Peter Thiessen

Current

International Man of Mystery at eBuddy
Volunteer at W3C

Past

Information Architect at Synergies
Researcher / Volunteer at Mozilla Foundation
Accessibility Software Designer at Adaptive Technology Resource Center

Accessibility Specialist (SOC) at Google
Web Developer at York Alumni Association
Programmer Analyst / Systems Operator at Travel-Net Internet Service Provider

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Education

University of Toronto
York University

Recommended

4 people have recommended Peter

Connections

121 connections

Industry

Internet

Peter Thiessen’s Summary

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Peter Thiessen’s Specialties:

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Peter Thiessen’s Experience

International Man of Mystery

eBuddy

(Privately Held; Internet industry)

February 2009 — Present (11 months)

Researched, developed and helped design the eBuddy Web and Mobile messenger chat applications that aggregated MSN, ICQ, GTalk, AIM, and so on. Much of this work involved creating mock-ups for new features and then scripting them in HTML, CSS, and JQuery. I also performed usability testing before any major release that generally involved speak aloud sessions. In a time of rising Instant Messaging popularity, I was able to help improve the user experience of over 60,000,000 users worldwide.
Volunteer

W3C

(Non-Profit; Internet industry)

September 2005 — Present (4 years 4 months)

Designed and created Reefchat an accessible Web2.0/AJAX application as a proof of concept for the W3C which was specifically optimized for the top screen readers – Jaws, NVDA, Orca, and so on. The main claim to fame for this Web application is it being the first application to support the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative - Accessibility Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) specification. Anumber of publications presented at the W3C W4A conference.
Information Architect

Synergies

(Internet industry)

April 2007 — December 2008 (1 year 9 months)

Performed requirements gathering, user research, and helped coordinate and develop the Open Journal System (OJS) project. Deliverables included a requirements document based on the survey results of 400+ participants, wireframes and site maps based on user studies, and several hi-fidelity prototypes writen in HTML, AJAX, JSP, and PHP. At a critical time in online journals, I was able to help improve the User Experience for users accessing over 1400 electronic journals online every day.
Researcher / Volunteer

Mozilla Foundation

(Internet industry)

September 2006 — September 2008 (2 years 1 month)

Evangelized Firefox Web accessibility at the CSUN and W4A conferences where I also presented my research findings on Firefox accessibility and W3C WAI Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) limitations.
Accessibility Software Designer

Adaptive Technology Resource Center

(Internet industry)

September 2005 — April 2007 (1 year 8 months)

Researched and implemented cutting edge accessibility/usability techniques that often involved following and contributing to W3C Web standards such as WCAG, ARIA, and ATAG. Much of this research led to proof of concepts such as AComm an accessible white board chat written in Java, and AComm an accessible class room chat written in XHTML, JavaScript and Perl. All projects also involved user testing with both disabled and non-disabled users using a variety of technologies, such as screen readers and small screen devices. A majority of funding came from IBM, Sun Microsystems, the Mozilla Foundation, and the Mellon Foundation.
Accessibility Specialist (SOC)

Google

(Public Company; GOOG; Internet industry)

April 2006 — December 2006 (9 months)

Through a Google grant/contract, Raised the open source Joomla! content management system to government accessibility standards. This was accomplished through performing user testing, following inclusive design best practices, and evaluating the Web application against the WCAG2 guidelines and updating the code to meet WCAG2 requirements.
Web Developer

York Alumni Association

(Internet industry)

October 2003 — September 2005 (2 years )

Designed, created, tested, and maintained a 3-teir Web site written in PHP, JavaScript, and MySQL that was used to communicate and outreach to the Alumni community. I also created and updated a monthly newsletter for the print, Web, and e-Mail mediums that reached 25,000+ users based on analytics.
Programmer Analyst / Systems Operator

Travel-Net Internet Service Provider

(Internet industry)

May 1999 — August 2003 (4 years 4 months)

Designed and implemented small and medium sized Web applications / sites in XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, Perl / PHP, and MySQL. Clients included Prudential Realty, Surgenor, Ontario Foot Clinic, and Realm Networks. This work often involved creating wireframes, UML diagrams, site maps, and prototypes for clients. I also helped maintain approximately 30 Slackware Linux Web servers running Apache, QMail, MySQL and so on.of the automation work involved writing Perl scripts run on servers to help cut down operating costs.