Don Wesley - User Experience Designer

Hello. My name is Don Wesley and I design user experiences. My strength is in establishing efficiency and clarity in your product's design. I like to work closely with development teams; ensuring that no important detail is missed during the production and implementation of a design. If your goal is to strengthen an existing design, I can help you test your interface in relation to your objectives. A clearly defined usability test can do wonders for your product or interface.

I have been progressing as a designer for over ten years. I started as a production artist for Microsoft’s CarPoint®. I later managed a great team of designers and front-end developers while working full-time at Sierra Home™ Online. I went on to open my own business in 2002; Don Wesley Design. Since then I have been independently contracting for companies like Streambox®, Stone Tablet®, ATG®, Attenex® and Terex®. From my experience I can confidently say that design is an iterative process that can require a variety of perspectives and creative problem solving. Having designed for numerous markets and with a variety of companies, my approach is well balanced and objective. Every project is unique and therefore there is always something to be learned.

In January of 2008 I started on contract at Microsoft as a designer with the MSN Entry Points and Relevancy team, where I worked on the personalization experience for MyMSN and My Live. I developed a close relationship with the development team and will miss working with them. In only 3 months time it was apparent that there was nothing we couldn't do and securely within our own code base! During the year I also offered my support for other projects such as the Live Wave2 header, partner migration to My MSN, graphics for the MSN Hub, and a UX for the Web Sandbox code cruncher, just to name a few.

My current focus, other than finding a fulltime position as a user experience designer, is continuing towards proficiency in designing for Silverlight using the tools from the Expression Studio. I also plan to gain a basic understanding of C# and would like to take a class on basic algorithms to aid my development. I also want to continue to develop my skills as a project manager. Throughout this past year I was the defacto PM on many of the projects I worked on and I found it both challenging and rewarding to solve complex designs by relying on the collective expertise of my team.

Don Wesley	User Experience Design - Product Workflow - Project Management