My Resume

Timothy T. Shaw

Experience / product / service designer & leader | Collaborator | Talent developer

I love solving difficult experience design problems with research, data, experience, and caring. I collaborate, teach, and build trusted relationships. Large, complex organizations and stakeholder environments are my habitat. I design and build boats. I make puns.

LinkedIn: timothytshaw

Email: TShaw98@gsb.columbia.edu

BlueSky: @wdncnu.bsky.social

Mastodon: @ttshaw@mastodon.social

Experience

Forum One | Alexandria, VA

Director of User Experience | 06/2012 – present

Senior experience design consultant at a leading digital communications agency serving the public and non-profit market. Representative projects include:

  • U.S. Department of Education, National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) - For 11+ years, lead strategy and design of interactive data visualization product suite that enables education policymakers and practitioners to better serve students. Develop new product prototypes, currently in Figma. Work with development team to build React- and D3-based report products and enhance a library of 40+ major components. Collaborate with multi-level, multi-organization, multi-discipline stakeholder teams and facilitate feedback collection and responses. Develop overall ecosystem maps and facilitate product positioning and evolution discussions. Built usability testing and analytics program that has produced dozens of valuable insights and enhancements, and now lead ongoing testing and related user research (interviews and surveys). Awards: Communicator Award Distinction; Vega Award Arcturus; WebAward Standard of Excellence.

  • U.S. Health & Human Services, Office of Head Start - Led service design project to improve efficiency and accountability for major program servicing economically disadvantaged children and families. Conducted usability testing of digital touchpoints and led 19 interviews with internal experts and external stakeholders. Developed novel service blueprint deliverable and presented findings to executive team. Facilitated prioritization and solutions development workshops.

  • Top-tier think-tank - Led prototype design and evaluation for a novel Federal tax data analysis product aiming to greatly expand researcher access to fiscal policy decision-making capabilities. Conducted initial feasibility research through 9 audience interviews. Turned loosely-formed client ideas into a paper-based product sketch to confirm and coalesce input. Introduced familiar ecommerce patterns as a way to facilitate audience understanding of a truly new access paradigm. Led or oversaw two rounds of InVision prototype-based testing and iteration to support funding requests for live product.

  • NTI, NTI Index and GHS Index - Designed two research and data visualization products that guide global policy and practitioner audiences efforts to  evaluate, prepare for, and prevent threats to security from nuclear materials and global health emergencies, respectively. Collaborated with four-organization team to understand the data, the desired messaging, and the most important analyses to support. For the NTI Index, created a novel, world-level, JS-based tile grid map and reconceived a legacy analysis tool into an action-oriented “what-if” policy-change component. Facilitated design-development team collaboration in a tight schedule and budget environment. Awards: AVA Award Platinum; Communicator Award Excellence

In non-project responsibilities, manage 4 staff ranging from manager to associate level. Support, teach, advocate, and critique. Hired dozens of people at multiple levels. Support VP of Design in enhancing design practices.

Managing Director | 05/2002 – 06/2012

Before deliberately evolving into a UX design role, served as Managing Director of Strategy Services and Managing Director of Project Operations. Led numerous strategy engagements. Managed all aspects of project delivery, including performance analysis, team training, issue resolution, staffing, and reporting.

Ultraprise Loan Technologies, Inc. | Frederick, MD

Product Manager | 04/2000 – 09/2001

Directed overall design, development, and positioning of Web-based process automation and electronic marketplace SASS product for venture-funded software company serving the mortgage industry.

IBM Consulting Group, Financial Services Practice | New York, NY

Consultant:  e-business strategy and product design | 06/1997 – 04/2000

Consulted to top-tier global financial firms to formulate new internet-based products, businesses, and strategies.

Lehman Brothers, Inc., Fixed Income Front Office Systems Group | New York, NY

Business Analyst, Data Analyst | 09/1992 – 08/1996

Business Analyst focused on front-office systems for Fixed Income Sales & Trading business.

Education

The Graduate School | Washington, DC

Information Architecture (The User Experience)

Columbia Business School | New York, NY

MBA, Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society, Dean’s List

Bates College | Lewiston, ME

BA in philosophy, cum laude, Honors thesis

Writing and Speaking

Please read my collections of writings.

Past speaking engagements include:

Additional Information

Skills: Business strategy, UX strategy, audience and task analysis and documentation, information architecture and content modeling, UX design, data visualization, UX research, usability testing, service design, content strategy; facilitation, prioritization, presentation, stakeholder management, program and project planning; staff management, coaching, mentoring, team-building

Tools: Figma, Sketch + InVision design tools; Mural and FigJam facilitation tools; Optimal Workshop, UserTesting.com, and other research tools; Drupal, Wordpress, and other CMSes; Tableau and PowerBI data visualization tools (from design side); Google Suite and MS Office

Personal: Boat designer and boatbuilder; paddler and sailor; creator of DIY mobility devices; hiker; certified diver