User Experience Architect (IA/IxD)
Washington D.C. Metro Area
- Current
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- Principal User Experience Architect at Semantic Foundry
- Past
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- Software Information Architect at AIR Worldwide
- Information Architect - UX at Gather.com
- Senior Interaction Designer/Information Architect at Kayak.com
- Information Architect at IBM/Lotus IBM Global Services
- IA/Interaction Designer at Curl
- Education
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- Bentley College - Elkin B. McCallum Graduate School of Business
- Occidental College
- St. Pauls School
- Recommended
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5 people have recommended Will - Connections
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connections
- Industry
- Internet
- Websites
Will Evans’s Summary
I am an User Experience Architect with 14 years industry experience in presentation layer and user experience design from usability-focused User Interface architecture through the entire software product life cycle for both thick and thin client applications. Some of my experience includes Information Architect for AIR Worldwide, IA/UX Architect for consumer websites like Gather.com & Kayak.com.I've worked at enterprise technology companies Lotus/IBM where I was the Information Architect, and for Curl - a DARPA-funded MIT project at the Laboratory for Computer Science, which turned into a software company allowing me to work along side such notables as Tim Berners-Lee and Mike Dertouzos.
Less Formal Summary:
Will Evans weighs more than 70.3 kg in the morning. He's American with thick dark brown wind swept hair (except when its held in place by various salon products). He nearly became an investment banker when he left school (Occidental College). For three reasons, he didn't.
* He found excitement in computers, art, and ideas;
* Investment Banking is just a fancy name for accounting;
* He hates accounting.
His favorite wine would be a bottle of Penfolds Grange Hermitage. Ideally a 1976, but let's not get too picky. The Grange Hermitage is red of course. His favorite other colour is black. He doesn't know why.
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OK, OK. For a creative that's a bit of a cliché. To say he is passionate about ideas is to say that Warren Buffett has a mild, fleeting interest in money. His first love may be for creative ideas but this preoccupation extends to ideas from and for every area of human and non-human activity that involves complex information systems. In other words, all-inclusive. Ideas are what make life worth living for him. It's probably why he's always in a classroom, or has his face in a book.
Will Evans’s Specialties:
User Experience Design, User Centered Design, Information Architecture, Human Factors Engineering, UX, Interaction Design.
Some articles I have written:
A Social Networking Examination of Tagging On Gather
Social Networking websites & a theory of cumulative advantage
The Cognitive Science of Tagging on Web 2.0 Websites Like Gather
Praxis & Theory: Information Architecture & Cognitive Science
Will Evans’s Experience
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Principal User Experience Architect
Semantic Foundry
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)
November 2007 — Present (7 months)
Principal User Experience Architect. I design stuff - user profiles, wireframes, mock-ups, prototypes and visual designs and generally everything required to build a world class user experience for startups and enterprise organizations.
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Software Information Architect
AIR Worldwide
(Privately Held; Financial Services industry)
July 2005 — September 2007 (2 years 3 months)
Responsible for leading the evolution of company’s User Experience (Information Architecture and Interaction Design) including developing
processes and methodology for IA and User Experience, from strategy to user centered User Interface design, research and conceptual design and planning and production of complex Windows and web-based risk modeling software targeting the financial services, insurance, and reinsurance markets.
Lead UX Strategist creating the corporate User Centered Design process with domain ownership for defining functionality, mental models, navigation, interaction, content structure, task flows and user persona creation across five major product lines which included thin (web), thick (desktop), and smart clients. Also researched and evaluated new .Net WPF and XAML technologies. -
Information Architect - UX
Gather.com
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)
November 2004 — July 2005 (9 months)
Develop and document detailed information architectures, taxonomies and interaction designs for highly interactive and complex interfaces via web based application to support marketing strategy, brand strategy, and desired demographic user behavior for user-driven web 2.0 media company with collaborative profiling and social networking applications.
Key Achievements:
- Collaboratively developed strategy, scenarios, navigation structure, interaction designs and proto-sites for demonstration of concepts to consumer base.
- Researched and prioritized user requirements and functional requirements.
- Design specifications.
- Translate approved plans into site maps, flows, link-through and wire frames for creative and development translation and implementation. -
Senior Interaction Designer/Information Architect
Kayak.com
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)
2003 — 2004 (1 year)
Key Achievements:
- Created highly visible and identifiable corporate brand including logo, visual palette, and style guide.
- Spearheaded design and development of application flow and user experience flow, including all screens and screen elements for complex meta-search travel engine and advertising portal application.
- Successfully completed all duties in demanding startup environment supporting rapid application development and prototyping methodology.
- User type modeling and creating personas.
- Defining and documenting use cases, user scenarios and activity work flow diagrams.
- Developed user interface storyboards, mock-ups and interactive <html> prototypes.
- Rapid concept design and prototyping (via Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Visio.) -
Information Architect
IBM/Lotus IBM Global Services
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Computer & Network Security industry)
2000 — 2002 (2 years)
Created information architecture and user interface/interaction design specifications for IBM/Lotus
Learning Management System and other internal Lotus products.
Key Achievements:
• Lead and participated in a variety of primary and secondary user research activities.
• Mapped user research, test findings, and input from others to business objectives.
• Created process flows, site maps, wireframes, navigation systems, screen prototypes, and
conceptual models to clarify and refine new product solutions and to implement design.
• Conducted and participated in concept generation activities including the development of user
personas, user scenarios, organizational models, task models, and feature lists
• Mentored business unit development teams on IA and User Experience. -
IA/Interaction Designer
Curl
(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)
January 1998 — March 2000 (2 years 3 months)
Will Evans’s Education
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Bentley College - Elkin B. McCallum Graduate School of Business
MBA + MS HFID, Human Factors in Information Design, 2005 — 2007
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Occidental College
AB, Mathematics + Economics, 1990 — 1994
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St. Pauls School
Additional Information
Will Evans’s Websites:
Will Evans’s Interests:
Photography, design, digital art, mountain biking, cooking, and sitting in cafe's drinking coffee and talking about Foucault, travel, strategy, games, linguistics, cognitive science and consciousness studies, math
Will Evans’s Groups:
SIGCHI, UPA, IAI, ACM, IxDA
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Interaction Design Association member -
Human Computer Interaction (HCI) member
Will Evans’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- career opportunities
- consulting offers
- new ventures
- expertise requests
- reference requests
- getting back in touch
