Ghostweather Research & Design

I am a Boston-based user research and interaction design consultant specializing in software, web, and consumer products, using a data-driven approach. That means I incorporate customer research into my process and apply the results to the design I produce.

I'm interested in clean design that's feasible to build. I always strive for teamwork across product management, design, and development. This philosophy often shows up on my blog. You can find my work background and more about my consulting on my resume page; and there's also some info on my books and my internet community research.

My resume in a short-form: I have a prior life as an online community researcher and published a lot in that area, including two books; and I've worked as a corporate designer and manager of designers for 10 years at companies such as Excite, TiVo, Adobe, Autodesk.

Many of my older papers and books are described or archived here.

A sample of my talk slides and essays from old blog or web postings live on the Essays Page. Included there are recent slides from a talk on online community design based on sociological principles.

Also posted are some photo-travel articles (surprisingly popular!). Highlights in travel include an ill-fated trip to Siberia, a visit with bird fanatics on Fair Isle (north of Scotland), and stories about a haunted house in the Shetland Islands, to which my readers have contributed.

A sampling of my recent pictures ends up on my blog (look for the "photos" label), because my photo blogging software no longer supports me and I haven't replaced it yet. There's a site photos index page for pointers to a few galleries as well.

Here's a gallery for a recent (2006) trip to Morocco-- sand, mountains, seaside, taken in 2006 (sample on the right).

Here's another of cute animals at a wildlife park in Nova Scotia, also taken in 2006.

There's a gallery of French wall art pics, taken in 2005:  graffiti, decorations, wall hangings. Plus some older photos: the Photoblog from 2005, before my posting volume and picture size broke the software I was using! The Photoblog from 2004 has some sections you might like, from birds outside my window to travel in Nova Scotia and St Croix such as shown below.