About Jim O'Brien
Howdy,
Thanks for dropping by to learn more about my experience and how I might be able to help your organization.
Having a robust background in UX design, I now bring nearly 5 years of dedicated management experience to the table. In this time, I have successfully led and mentored design teams, encompassing individuals with diverse skill sets and varying levels of expertise, including external contractors. I work to embody a servant-based leadership approach, providing support through authenticity and fostering trust. And while the work always has to get done, as a manager, the people still come first for me.
In addition to my leadership roles, I have contributed to a diverse array of projects in my 20+ years of experience, spanning from those brochure-ware websites for growing businesses to large B2C websites to large-scale commercial applications and everything in between. Beyond being responsible for the user interaction design (IxD) deliverables for most of these projects, such as task/user flows, wireframes, and design specifications, I have played a pivotal role in establishing design processes, crafting interface guidelines, and cultivating collaborative work environments. My design track record includes a history of successful design, training initiatives, and consulting services delivered across both the public and private sectors.
I thrive on supporting designers and their careers while still helping to deliver thoughtful solutions to the business and the customer through design.
How did I get here? Glad you asked.
An associate of mine, quite some time ago, had someone build them an ecommerce site so they could sell one of the products that, ironically, he and I both were selling at the time. What is commonplace today was cutting-edge and so cool back then, especially for an individual trying to do their own thing. As it turned out, this became the motivation for me to embark on what would become my new career.
What could go wrong for me, being an educated engineer with some unplanned industrial packing sales experience (mainly stretch film)? Talk about real imposter syndrome! What was I thinking?!
It was not too much later when I woke up one morning and proclaimed, "I'm going to design websites!" And with that, I bought a couple thousand dollars worth of books and software; and the rest is... you guessed it... history.
I had decided to do my own thing. It was scary, exciting, fun, and concerning all at the same time back then to start a business around the then crazy notion of building websites for growing businesses. Jumping in and getting started, I taught myself everything, including the power of networking, HTML (when tables were used for page layout), how to make some cheesy graphics, and even some SEO (back before "SEO" was cool). This experience turned out to be the springboard for the rest of my career, which is pretty badass.
And here we are...
"The only true wisdom is in knowing that you know nothing." - Socrates
Articles
Why Mock-ups Are Bad April 4, 2024
How to Calculate Your Team's Capacity March 26, 2022
Transition Assistance June 5, 2021
How to Manage Through a Pandemic July 25, 2020
How to Move Away From Micromanaging and Become a Better Leader February 8, 2019
Recruiting for the UX Unicorn April 27, 2018
Certifications
Genesys Design Thinking Practitioner, 8/2022
Google Analytics for Beginners, Google Analytics Academy, 4/2021-4/2024
Certified Usability Analyst, HFI, 2005-558
Verticals and Projects Designed For
Corporate and brochure-ware web sites.
Intranets.
Artificial intelligence.
Call center applications.
Automotive auctions (B2B).
Staffing / recruiting company's internal enterprise software suite.
Job boards.
Hotel marketing.
Automotive marketing and vehicle merchandising (B2C and B2B).
Data management.
SharePoint.
Patient history and medical records.
Debt collections.
Survey and forms generation.
Web screen capture.
Business Intelligence.
E-learning management.
Voice and data capture.
Search engines/directories.
Reporting.
System administration.
Ecommerce.
I have designed for such entities as: A.D.A.M. Medical Illustrated Encyclopedia, Autodesk, AutoTrader.com, GeorgiaGov, Genesys, IHG, and many others.
Environments/Platforms Designed For
WordPress
SharePoint
Salesforce (Classic and Lightening)
Responsive & Adaptive / Mobile
Samsung TV Applications (10ft UI)
Windows Metro 8
RIA / AJAX
HTML / XHTML / CSS
JSF
Flex
Java Swing
Microsoft Management Console (MMC)
XML and XSLT
ASP .NET / C#
Windows
Awards
Feb. 2005 - Custom Home Furnishings Industry Web Excellence Award - Custom Home Furnishings Association, With a Flourish
Jan 2002 - Editor's Choice - Customer Inter@ctions Solutions magazine, Witness Systems, Web Browsing Screen Capture
Jan. 2002 - 2001 Product of the Year - Communications Solutions magazine, Witness Systems, Web Browsing Screen Capture
Nov. 2001 - Editor's Choice - Customer Interface magazine, Witness Systems, Web Browsing Screen Capture
Fall 2001 - Best of Show - Internet World, Witness Systems, Web Browsing Screen Capture
1st Quarter 2001, Engineering Excellence Award, Witness Systems