Kenneth E Mohnkern
235 Woodside Road, Pittsburgh PA 15221 | 412-731-8077 | ken@calebwalker.com
Overview

Interaction Designer with over six years' experience with web planning, documentation, development, and evaluation.

Areas of Expertise

Interaction Design
Scope-building with clients and project teams. Determining site structure, content needs, functionality, and documenting these design decisions. Collaborating with development team members throughout site development. Performing quality checks.

Usability
Researching usability-testing techniques appropriate for the organization. Documenting these and presenting them to client-management teams to allow them to sell the techniques as part of the development process. Planning and conducting tests as needed.

Training & Education
Leading educational series for internal teams. Teaching a communication technologies class at a local college. Guest-lecturing for CMU's HCI Institute.

Experience

Freelance Consultant February 2002 - present
Pennsylvania Academic Library Consortium, Inc., Pittsburgh PA
Web site redesign for state-wide academic library organization.
Abbott Digital, Ltd., Pittsburgh PA
Implemented a process for document conversion to PDF.
Content Services Group, Pittsburgh PA
Performed web site audits and documentation in preparation for site redesign.
Touch Wholeness (www.touchwholeness.com), Pittsburgh PA
Designed and developed web site for massage therapist.

Interaction Designer July 1999 - January 2002
Blattner Brunner, Inc., Pittsburgh PA
Part of the interactive products team at Blattner Brunner. Responsible for web site design, including: determining sites' navigation, structure, functionality, and content; documenting all these decisions; working closely with the development team to ensure a quality product. Have worked on many sites, including a large web-based financial application, a web interface for a large company's inventory system, consumer product sites, and several mutual funds sites.
In addition to client work, created and performed orientation for new Interaction Designers. Developed and led two internal training series, covering graphic design, communication theory, database design, and general user experience issues.

Adjunct Faculty October - December 2000
La Roche College. Pittsburgh PA
Developed and taught "Emerging Communication Technologies," in the Department of Communications and Graphic Design. The class included basic communication theory and an emphasis on student reading and writing on topics of communication technologies.

Webmaster Mar 1998 - July 1999
The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. Pittsburgh PA
Designed a new Robotics Institute web site. Managed a team to create a primarily database-driven site. Was responsible for site maintenance, including supervision of the people responsible for data updates, continuous solicitation for new information from researchers in the department, and responding to user inquiries.

Webmaster 1996 - Feb 1998
School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University. Pittsburgh PA
Designed a new School of Computer Science web site, focusing on use by prospective students. Designed and created page templates and graphics; made Computer Science graduate catalog and other print documents available online. Performed daily maintenance of the Unix server and acted as troubleshooter and support for users worldwide.

Multimedia Specialist 1992 - 1996
The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. Pittsburgh PA
Interface designer and graphics creator for the Just-In-Time Lectures Project, system for creating and delivering CD-ROM lectures using digital video, email, and web connection. Created all interface design and graphic elements; created functional prototypes; performed usability tests; created support graphics for lectures.

Education

Master of Design, Interaction Design 1997
The School of Design, Carnegie Mellon University. Pittsburgh PA Thesis paper: "Affordances, Metaphor, and Interface Design"
Thesis project: "Interactive Diagrams: A Project for The Issue of Abortion in America"
Courses covered communication theory, cognitive processing, diagraming and problem solving, usability testing, and graphic design.

Bachelor of Science, Mechanical Engineering 1985
Carnegie Mellon University. Pittsburgh PA

Affiliations

International Interactive Communications Society 1992 - 1996 Co-founder of the Pittsburgh chapter (1992), President (1995), President-elect (1994), Secretary (1992-3).

ACM SIGCHI 1996 - 1999

Publications & Presentations

Guest lecturer for Interaction Design class, Human Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, February 1, 2000.

"Metaphor and Affordances in Interface Design," CHI97: Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference, March 1997.

Interactive Diagram, The Issue of Abortion in America CD-ROM published by Routledge, 1998.

"Beyond the Interface Metaphor," SIGCHI Bulletin, April 1997.

Tutorials, workshops, conferences

AIGA User Experience Workshop Nov 2001.
Blattner Brunner User Experience Workshop 2000 (co-organizer).
UPA Workshop: "Towards a Framework of Interaction and Experience As It Relates To Product Design" 1999.
CHI 1996, 1997, 1999.
Vision Plus 4 1998.
DIS 2000.

 

References available upon request.
This document may be found at www.calebwalker.com/res