Pete Arden

Product Strategy & User Experience Design

San Francisco Bay Area

Current
  • Director, Web Services (contract) at NCsoft
  • Owner/Principal at Hex15 Consulting, Inc.
Past
  • Director, Product Design & Planning at PlanetOut Inc.
  • Executive Producer, Games.com at Hasbro Interactive
  • Senior Director, Marketing at NextPlanetOver.com
  • Senior Producer at Organic Media
  • Marketing Manager / Marketing Director at Island/Polygram Records

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Education
  • New York University
Recommended
Pete has 5 recommendations 5 people have recommended Pete
Connections
173 connections
Industry
Internet
Websites

Pete Arden’s Summary

I design and develop interactive products and services for a range of consumer-oriented entertainment companies.

Pete Arden’s Specialties:

• Product strategy
• User experience design
• Website development
• Interactive marketing

Pete Arden’s Experience

  • Director, Web Services (contract)

    NCsoft

    (Public Company; Computer Games industry)

    March 2009 — Present (5 months)

    • Oversaw daily production and iterative development for a network of corporate and MMORPG game sites for NCsoft West
    • Developed the global website strategy and overall user-experience for the forthcoming Aion MMO website and Guild Wars 2 preview site, plus interim releases promoting City of Heroes, Lineage, and Guild Wars.
    • Streamlined internal project-management processes and cross-disciplinary communication and cooperation
    • Recruited and worked with 3rd party agencies on site development and visual branding projects
    • Managed a team of seven web developers, designers, and producers, making several key hires after the company relocated from Austin TX to Seattle WA

  • Owner/Principal

    Hex15 Consulting, Inc.

    (Internet industry)

    2005 — Present (4 years)

    Hex15 Consulting provides product development expertise, user-experience design (UXD), and strategic insight for consumer-oriented online businesses.

  • User-Experience Architect (contract)

    Charles Schwab

    (Public Company; SCHW; Financial Services industry)

    November 2007 — June 2008 (8 months)

    • Designed the user experience for a series of online marketing & production tools used in retail marketing and customer-relationship management by Schwab field staff nationwide.
    • Proposed a new interaction approach for the Schwab.com homepage that would take full advantage of consumer search-&-research behavior online.
    • Developed a new page-level information architecture for Schwab intranet corporate sites.

  • Site Producer for Rugby World Cup (contract)

    MediaZone

    (Privately Held; Online Media industry)

    May 2007 — November 2007 (7 months)

    • Managed all aspects of the development and roll-out of RWC Plus, the international broadband video site of the 2007 Rugby World Cup
    • Created project plans, functional specifications, user flows, and wireframes
    • Managed day-to-day development of both the website and event-related video programming
    • Became extensively involved in a variety of sales, marketing, promotion, and search-engine optimiziation (SEO) initiatives

  • User Experience & Community Strategist (contract)

    Walt Disney Internet Group

    (Public Company; DIS; Internet industry)

    2006 — 2007 (1 year)

    • Strategic consultant and subject-matter expert for online community and next-generation travel and e-commerce services
    • Developed new online products that allow users to interact with the brand and each other via word-of-mouth techniques
    • Conducted consumer research to test concepts and implementations, and presenting findings to business leaders and stakeholders
    • Designed the online experience to ensure ease of use and high levels of customer satisfaction; work products include process flows, wireframes, storyboards, lo-fi prototypes, and functional specs

  • Director, Product Design & Planning

    PlanetOut Inc.

    (Public Company; LGBT; Online Media industry)

    2002 — 2005 (3 years)

    • Streamlined and improved the overall user experience for a network of lifestyle-focused content and community sites
    • Introduced social networking services and developed tools for the creation of user-generated content
    • Managed the migration from disparate legacy systems to a single CMS and associated middleware solution
    • Authored network-wide standards for website design and development based on industry best practices
    • Devised unique, branded marketing opportunities and integrated functionality for key partners and advertisers

  • Executive Producer, Games.com

    Hasbro Interactive

    (Public Company; HAS; Consumer Goods industry)

    2000 — 2001 (1 year)

    • Devised the feature set, information architecture, programming guidelines, and community strategy for Games.com, Hasbro’s popular casual-gaming site
    • Brought Games.com from inception to public beta release in 5 months, maintaining a balance between optimal user experience, market imperatives, technology constraints, and cost

  • Senior Director, Marketing

    NextPlanetOver.com

    (Retail industry)

    1999 — 2000 (1 year)

  • Senior Producer

    Organic Media

    (Public Company; OMC; Internet industry)

    1998 — 1999 (1 year)

  • Marketing Manager / Marketing Director

    Island/Polygram Records

    (Entertainment industry)

    1991 — 1996 (5 years)

Pete Arden’s Education

  • New York University

    BA , Interdisciplinary Studies , 1998

    Self-designed major combining history, philosophy, and psychology. Studied the cognitive basis of scientific discovery, particularly the interplay between knowledge, experience, and intuition.

Additional Information

Pete Arden’s Websites:

Pete Arden’s Interests:

Rugby, typography and graphic design, cognitive science, philosophy of mind, history of science, comics and graphic novels, film scores, music remixing, new media, distributed culture, science fiction, role playing games, travel.

Pete Arden’s Groups:

American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIST), ACM SIGCHI BayCHI, San Francisco Fog RFC.

  •    BayCHI
  •    Interaction Design Association
  •    UX Professionals
  •    Information Architecture Institute (IAI)
  •    User Experience
  •    PlanetOut Employees and Alumni

Pete Arden’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

  • career opportunities
  • consulting offers
  • new ventures
  • job inquiries
  • expertise requests
  • business deals
  • reference requests
  • getting back in touch

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