Vitorio Miliano

BioWare, Austin, TX

Web Interaction Designer, August 2009 to Present

Responsible for all the interaction design and user experience for new content areas and features for the promotional and community site for the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic massively-multiplayer online game.

I vet and brainstorm against requirements and produce an initial set of wireframes. For any complex interactions, I’ll make an interactive prototype. These are reviewed by stakeholders (including the graphic artist and developers who will be implementing them), I make revisions and then write up detailed functional specs and hand them off.

I do this all day, every day. (It’s kind‐of awesome.) Here’s an example. I also research and evaluate new technologies, provide Drupal architecture recommendations, participate in code reviews, and very occasionally help out with Drupal implementations.

Optaros, Austin, TX

Senior UX designer and developer, US Oncology, Summer 2009

Designed wireframes and comprehensive layouts from an initial set of visual designs; wrote HTML, CSS and JavaScript style guides; developed a custom theme and wrote JSP for a Liferay (Java) portal for a healthcare services company.

Senior UX developer, Alere, Spring 2009

Integrating HTML, CSS and some JSP for an Oracle WebCenter Interaction application backed by Alfresco for a healthcare services company.

Senior UX designer and developer, Activision Blizzard, Winter 2008

Interviewed users and performed functional and business analysis to design and develop a digital asset management web application for the marketing and public relations teams of a large media publisher. Designed wireframes to propose and specify application functionality and later implemented the design in HTML, CSS and JavaScript backed by Alfresco Surf (Java, JavaScript). Performed user testing to get feedback as the application was being developed and iterated rapidly with both new wireframes and directly implementing interface changes to accommodate user responses.

Business analyst, LifeWay, Winter 2008

Assisted with the business analysis of a large religious organization’s online businesses, including content management for one hundred fifty years of book and magazine publishing and workflow and metadata for over a hundred thousand products sold online and at retail.

Senior UX developer, BioWare, Fall 2008

Produced a highly-scalable architecture for BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic promotional and community site in Drupal 6 and vBulletin (both PHP). Specified the hardware architecture, created wireframes and functional specifications from comprehensive layouts, provided development estimates, developed the content management architecture, created the page and form templates from provided HTML and CSS, and developed modules to support custom commenting functionality, integration with vBulletin and support for the Limelight Networks CDN.

UX developer, Advance Publications’ High School Sports Network, Summer 2008

Assisted in the enhancement of a large Django-based (Python) content management system. Focused on converting site functionality and widgets to a new UI system, writing new HTML and CSS to match the new theme, and rewriting components to provide new functionality, most notably the rendering of sports tournament brackets.

Senior UX developer, IDG ITworld, Summer 2008

Assisted in the replatforming (from Vignette) and development of a large (50,000+ articles) content site in Drupal 5 (PHP). Focused on converting provided HTML and CSS designs to Drupal templates, theming forms and custom module development, including selecting promotional content, taxonomic views and exposing statistics.

UX developer, McKesson Pharmacy Optimization, Spring 2008

Developed the HTML, CSS and some JSP for a subscription content site using the Liferay portal with an Alfresco back-end (both Java) based on provided designs. Wrote Python code to import hundreds of documents into Alfresco from proprietary Excel spreadsheet-based indexes.

UX developer, Optaros OView, Spring 2008

Originally brought in to do UI development but ended up specifying the technical architecture for a web content syndication service and kicking off a massive rewrite (JavaScript, Prototype, PHP, Symfony).

UX designer, Optaros Gazzetta, Spring 2008

Requirements analysis, wireframes and contrast mockups for a hypothetical newspaper’s entertainment guide’s next-generation online presence.

UX developer, Optaros OForge, Winter 2007

Analyzed the usage of our internal source control and project management system through interviews with developers and project managers. Produced mockups of alternative, improved navigation structures.

