Karl Smith

Director, Principal Digital Architect, Interaction Designer, Analytics Expert, Usability Expert, UCD Expert, HCI Expert.

Experience in IT: Since 1999

Networking

http://www.linkedin.com/in/karlsmith2

About

Karl Smith is specifically involved in strategic internet, software and intranet developments. Karl Smith works with stakeholders, capturing requirements, defining road maps, creating new concepts, reviewing and interpreting analytics, user and interaction definitions, personas and tasks, user centred design, application design, to create conceptual and data models, navigation and content structures, content guidelines, usability guidelines and functional specifications which (if in scope) he then manages in an Agile methodology.

Recent Work

Client liaison, requirements capture, concept design, strategic planning, user centered design approach to audience research, technical research, interaction and architectural design, functional specification and Agile (Scrum, XP, Hyb) project management.

• Confidential, high level IA (workshops, interaction and wireframes) and pathway design for e-commerce website including site maps and wireframes

• Institute of Mechanical Engineers , HCI research project utilising UCD techniques to determine best practice redesign of existing website

• Experian , B2B marketing list creation website with e-commerce gateway

• Learn Direct sitemap and wireframes (storyboard www.nothingcanstopyou.co.uk ) e-learning mini-site in flash

• What Car , initially a blue sky review for a best practice redesign with community access

• Marks & Spencer Research relating to scoping and definition of a research project involving the study of; ‘Failed transactions in self service consumer technologies in bricks and mortar shopping environments'.

• City Index , FX, CFD and SB 9 websites for global re-brand and cross cultural market capture

• National Police Improvements Agency software with national role out

• Etihad Holidays , luxury airline (middle east) new holiday website

• 2 Degrees Network , ecology B2B networking community

• Bank of Moscow (in Russian) with retail, business, private banking, asset management including all products and services, e-banking, e-trading with secure transaction routes and the development of new products based upon research

• GE Money , two branded IFA websites with secure transaction routes

• Glenfiddich , multiple language, targeted by market and legal entry points to content

• Hammer Films , new website in three phases including e-commerce VOD/PPV

• NHS Safety Network , patient safety clinician community project

• Bradford College , (3300 courses) website, to include community networking on both individual and course value levels with high volume transactions

• DisabilityNow , website to coincide with new magazine launch including full accessibility tool functionality and phase 2 community

• Hanover Housing Association ( England ), sheltered housing (1200 property locations with 10-50 properties in each) website with changed paradigm of property based search and B2B / C2C community, view through second linked website Hanover World

• Drambuie Pursuit/Den B2C / C2C interactive website with Facebook and YouTube links

• Nitro Group media company website with high definition imagery, complex interactions and specialist navigation

• Days Out Guide promotional website for Association of Train Operating Companies, with community interactions

• Arriva Trains mini-site for local rail travel linked to events and limited community

• Jersey Portal including Jersey Tourism and Jersey Enterprise Moss07 front and backend

• Touch Life B2B, B2C, and C2C community project based around business data and reviews
  

Recent Technologies

Plone, Joomla, Ajax, mambo, drupal, serendipity, radiant, immediacy, SharePoint 2003 and moss07, .net, Ruby on Rails.

Specialisations

• Work: Banking, financial services, education, media, tourism, transport, government, fmcg, charity, food & drink
• Fields: Strategic management, people (team) management, contextual systems design, user centric development, application development, business process mapping, AGILE project management
• Requirements capture, data analysis and analytics for interaction modeling
• Information architecture, information audits, taxonomy, site maps, wireframes
• Business process audit, mapping and strategy designation & development for integration, asset assessment for creation of planning models

Paradigm Interactions Project Work

April 2008 – August 2008

• Chemistry Group, Putney, Greater London
• Confidential, Central London
• Live|Work, Spitalfields, Central London
• Collective London , Farringdon, Central London

April 2008 – April 2008

Haymarket Publishing, Teddington, Greater London

Senior Information Architect

Heuristic evaluations on existing architectures, personas, user experiences, tasks and usability for major brand project initiation and blue sky environment. Development of project structures including defining audiences through online demographic data sources, user activities and journeys through web analytics and monetisation valuations through a CTR ROI investigation into advertising. Creating stakeholder buy in through meetings and objectives investigation.

