Search Vocabulary, Taxonomy and Indexing Specialist (freelance contracts)
Nokia Music, Bristol UK Dec ‘08
Corbis Images (now Getty Images) Seattle WA Aug ‘06 – Aug ‘07
Amazon.com, Seattle WA Aug ‘99 – Dec ‘99
• Presented seminars on Findability and Usability and consulted on taxonomy redesign for Nokia Music
• Developed and standardized thesauri and taxonomies underlying bibliographic cataloging at Amazon and image cataloging at Corbis, to improve e-commerce customers’ user experience
Online User Assistance Specialist
Guy Carpenter, Seattle WA (six freelance contracts) Nov ‘99 – Sep ‘08
Visio (now Microsoft Visio), Seattle WA (permanent full-time) Jul ‘96 – May ‘98
• Wrote, edited and designed online instructional materials, including step-by-step procedural instructions, for online Help systems in actuarial and diagramming software programs to guide end-users.
• Project manager for technical documentation projects: recruiting, training, and terminating contractors. Tracked projects resources and staff with Excel.
• Managed time and budgets for teams, and for myself as an independent contractor.
• Worked independently and as part of teams.
• Created single-source content management tools using Microsoft Word to split source text into print and online formats after translation into 22 languages; trained colleagues in US, Ireland and Europe to use my tools.
• Conducted usability studies of software and web pages, and collaborated with programmers on UI design improvements to the user experience.
Freelance Indexing Consultant, Seattle WA Jun ‘88 – Jul ‘96
• Created indexes of nonfiction books, software manuals, and online Help for clients including Harper & Row (now HarperCollins), Putnam (now Penguin), Seal Press, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Attachmate (now Microfocus), and Aldus (now Adobe).