    Producing detailed user experience strategy documents in support of enterprise and process portal initiatives.

    Establishing, tracking and sharing success metrics for User Centered Design.

  • Secretary

    Usability Professionals' Association Hyderabad Chapter

    (Non-Profit; Think Tanks industry)

    July 2006 — June 2007 (1 year )

    As a Co-founder of Hyderbad Usability Professionals' Association(UPA) Chapter - our mission to increase the body of knowledge about usability and user-centered design through professional education, meetings and conventions and other professional interchanges in Hyderabad.

    Working with a close knit community of Usability professionals, User Interface designers, researchers and students to provide a platform for interaction among the community and share information about the techniques and methodologies in practice.

    Recently launched - All India HCI Professionals Salary Survey 2006 and published the report at http://upahyderabad.org/hci_professionals_salary_survey_2006.pdf

  • User Experience Designer

    Andale

    (Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Internet industry)

    December 2003 — April 2005 (1 year 5 months)

    Work closely with the product managers in building/ reengineering User Interface Design Models for Sales and Auction Management tools for Online Sellers using eBay, eBay Stores and Yahoo.

    Performed focus groups, client interviews, and observation studies to determine further user motivation and current usage habits for sales & auction management tools.

  • eBusiness Consultant/Project Leader

    Intiqua Technologies Pte Ltd

    (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

    July 2002 — November 2003 (1 year 5 months)

    Worked closely with Project Managers to build intuitive user experience design for web based applications and rich media presentations.

    Involved in reengineering of Consumer Internet Banking Portal for OCBC, by applying Best practices for User experience and conducting focus group to deliver better online experience. http://www.ocbc.com

    Developed micro websites highlighting the features of enterprise portal solutions of Oracle for different user perspectives using Flash.
    1) http://www.thedfactor.com/telco
    2) http://www.thedfactor.com/pharma

    Client facing & manage progress of a team of developers onsite & offshore to ensure the overall quality and integrity of web development.

  • Sr Interaction Designer

    Teembrains Technologies Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India

    (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Internet industry)

    October 1999 — June 2002 (2 years 9 months)

    As a Senior Interaction Designer for Web, involved in designing intuitive user interface designs for Enterprise Information portals (Maruti Suzuki), Extranet(Ashok Leyland) and Brand websites(http://www.marutibaleno.com).

    Process driven, scale individually or as a team to create user interface solutions.

Muthu Kumar (ucdarchitect.com)’s Education

  • IDL, Chennai, India

    Advanced Diploma in Internet technologies 2001 — 2001

  • Bharathiar University

    Bachelor's , Visual Communication , 1996 — 1999

Additional Information

Muthu Kumar (ucdarchitect.com)’s Websites:

Muthu Kumar (ucdarchitect.com)’s Interests:

Travelling, Music

Muthu Kumar (ucdarchitect.com)’s Groups:

Secretary at Usability Professionals' Association Hyderabad Chapter, Member of ACM (Association for Computing Machinery)

  •    On Startups - The Community For Entrepreneurs
  •    Interaction Design Association
  •    Boxes and Arrows
  •    Sapient Family
  •    India Product Management Forum
  •    Expertise for Hire
  •    UX Professionals
  •    Capgemini Alumni Network (+9000)
  •    BizBash—Event Planners Gather
  •    Meeting Professionals International (MPI)
  •    India Leadership Network
  •    HCI India
  •    Startup Specialists
  •    Fans of Mashable
  •    Event Planning & Management - the 1st Group for Event Planners
  •    Adobe Flex Developers
  •    iPhone Developers - www.iPhoneintouch.com
  •    User Experience
  •    ISES - International Special Event Society
  •    Entrepreneur's Network
  •    ! NRI (NON RESIDENT INDIANs) - Largest and Earliest Platform to Reunite NRIs, PIOs, and OCIs
  •    MarketingProfs
  •    Event Managers Around the world
  •    inUX
  •    User Experience Professionals Network
  •    HCI Researchers
  •    Chennai Startups & Entrepreneurs
  •    Insurance Business Analyst and Domain Experts
  •    Future Trends
  •    Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA) - Official Group
  •    User Experience Jobs
  •    The Indian Startup Fraternity
  •    Interakt Digital Group
  •    Capgemini - User Experience
  •    Eventzilla
  •    DEACON Executive Search
  •    PRODUCT SHOWCASE - A Place to promote your products
  •    (The NEW) Mobile User Experience
  •    UX Management

Muthu Kumar (ucdarchitect.com)’s Honors:

1) Team Member award from Intiqua, Singapore for completing Oracle Flash Micro website project ahead of delivary targets.

2) Team Member award from Andale, Bangalore for revamping and launching Auction Tools Activation module and interactive Flash demo for the same.

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