Jim Dalglish

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Profile

Exceptional business acumen with more than fifteen years experience as a digital strategy consultant, researcher, UX designer, and information architect for clients such as Merrill Lynch, Standard & Poor’s, Amtrak, State Street Bank, The New York Times, McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Lord Abbett, Tufts Health Plan, Partners HealthCare, National Fire Protection Association, Oberlin College, and The Boston Conservatory.
Expert UX designer, researcher, and information architect with a proven approach to meeting client business goals and customer needs with thoroughly researched and tested software interfaces.
Effective and enthusiastic leader with a unique ability to motivate diverse teams – executives, department heads, stakeholders, designers, programmers, content developers, and administrators – to meet organizational goals.

Selected Accomplishments

Digital Strategist

Facilitated the company-wide restructuring of Standardandpoors.com, a two-year project that required the cooperation of five independent divisions scattered across nine global regions. Lead all strategy sessions, supervised usability tests and created the 400+ multilingual interfaces to accommodate this dynamic site.
As head information architect, created Merrill Lynch’s online marketing center as well as completed the business strategy analysis, competitor audit, focus group testing and business requirements for Lord Abbett’s B2B website.

UX Design / User Research / Information Architect

As lead UX designer and information architect, designed the 200+ interfaces for Amtrak.com, a complete overhaul of Amtrak’s online reservation system that resulted in a 50% increase in on-line orders within the first week of re-launch.
Designed and completed the heuristic evaluation and usability testing of State Street Bank’s online securities lending service. After recommendations were implemented, the resulting site scored a 75% improvement in user efficiency.
Designed the 300+ interfaces for eShaman, a site designed for IT professionals that included a store and catalog (more than two thousand products,) a research library (thousands of dynamically updating volumes,) and an enterprise software management center (company-wide software registration and reliability testing.) Supervised the 19-member team, which created this site in less than four months.

Creative Director / Executive Producer / Senior Editor

As executive producer at Six Red Marbles, llc., conceptualized, designed and supervised the creation of some of the nation’s most popular educational software products for Houghton Mifflin, Harcourt General, Pearson Publishing and Macmillan/McGraw-Hill.
Executive producer for top-selling, nationally distributed educational computer games such as Curious George Learns Phonics, Spelling Spree, Rescue Geo 1, Intrigas y aventuras, Phonics Express, and Science Explorations.
As a senior project editor at Houghton Mifflin Co., collaborated with authors, content developers, designers, illustrators and marketing personnel to create two of country’s best-selling reading textbook series.

Media Relations

As a newspaper reporter for the Grand Forks Herald, was awarded the NIPA Outstanding Journalist for the state of North Dakota.

Professional Experience

Director, UX Research & Strategy
OHO Interactive, Cambridge, MA
1/22/2014 – present

Heads up OHO’s digital strategy, UX design, and information architecture teams, designs the market research protocols, conducts research, presents findings and recommendations, ensures appropriate staffing and resources, and guarantees the quality of client deliverables.
Helps clients (re)define their online business strategy by conducting market and user research, analyzing business analytics, leading stakeholder interviews and ethnographic research studies, focus groups and usability tests, designing market surveys, and presenting findings and recommendations to clients.
Implements the information gathered from research to create site maps, process flows, taxonomies, wireframes, and fully interactive prototypes necessary to hand off to the development team.

Associate Director of Research & Information Architecture
OHO Interactive, Cambridge, MA
5/15/2012 – 1/22/2014

Lead OHO’s team of information architects, designing the research and test protocols, ensured the appropriate staffing and resources and guaranteed the quality of client deliverables
Collaborated with OHO’s founder to help clients (re)define their online business strategy.
Lead stakeholder interviews, ethnographic research studies, focus groups and usability tests, designed market surveys and created OHO’s findings and recommendations documents and presentations.
Used the information garnered from research efforts to create the site maps, process flows, taxonomies, wireframes and fully interactive prototypes that were necessary for a successful IA engagement.

Senior Information Architect
OHO Interactive, Cambridge, MA
5/09/2011 – 5/09/2012

Consulted with a wide variety of clients to understand their business models and goals and helped define strategy, content, features and functions for their online service.
Analyzed audiences and their information and functional needs by conducting audience segmentation studies and leading customer interviews, focus groups and usability tests.
Defined site architecture and navigation by creating wireframes, site maps, schematics, process maps, feature lists, mockups, visual specification, working prototypes and other artifacts that detailed the intended user experience.

Information Architect
XL Marketing, New York, NY
(Contract Work)
3/08/2011 – 3/18/2011

Conducted a competitor audit of the company’s chief rivals in the lead-generation market.
Created a prototype for this company’s new online social media lead generation tool.
Conducted all research and produced three fully designed iterations and the finished prototype within a very tight time-frame - less than 10 days.

Director of Information Architecture / Business Analysis
HNW, New York, NY
3/23/2007 – 10/15/2007

Created this company’s IA / business strategy offering. Used the offering to secure two new multi-million dollar accounts.
Leading project teams — including designers, art directors, producers, usability engineers, business analysts, Q.A. technicians, architects, and programmers — to produce two of this company’s robust online offerings.