UX developer, McKesson Mail-Order Pharmacy, Winter 2007

Standardized the interface elements for a large pharmaceutical company’s internal sales management application and produced a corresponding style guide.

UX developer, Advance Publications’ High School Sports Network, Winter 2007

Documented the interface patterns for a web-based content management application used by hundreds of sports teams and journalists to cover games, manage brackets, and publish to a national network of local newspapers.

Gemalto (formerly Axalto), Austin, TX

Software developer, June 2006 to October 2007

Rewrote a smart card browser extension as a cross-platform, cross-browser, NPAPI plugin in C++. Designed a workflow and prototype interface for a new smart card self-enrollment product. Designed and wrote an online tool in Python for the NIM team (below) that automagically makes new marketing demos and special developer test tokens, turning a half-day or more of engineering effort into a four- to six-click process.

Research and development assistant, June 2005 to June 2006

Designed and implemented user interfaces in HTML, CSS, JavaScript and embedded C for prototype smart cards with network stacks and onboard web servers. Severe resource constraints led me to develop a neat way to rearrange JPEG security images on-the-fly without recompression and use vector handwriting samples for human interaction proofs (CAPTCHA). I contributed all of the UI, a lot of Python server code and some Win32 C code to our “Network Identity Manager” (NIM) product, a USB token that provides cryptographically secure web logins.

Microsoft, Austin, TX

Spyware phone support, December 2004 to May 2005

I worked in a call center taking Microsoft “Protect your PC” spyware and antivirus support calls. Pleasant phone personality and overqualified technical ability regularly resulted in both solved problems and perfect customer satisfaction scores.

Dorm Duffle, Austin, TX

Proprietor, 2004

I founded and financed a seasonal business to ship duffle bags of school supplies to incoming freshmen at universities throughout the Southwest. I developed the product, designed and art directed the tri-fold flier, planned fulfillment, wrote and hosted the web site and its secure credit card processing form in Python, and ultimately sent out over fifteen thousand fliers to parents of new students.

Epic Games, Raleigh, NC

Developer relations manager, 2001 to 2004

I built the Unreal Developer Network, the first, public, company-sponsored, game technology support web site and fostered a cooperative community among technology licensees who compete with each other at retail. Variously served as manager, lead technical writer, copy editor and systems administrator.

I designed the site hardware and software infrastructure and information architecture to manage hundreds of licensee companies and thousands of pages of SDK documentation, tools and support. I wrote and edited hundreds of pages of tutorials, task-based and reference documentation, and marketing materials. I remotely managed up to eighteen programmers and artists. I also directed the development of Epic Games’ new venture for commercial and educational developers (the Unreal Engine 2 Runtime) and finally managed the transition of the site to my successors.

Unrealty, Bethesda, MD

Proprietor, 1999 to 2001

I started a business producing real-time 3D architectural walkthroughs. The technology (built on Unreal Engine 1) was novel and years ahead of its time: it included voice chat with lip-synching characters, multi-user meetings in 3D over the internet and virtual tours given by a 3D tour guide. I authored the original prototype, and later funded and managed the development of a custom 3D editing application, which I licensed to other design firms. I managed over thirty professional artists producing 3D content for clients including domestic real estate developers, universities, startups, foreign banks and NASA. Press coverage included Newsday, MSNBC, New York Times, CBS Radio, Sunday Times (London), and assorted computer gaming press.

Robert Greenberg Consulting, Wading River, NY

Programmer, 1998 to 1999

I developed numerous web-based applications and web sites using Lotus Notes/Domino and DB2 on AIX and Windows NT. I wrote the first third-party Palm VII mobile web application; it was featured by 3Com at the device’s debut. I also developed a near real-time conference attendee tracking system which was used during IBM Lotus’ conference series for the release of Lotus Notes R5.

DACnet, Stony Brook, NY

Web developer, 1998 to 1999

I designed static web sites primarily for the startups at the State University of New York at Stony Brook’s Long Island High Technology Incubator.