Portfolio

  • Zune Marketplace music page thumbnail
    • T.I. Album Cover
    • Close up of the track length slider
    • Close up of an optional background image for the Zune desktop software

    Zune Desktop software 2.0 - 3.0

    • Key member of the Design Development team for Zune desktop software versions 2.0 through 3.0.
    • Primary focus was cross-discipline collaboration on user experience, visual & motion design implementation, and overall fit & finish.
    • Key areas of ownership included now playing screen, music collection layout, picture & video views, marketplace landing page, and music controls (play, pause, etc.).
  • Commenting on a single item
    • Commenting on a single item

    Commenting Interaction

    • Responsible for design, development, and planning of animated interaction.
    • Focus was on making commenting more intuitive, eliminating the current behavior of a page reload with a "comment successful" message.
    • Animations had not been used previously at employer.
    • Project included researching, developing, and deploying animation framework.
  • Collection of video thumbnails

    Video thumbnail overlay

    • Goal was to find an intuitive way to display relevant video information on the thumbnail, rather than having a long bulleted list below each video.
    • Overlay must be made via CSS and HTML, as creating a new thumbnail for each video wasn't feasible.
    • Solution was far less busy, easy to understand, versatile, and left room in case more information was deemed necessary.
  • Advanced technologies

    Progressive Enhancement

    • Champion for embracing progressive enhancement in the design and development of the Wetpaint platform.
    • Technologies utilized include CSS 2 & 3, and HTML5.
    • Updated a wide variety of components including dialogs, tooltips, lightboxes, and help bubbles.
    • Provides an enhanced experience for users with modern browsers, while ensuring that less capable browsers are still provided with basic functionality.
  • Pie chart

    Internal UX Best Practices Presentation

    • Focus on UX best practices for developers and designers.
    • Topics included form design, animations, the importance of understanding user goals, and how to improve cross-functional collaboration.
    • Lead discussion on what we thought we were doing right, what we could improve on, and what goals we could commit to.

If you’ve looked over my resume, you know that I’ve done far more than what’s included in this portfolio. The work referenced above is meant to serve as an example of the variety of projects I have contributed to and the many ways I have contributed to them. To my knowledge, this portfolio does not include any projects deemed to be confidential by my current or previous employers.

In their own words

  • Jake Freeman
    “I worked very closely with Tom at Wetpaint. He's a passionate advocate for the consumer and the product. He's out on the leading edge of technology and UX, and regularly saw opportunities for improvements and enhancements that the rest of us missed. He also saw pitfalls and gotchas well before they came up and was extremely proactive. Tom sees the big picture and we all benefited from that. Not least, Tom is also the life of the party, just a lot of fun to work with.”
    - Jake Freeman, Director of Product at Wetpaint
  • Alix Han
    “Tom is brilliant in more ways than one. Not only does the climate of the group feel more laid back, fun and productive, Tom also elevates the quality of the finished product by sharing his keen insights to interaction design. He is definitely one of the the best UX developers that I've ever worked with. Tom is very good at listening and giving valuable feedback, all in the name of making the UX as awesome as possible.”
    - Alix Han, Senior UX Designer at Wetpaint