Information Architect / Senior Software Developer
Gerson Lerhman Group, New York
8/15/2006 – 3/23/2007

Responsible for creating the IA for key software projects at this innovative, industry-leading financial services firm.
Leading project teams — including designers, art directors, producers, usability engineers, business analysts, Q.A. technicians, architects, and programmers — to produce one of this company’s robust online offerings.

Creative Director / Executive Producer
Granitar, Framingham, MA
4/30/2000 – 10/01/2003

Created this software consulting firm’s IA / business strategy offering and used it to secure three multi-million dollar accounts.
Designed the IA for Amtrak.com, a complete overhaul of Amtrak’s online reservation system that resulted in a 50% increase in on-line orders within the first week of re-launch.
Facilitated the company-wide restructuring of Standardandpoors.com, a two-year project involving five divisions scattered across nine global regions.

Executive Producer
Six Red Marbles, Cambridge, MA
4/30/1998 – 2/01/2000

Conceptualized, designed and created some of the nation’s most popular educational software products for Houghton Mifflin, Harcourt General, Pearson Publishing and Macmillan/McGraw-Hill.
Produced nationally distributed computer games such as Intrigas y aventuras, Phonics Express, and Science Explorations.
Hired, trained and supervised the staff of freelance content experts, designers, animators, audio technicians and programmers and created the operating budgets for all SRM projects.

Executive Producer / Senior Project Manager / Senior Editor
Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, MA
11/07/1988 – 4/30/1998

Conceptualized, produced and marketed some of the nation’s most highly regarded and recognizable educational software products such as Curious George Learns Phonics, Spelling Spree, and Rescue Geo 1.
As a senior editor, collaborated with authors, developers, designers, illustrators and marketing staff to create the country’s leading reading textbook series.

Related Experience

Managing Director
Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater (WHAT), Wellfleet, MA
11/05/2007 – 1/31/2010

Managed all business aspects for this professional arts organization, including its three performing spaces – a 213-seat main stage, a 90-seat studio, and 100-seat tent – two residences, an art gallery and rehearsal hall. This includes budgeting, bookkeeping systems, payroll and box office for this theater with a $1.2 million annual budget.
Initiated, negotiated and wrote contracts for all rentals – concerts, satellite broadcasts, film screenings, live theater, dance, art exhibitions, arts festivals, lectures, functions, etc.
Oversaw and/or created all marketing materials for the theater – playbills, brochures, fliers, posters, postcards, banners, and website. Created and distributed all press relations materials. Sold advertisements and secured sponsorships. Created and conducted the theater’s audience research initiatives.
Supervised and managed the theater’s 9-person year-round staff, 14 seasonal interns, 15+ acting company and 90+ volunteers.
Reported directly to the theater’s Board of Directors.

Director of Marketing
Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater (WHAT), Wellfleet, MA
3/01/2005 – 8/12/2006

Responsible for conceptualizing, planning, budgeting, and overseeing the completion of all the theater’s marketing strategy initiatives and their associated collateral.
Created all public relations for the theater and facilitated coverage by major national media outlets such as The New York Times, The Boston Globe, NPR and PBS.
Successfully completed a re-branding effort that freshened and unified the theater’s promotional assets – posters, post-cards, stationery, ads, signage, newsletters, annual appeals, programs, brochures, tickets, etc.
Conducted market research to identify customer attitudes/behaviors, market strengths/weaknesses and potential revenue-generating opportunities.
Collaborated with the Artistic Director to expand the theater’s sponsorship program, producing a five-fold increase in income.
Supervised the migration of the box office systems from an aging client/server system to an integrated system.

Education

Brown University (Master of Arts)
University of North Dakota (Bachelor of Arts & Sciences)

Professional Affiliations

User Experience Professionals' Association (UXPA)
Human Factors International (HFI)
Nielsen Norman Group (NNG)

Speaking Engagements

Improving Online Lead Generation for Bank Applications: - The Face of Finance Conference, Bentley University, Waltham, Massachusetts, 10/30/2013

Bentley University Presentation >

Motivatability: Driving the Clicks that Lie Beyond Usability - World Usability Day, Microsoft NERD Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 11/8/2012

World Usability Day Presentation Video >>

The "New New" in Usability: B2B is Going Consumer - Gilbane Conference, Weston Boston Waterfront, Boston, Massachusetts, 11/30/2011

White Papers

Mobile Usability: Testing your website in the real world - November 1, 2011

Download White Paper >>

Expertise

Market / Field Research
Contextual Inquiry / Ethnographic Research
Focus Groups
Heuristic Evaluation
Competitor Audit
Stakeholder Interviews
Personas
User Scenarios & Customer Journeys
Process Flows & Use Cases
Feature / Function Analysis
UX Strategy
Findings & Recommendations Documentation
Site Maps
Wireframes
Prototypes
Usability Testing
Content Development
Functional Specification
Responsive Design

Specialized Tools

Axure - wireframes, prototype, site maps, process flows, functional specs
Silverback - desktop video capture
Camtasia - desktop video capture
Evergage - personalization software
UX Recorder - mobile video capture
Video Trim - video editing
Survey Monkey - market research
Task Rabbit - recruitment
Hubspot - inbound marketing
Reflector - video mirroring for remote testing
Google Analytics - site metrics
Google Docs - collaboration
Keynote & Powerpoint - presentation
Visio - process flows
Photoshop, Illustrator, Aperture - photography & design