430 Stanford Ave. Palo Alto, CA 94306 (650) 323-3629 / (650) 815-9588

Alison Lee

alee8@webcollab.com http://www.webcollab.com/alee/ http://www.webcollab.com/alee/portfolio/

Extensive work experience with cutting-edge UI design and software development in the areas of the Web, eCommerce & eBusiness, information access, management, and use, multimedia, multimodal interactions, social computing, and software productivity. Design and technical lead on projects that led to products, impacted product development, and used by hundreds and thousands of users. Especially talented in conceiving, designing, implementing, and evaluating human-centered software systems using a variety of interaction design techniques, programming languages, and user-research approaches. People-oriented team builder with excellent communications skills. Particularly strong in results-driven settings, in bridging across technical, design, and behavioral disciplines, and in bringing practical design and usability sensibilities to bear in creating simple, engaging interactions with complex applications.

Development

Programming Languages (selected): Java, AspectJ, HTML/DHTML/CSS/JavaScript, Perl, C/C++, AWK, sh, XML & XSLT, VoiceXML.

Web Application Design and Development: 8+ years creating rich, multimodal Web applications and sites with client-side and server-side components working cross-browser and cross-platform.

Tools/Techniques/Frameworks (selected): Eclipse plugin development, Eclipse rich-client platform, AJAX, LAMP, JSPs & servlets, Apache, MySQL, DB2, CGI, Swing/AWT, SWT, Laszlo, Microsoft BHO/WFC/COM, clustering, image & video toolkits, text processing and categorization, UML modelling, social networks, and location-based services.

Computing Platforms: Development projects on Linux, Windows, and Mac.

See Aspects of Rich Experiences, CHIplace, Portkey, People & Social browsers, Portholes.

User Experience Design & User Research

Tools (selected): Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Framemaker, Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Macromedia Director, and S-Plus.

Data Collection/Analysis Techniques (selected): Log analyses (keystrokes and Web server), basic experimental design, statistical analyses, regression analyses and multi-dimensional scaling.

User Research Methods (selected): Contextual inquiry, focus groups, interviews, scenarios, surveys, heuristic evaluation, and naturalistic observation.

See CRM scenarios, ePlace scenarios, Portkey studies, Portholes study, CSCW 2000 Video CD.

IBM TJ Watson Research Center, Research Staff Member, (Sept 1997 - June 2005)

Multi-Modal Interaction, Speech, and Accessibility: Create UI middleware, frameworks and technologies for Eclipse and the Web that enhance user experiences.

• Created a set of "Java + VoiceXML" APIs to speech-enable Web, mobile, and Eclipse applications.
• Developed a broad-based approach to accessibility without maintaining multiple source versions.
• Worked with seniors to create Web accessibility scaffoldings that present the elements, pathways, and structure of Web page and enable them to learn skills to function online with greater autonomy.
• Developed a novel Web page segmentation heuristic that exploits the visual structure of a Web page and integrated it into IE browser using Microsoft Java, browser helper objects, and ViaVoice TTS.

Social Computing & Collaborative eBusiness: Explore new eBusiness collaboration and social computing paradigms using two Social Web portals as research vehicles (CHIplace and Portkey). The portals enabled hundreds of users to meet, network, and share tacit knowledge and experiences.

• Engaged customers and product groups to understand business needs and social uses of technology.
• Developed the Web portals using J2SE, MySQL, applets, servlets, JSPs, JDBC, CSS, and XHTML.
• Created two social browsers for exploring relationships between People and Conversations.
• Analyzed user behaviors online to improve their designs and to demonstrate social uses of the portals.

New Paradigms for Web-based Collaboration: Conduct research and develop prototype scenarios involving Web-based collaboration technologies and online communities for eCommerce marketplaces.

• Developed a novel, spatially organized, interactive site map as a full-functioning proof-of-concept for ShopIBM to illustrate a social Web complement of a eCommerce Web site.

• Formulated design principles (e.g., place-making) and system components (e.g., social browser) for social interaction environments in large-scale collaborative environments such as digital cities.

Customer Relationship Management: Work with a Bank to explore business uses of shared voice and data for collaborative customer care. The project resulted in the formation of a 50-person product team.

• Formulated the uses and social interface design of the solution for sales and marketing, leads generation, customer support, and customer service.
• Created scenarios using HTML, JavaScript, Adobe PhotoShop, and Microsoft PowerPoint.
• Developed test plans and coordinated the testing of the solution between the two organizations.

NYNEX Science and Technology, Member of Technical Staff, (May 1992 - Aug 1997)

Web-based Collaborative Applications: Exploit and evangelize the use of Web standards to create collaborative applications and technologies for several internal projects.

• Recasted a forms toolkit as a Web technology and used it to build a meeting notes function.
• Architected the system, re-designed the UI, conducted the user research, and built two Web-based versions of a video-based background awareness tool using Java, C, and Perl using HTML forms, applets, CGI, HTTP, FTP, JPEG libraries, video libraries for multiple system platforms.
• Developed video-image techniques to sense activity and to provide privacy shields.

Participatory Design: Identify features, technologies, and services of a participatory design system that supports problem understanding, mutual education, collaboration and negotiation among group members.

• Worked with an internal, cross-organizational group and the New York New Media organization to assess communication needs, required services, and work practices of virtual communities.
• Designed a multimedia group memory system and a set of communication services for sharing, discussing, and evolving a repository of work artifacts (e.g., photos, sketches, design requirements). Built the system in C and Perl using HTTP, CGI, HTML, helper applications, and MIME types.

Multi-Function Operator Workstation: Create a new multi-function telephone operator workstation. During the two-year period of our involvement, the workstation was rolled out to thousands of operators.

• Developed a keystroke data collection mechanism in C and using a network packet sniffer device.
• Analyzed operator performance, formulated UI recommendations, and developed test plans.