LinkedIn: Russ Unger

Current

... at Agency.com
Principal at UserGlue

Past

Senior Information Architect at Element 79 Partners
Senior Information Architect / Senior Business Analyst (Contract) at Harpo
Owner / Information Architect / User Experience at blueChrome design

Instructor at College of DuPage
Senior Information Architect (Contract) at Marsh
Senior Information Architect (Contract) at Tribune Interactive
Senior Information Architect (Contract) at Gusto!
Product Manager (Contract) at US Biometrics
Senior UI Designer at SPSS
Design / Domain Lead - Consumer Experience Design, Connectivity Domain at Motorola
Senior Information Architect (Contract) at Information Resources, Inc.
Senior Information Architect (contract) at Pathfinder
Senior Information Architect (contract) at Agency.com
Project Manager (contract) at Chicago Internet
Director of User Experience at Emercent Solutions
Creative Director at divine
Director of Website Development at Jobs Online
Media Coordinator at DC Systems

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15 more...

Education

TUI University
Northern Illinois University

Recommended

9 people have recommended Russ

Connections

302 connections

Industry

Information Technology and Services

Websites

Russ Unger’s Summary

Seasoned Information Architect / User Experience Designer / Team Leader with Interactive & Web Design and Development background. Skilled at client-facing, building strong team environments and fostering open communications while retaining world-class talent. Experience includes the roles of Product Manager, Information Architect, User Experience Designer, Creative Director, UI Designer, Project Manager and Business Analyst.

I have played an active leadership role in project management, information architecture (human factors, heuristic evaluation), proposal writing, estimating and controlling costs and working effectively with clients during change management and would like to continue to grow these skills.

Russ Unger’s Specialties:

Product Management, Information Architecture, Usability, User Experience Design, User Interface, Branding and Identity, Web and Interactive Design and Development, Creative Project Management and all-around (Software) Development Life Cycle.

Russ Unger’s Experience

...

Agency.com

(Public Company; 201-500 employees; ACOM; Internet industry)

May 2008 — Present (1 month)
Principal

UserGlue

(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

January 2007 — Present (1 year 5 months)

UserGlue provides Information Architecture, Usability, User Experience, Experience Design and Interaction Design services to organizations of any size with projects of any size. We take an agnostic approach to platform and work within your requirements and specifications to deliver the best possible results.

UserGlue. User Experiences That Stick.
Senior Information Architect

Element 79 Partners

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

May 2007 — May 2008 (1 year 1 month)

Principal User Experience Design practitioner focusing on Information Architecture across the brands of Celebrity Cruise Lines, Gatorade, Quaker and Wilson. Author Personas, Content Maps / Card Sorting, Site Maps, Wireframes and User Requirements while consulting on the usability of interactive projects. Work closely with the account / project team to estimate time and materials, define briefs and requirements. Guide clients through project milestones and deliverables.
Senior Information Architect / Senior Business Analyst (Contract)

Harpo

(Privately Held; Information Technology and Services industry)

November 2006 — May 2007 (7 months)

Senior Information Architect / Senior Business Analyst for the Oprah.com redesign project
Authored Business Requirements, Functional Requirements and User Requirements.
Created Task Flows, Wireframes and Annotations

Projects Included: Oprah.com Community, O Magazine & O at Home Magazine, Media Asset Management System
Owner / Information Architect / User Experience

blueChrome design

(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

July 2002 — January 2007 (4 years 7 months)

blueChrome design is a full-service creative resources company. We have extensive experience in user experience, usability and information (architecture) design, traditional print design, logo and brand identity collateral packages, interactive multimedia and database-driven websites.
Instructor

College of DuPage

(Educational Institution; Higher Education industry)

March 2005 — December 2006 (1 year 10 months)

Instructor for multimedia-related coursework.
Senior Information Architect (Contract)

Marsh

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

September 2006 — November 2006 (3 months)

Redesigned the process flow and UI for the Global Claims Application project. The project allows Marsh to provide a unified look-and-feel for gathering claims information into a single application, rather than many disjointed and disconnected applications across the globe.
Senior Information Architect (Contract)

Tribune Interactive

(Public Company; Information Technology and Services industry)

July 2006 — September 2006 (3 months)

This is a contract position through IBM, working on a project with Tribune Interactive in Chicago, IL.
Senior Information Architect (Contract)

Gusto!

(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)

June 2006 — July 2006 (2 months)

This was a contract position working on the www.gusto.com website's Information Design.
Product Manager (Contract)

US Biometrics

(Information Technology and Services industry)

April 2006 — June 2006 (3 months)
Senior UI Designer

SPSS

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

November 2005 — April 2006 (6 months)
Design / Domain Lead - Consumer Experience Design, Connectivity Domain

Motorola

(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; MOT; Wireless industry)

July 2004 — November 2005 (1 year 5 months)
Senior Information Architect (Contract)

Information Resources, Inc.

(Privately Held; 1001-5000 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

April 2004 — September 2004 (6 months)

Created task flows, wire frames and prototypes for a portal application that would support several modules and highly complex data systems. Clients included: Anheuser-Busch, ConAgra, Johnson & Johnson, Philip Morris, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Unilever HPCE, as well as top retailers, brokers and the financial community.
Senior Information Architect (contract)

Pathfinder

(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

January 2004 — February 2004 (2 months)

Created task flows, wire frames and User Experience documentation for a full lifecycle document tracking application and a Teacher/Social Worker questionnaire application for the educational system of an Arabic country.
Senior Information Architect (contract)

Agency.com

(Public Company; 51-200 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

December 2003 — December 2003 (1 month)

Worked on the IA redesign of a booking engine for a major airline. Work included competitive heuristic evaluation, structural design of information (both physical and logical) and redesign of user interface, including information design of data elements, heuristic evaluation, site flows and wireframes.
Project Manager (contract)

Chicago Internet

(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

April 2003 — November 2003 (8 months)

Created process and methodology for managing projects. Re-wrote all proposals and documentation. Managed staff of designers, developers, production, copywriter and search engine optimization specialist. Estimated project costs and timelines and worked with clients and staff to keep projects on schedule and budget. Worked hands-on with design and development staff performing Information Architect duties and mentoring and advising on best practices for design and development.
Director of User Experience

Emercent Solutions

(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

April 2001 — September 2002 (1 year 6 months)

• Responsible for building a User Experience team from the ground floor.
• Manage external resources for projects that are not handled in-house.
• Define roles and responsibilities, processes for projects and build thorough client deliverables to set expectations, minimize learning curve and maximize effort.
• Work closely with clients to determine user audience and goals to increase usability of sites.
• Hands-on Designer and HTML Developer.
• Performed Code Review for HTML and CSS based projects.
• Estimate project economics.
• Member of the Executive Management Team.
Creative Director

divine

(Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

November 1999 — July 2000 (9 months)

• Responsible for building and mentoring a creative of 12 members.
• Mentored and trained staff for internal Creative policy and procedure.
• Managed Creative Design on projects.
• Defining overall creative vision for client web sites, interfacing with clients, creative staff and technicians to establish project goals and maintain quality.
• Work with Strategy to build intuitive design.
• Hands-on Macromedia Flash development.
• Worked with clients to build "live" prototypes for User Testing.
Director of Website Development

Jobs Online

(Information Technology and Services industry)

1999 — 1999 (less than a year)
Media Coordinator

DC Systems

(Information Technology and Services industry)

1997 — 1998 (1 year)

Russ Unger’s Education

TUI University

BS, Business Administration, 2008 — 2009 (expected)
Northern Illinois University

Public Speaking / Interpersonal Communications 1993 — 1997