Feb 2008 – March 2008 (2 months)

Web Technology Group, Hammersmith, Greater London

Information Architect Consultant

Interpreting huge client produced requirements into interaction and software maps, information hierarchies, defining key interactions and their secondary subsets, functional high fidelity prototype wireframes for six individual user personas with different application tools and tasks. Designing information/interaction architecture, capturing and interpreting requirements, creating concepts, documentation and information hierarchies to define new subsets of content for cross relational, global, local, and contextual navigation systems, contextual information structures and application parameters. Creating logical page progressions, activity rules and user pathways with meta search, data entry wizards and edit / delete functionality.

Projects

Information architecture, usability and accessibility based software for UK National Government aspect of the Home Office.

Information architecture, usability and accessibility based website for non UK luxury airline.

January 2008 – Feb 2008 (1 month)

Paradigm Interactions, Scotland

Direct Project Work

Consultancy developing new models of interaction based upon client's audiences preferences. Creating brand new concepts and interpreting existing information hierarchies to define new subsets of content and logical navigation structures, deriving ideas from either research (contextual, business and market) or the capturing of requirements from key stakeholders, system users or target audience groups. And operating with an Agile hybrid project management process through local, remote and offshore developers.

Projects

Defining user centric approach for user generated project and designing information architecture, capturing and interpreting requirements, creating concepts, digital tender process documentation, functional specification and content guidelines for an NHS information, best practice and community based website.

Conceptualisation, taxonomies and design of online ecology based B2B networking community, site structure, wireframes and cross relational applications.

October 2007 – December 2007 (3 month)

Altogether Digital, Soho, Central London

Requirements Gathering / Information Architect

Enforcing user centric approach for commercial e-commerce applications through information architecture, capturing and interpreting requirements, creating concepts, documentation and information hierarchies to define new subsets of content for cross relational, global, local, and contextual navigation systems, contextual information structures and application parameters. Deliverables includes audience research, economic factors research, content guidelines, sitemaps and wireframes and Agile hybrid project management working with local UI designers and local and offshore Russian and Chinese developers.

Projects

Complete redesign of Russian Bank including retail, business and corporate with an online e trading platform (Russian language site), Trading (Germany, North America, China, Japan, India, Australia – 16 languages), IFA (North America & Europe), Film, Broadcast websites and platform software with search, product prioritorisation , product architecture, search and plug-in media services.

August 2007 – September 2007 (2 months)

Engage Group, London Bridge , Central London

Information Architect / Usability Consultant

Information Architecture, interpreting requirements documentation and content to create information hierarchies to define subsets of content and navigation, tree structures, final record definition and database attributes , information relationships and application parameters. Deliverables include sitemaps, wireframes , content guidelines, personas, case use scenarios, client documentation, database definitions, technology proposals and functional specifications.

Projects

Huge CMS based University (3300 courses), Sheltered Housing (1200 locations) and Disability websites / intranet with community, meta search, payment and plug-in media services.

August 2007

Mook, Covent Garden, Central London

Information Architect / Usability Consultant

Information Architecture, creating and interpreting requirements documentation and content to create navigation structures, information relationships and application parameters. Deliverables include sitemaps, wireframes , personas, case use scenarios, client documentation and functional specifications.

Projects

Brand community site with Facebook and YouTube integrations and CMS based media site with plug-in media feeds and flash interface.

July 2007 – August 2007 (2 months)

Communiqué 360 Limited, Richmond , Greater London

Information Architect

Multi-disciplinary role interpreting high-level requirements in order to design the overall user experience of an interactive media. Analyses of existing portals intended purpose, objectives, audiences and content in order to devise an appropriate redesign. This includes creating hierarchical structures for content and navigation, organising content, specifying navigation and functionality, and designing the layout of user interfaces. Other work involved authoring scoping documentation, full functional specifications devising metadata schemas, intuitive user interfaces, end-user features, designing systems of user interaction to form site maps, wire-frame diagrams and functional specifications for developers.

Projects

Government websites, for tourism and business development using Moss07, Travel based mini-sites with planning, search and signup interactions.

Other Work

February 2007 – July 2007 (6 months)

Touch Local, Farringdon, Central London

Product Manager, Information Architect

Information architecture and research for the design, management, development and deployment of full life cycle application projects in an AGILE (XP) environment. Online integration projects including portal websites, CRM, billing, salesforce , communicator and e-commerce purchase paths. Other recent projects involve community concepts, research, architecture and UI design.

