Welcome, my name is Daniel Farrow and I am a User Experience/Software Engineer with a web and multimedia software development background. For over a decade, I have had extensive exposure to the entire spectrum of this highly dynamic field. My goal is to help clients design and develop effective, delightful experience solutions to address user needs and solve business challenges. I am most interested in exploring how business strategy, brand strategy/marketing, product development/design, software development, operations, and customer service all intersect with the user experience.
User Experience Design
I have worked on all aspects of experience design including user research/analysis, information architecture, and interaction design. For the last 3 years, my responsibilities have included working with internal and external clients to identify requirements (that meet both business and user objectives) and then translate these into visual prototypes and architecture concepts. I conduct user research including user interviews, surveys, on-site contextual inquiry visits, and on-site/remote user testing of prototype designs. I have developed proto-personas and performed user task/journey analysis in order to understand the nature of the business problem that we are trying to solve. I have worked closely with users, customers and a cross functional internal team (including product managers, development, quality assurance, sales/marketing, maintenance/support, and executive team) to conceptualize and design application user interfaces, navigation, and user task flows. I also serve as an evangelist for user-centric practices inside my organization providing guidance and giving presentations on user experience best practices. Projects I have worked on have ranged from e-Commerce web applications, adminstrative interfaces for complex network applications, data-visualizations/dashboards, on-line games, kiosk applications, etc.
Software Development
My background includes considerable hands-on web design and development work (including front-end developing in HTML/JavaScript, server-side development, and DB development). I have developed web-based training applications which include streaming video/slide presentations and learning assessment tests. My experience includes creation of CD-ROM based multimedia learning applications incorporating video, audio, 2D/3D animation, text and graphics. I have software usability engineering experience including information architecture/content taxonomy definition, wire-frame development/interface prototyping, and usability test development, administration and analysis. I also have several years of experience in developing ASP.NET, PHP, and JSP based web sites, experience with database design and development (SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, SQLite), and experience using a variety of CMS and eCommerce platforms.
Project Management
In addition to my technical background, I have several years of technical project management experience (using Agile and other methods). My background includes developing project time-lines and budgets, managing project resources, and working both alone and in team settings on multiple simultaneous projects. I have created project proposals and requirements documents for web software applications. I have also assisted in the development of new product offerings in order to meet the needs of clients. The projects I enjoy most are those where I get to work with diverse teams, with personnel at all levels of an organization and in a cross-functional capacity.