Projects

Directory and community design, defining user policies, backend integration , payment pathways, user sign-up, marketing landing / mini-sites and 53 other documented projects.

July 2006 – January 2007 (7 months)

Activity, Interaction and Usability, Glasgow , Scotland

Business Development Director

Contextual usability, brand recognition, market research and business intelligence consultancy and testing company based in UK and USA .

February 2006 – March 2006 (2 months)

Bunnyfoot Scotland , Edinburgh , Scotland

Business Development Director

Initial startup documentation, market sector planning and new business development

November 2003 – June 2004 (8 months)

Charles Kane Associates, Edinburgh , Scotland

European Director

Director / Manager client liaison utilising analytics, ethnography, and user testing (market research & usability) together to evolve wireframes, site maps, flow diagrams and screen-level design for enhancing user experience and process effectiveness. Developing strategic internet/application requirements with third party application vendors.

February 1999 – October 2003 (4 years 9 months)

Charles Kane Associates, Edinburgh , Scotland

Associate / Senior Associate

New media, systems and software concept development from requirements capture through developing scenarios based upon analytics, user testing, environmental testing, task analysis, cognitive processing, heuristics, human computer interaction and user centered design. Information architecture to produce, flow control, content design, associative structures. Other areas include; e-commerce, web development, CMS, SEO, affiliate marketing, link based marketing, contextual advertising and website content authoring.

Professional Memberships

• Professional Member IAI - Information Architecture Institute - USA
• Professional Member IASA - International Association of Software Architects - USA
• Professional Member BCS - British Computer Society - UK
• Professional Member UPA - Usability Professionals Association - USA
• Professional Member WAA - Web Analytics Association - USA
• Professional Member ACM - Association for Computing Machinery – USA

Prior Holder

BC Clearance and SC Clearance.

Academic Qualifications

• Napier University (2004 - 2006) MSc in Interactive Technologies for e Commerce
• Middlesex University (1985 - 1988) BA in Three Dimensional Design

Project Addendum

Projects by Technologies

• Web 2.0 structures and design for B2B communities
• Web 2.0 structures and design for B2C communities
• Web 2.0 structures and design for C2C communities
• Web 2.0 mashup definition and design
• e-Commerce VOD/PPV structures and support systems
• e-Commerce payment structures
• e-Commerce analytics and pathway definitions for business intelligence
• e-Commerce product definitions, groupings and backend integrations
• e-Commerce contracts, terms and conditions
• e-Commerce sales support systems
• e-Commerce email marketing, landing page / mini-sites
• e-Commerce segmentation definition and acquisition
• e-Commerce audience definition, targeting tools and funnel regulation
• e-Commerce search engine optimisation, affiliate and backlink marketing
• e-Commerce booking systems with backend integrations
• Portals with backend modelling for the integration of multiple data sources
• Portals supporting multiple legacy systems
• Intranet collaboration and publishing systems
• Data modelling

Projects by Sectors

• Education
• B2B
• Financial Services
• Secure Financial Transactions
• Banking
• Travel
• Tourism
• Media
• Accessibility
• Property
• Healthcare
• Manufacturing
• Government

Cross Cultural Systems and Interfaces

• Recent Countries
• Russia
• Japan
• USA
• China
• Australia
• European Union
• United Kingdom
• Germany
• France

Notes for Agencies

If you intend on submitting Karl Smith's details to any project or client at any time Paradigm Interactions Limited requires an email confirming this, with clear reference details stating daily rate, contract term, start date to avoid Karl Smith's profile being submitted by another agency.

If Paradigm Interactions Limited does not have this email from you even if your agency speaks with any of our staff, your agency will have no legally binding agreement to proceed on behalf of Karl Smith or Paradigm Interactions Limited.

Secondly prior to any commencement Paradigm Interactions Limited requires a sample contract to confirm the following;

Paradigm Interactions Limited reserves the right to substitute an alternative staff member on a project.

Paradigm Interactions Limited maintains its own moral IP.

All methods that are used to create designs are embedded in Paradigm Interactions Limited and are their own IP.

Paradigm Interactions Limited also requires all start up documentation to be sent prior to commencement this includes but is not limited to;

• Name of contact onsite
• Location address of client and sites involved in project
• Payment process
• Payment deadline information
• NDA if required
• Fire safety orientation
• Plus any documentation required

Failure to supply basic professional information will cause Paradigm Interactions Limited to withdraw from the project and seek alternative projects for its resources.