Interaction designer & content producer. Striving to be constantly challenged and inspired to make cool stuff.
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Adam Schwabe

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Education

University of Guelph-Humber — Toronto, ON
September 2002 – December 2006
Undergraduate Studies
  • Bachelor of Applied Computing Honours (University of Guelph)
  • Diploma in Wireless Systems Technology (Humber College)
Pickering High School — Ajax, ON
September 1997- June 2002
High School
  • French Immersion Diploma
  • Ontario Secondary School Diploma

Languages

Fluently Bilingual – English and French

Employment

Teehan+Lax — Toronto, ON
October 2009 – Present
Information Architect & User Experience Associate
  • Collaborating extensively with designers, copywriters and a wide variety of UX practitioners.
  • Working in a studio/agency environment.
  • Delivering innovative, practical and efficient programs and platforms for high-profile clients.
IBM Canada — Toronto, ON
August 2007 – October 2009
Usability Specialist & Information Architect
  • Guiding IBM client projects in terms of usability and human interface design.
  • Developing and restructuring client content.
  • Designing user interface design specifications for software releases.
DearToronto.com — Toronto, ON
August 2007 – Present
Co-creator and Producer
  • Jointly created and founded the site in early 2008.
  • Shooting video, producing segments, and editing video for the site.
  • Negotiating with artists and record labels to feature music for the video features.
Various Blogs & Publications — Toronto, ON
2007 – Present
Freelance Writer and Photographer
IBM Canada — Toronto, ON
September 2005 – July 2007
Information Developer
  • Maintaining and developing plug-ins for the WebSphere Development Studio Client (WDSC) for System i product.
  • Developing and providing customer documentation, demos, tutorials, samples, language-sensitive help, and help information center content for users.
  • Updating and maintaining the WDSC, WDS and iSeries product sites (ibm.com).
  • Developing Flash/XML-based marketing CD for IBM customers and IBM Business Partner customers.
  • Contributor to the WDSC development team blog and member of the Web 2.0 Technology Interest Community.
University Health Network — Toronto, ON
April 2004 – December 2004
Analyst
  • Designed and maintained a support database (Access, SQL).
  • Developed scripts for user emulation and automated testing tools.
  • Implemented and documented system-wide Electronic Patient Record (EPR) fixes and upgrades.
Ontario Power Generation — Pickering, ON/Bomanville, ON
(June 2003 – September 2003)
Information Technology Technician
  • Co-ordinated system upgrade efforts and system inventory.
  • Prepared equipment for Pickering/Darlington Nuclear Plant distribution.
  • Responded to Help Desk tickets and provided technical support.
Durham District School Board — Oshawa, ON
July 2002 — August 2002
Web Designer
  • Designed a multi-media repository for the Virtual Campus.
  • Implemented a user friendly interface to be used by teachers.
  • Exceeded deadlines and project requirements.

Patents and Disclosures

Smart Parking Lot — Guelph, ON
May 2007
Wireless Sensor-based Solution for Urban Parking
  • Nidal Nasser and Adam Schwabe, University of Guelph
  • IP Disclosure in preparation
Language Sensitive Help Generation Tool — Markham, ON
April 2007
DITA XML-Based
  • Jake Billo, Boyan Tsolov, and Adam Schwabe, IBM Canada
  • Disclosure submitted

Skills Summary

  • User interface design and development
  • User analysis, task evaluation, and user-centered design
  • Information architecture and development.
  • Programming Languages and Scripts: Java, JavaScript, XHTML, CSS, XML, RSS, PHP, SQL, Perl, CGI, SGML, DITA, IBMIDDOC
  • Mac OS X, Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista, Microsoft Office XP/2003/2007/Mac
  • Macromedia Dreamweaver and Flash, Adobe Photoshop CS/CS2/CS3
  • Multiple IDEs including Eclipse and NetBeans
  • Blogging software including WordPress and Blogger
  • Working individually and on a team successfully
  • Strong eye for good design

Projects and Work

  • Airline – Canada (Conceptual visioning, sketching and design for baggage & cargo management mobile application)
  • Oil Provider (Site design, interaction design, information architecture, usability consultation)
  • Air Canada for iPhone (Interaction design, usability testing and information architecture)
  • Airline – Air Canada (Interaction design, usability testing and application design for Blackberry and general Web app)
  • Knowledge Sharing Social Networking Site (Formal usability study and re-design)
  • National Organization for Equality (Site design and information architecture)
  • Airline – Canada (Design and information architecture for Mobile Web Application)
  • Government Agency – Canada (Site design and information architecture)
  • Airline – Canada (Design and information architecture for native mobile applications – iPhone and Blackberry)
  • Airline – Canada (Usability evaluation and heuristic review of mobile application)
  • Home and Property Insurance – Canada (Copywriting and usability recommendations)
  • Telecommunications – USA (Internal application design and information architecture, extensive usability testing)
  • Telecommunications – Canada (Internal application design and information architecture, heuristic reviews, usability studies)
  • Encrypted instant messaging application (Java, encryption and security, sockets, network programming)
  • Recipes application (Java, SQL, databases, data migration)
  • Peer-to-peer file transfer application (Java, sockets, distributed programming)
  • Online book and movie store (Java, JSP, servlets, portals, portlets)
  • Product overview and marketing CD (Flash, ActionScript, XML)
  • Undergraduate Thesis – “Smart Parking Lot” project and paper
    • Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) established in an urban area to determine available parking to the driver.
    • Developed a graphical simulation (programmed in Java) to determine overall decrease in parking search times.

Volunteer Experience

SpinTO (Fundraising project and party) — Toronto, ON
May 2009
Co-organizer and Co-creator
  • Co-organized a major party at Toronto’s Mod Club raising $15,000 for the 11th annual Friends for Life Bike Rally in support of the Toronto People with AIDS Foundation.
BlueQ (IBM GLBT Community Organization) — Toronto, ON
June 2007 – Present
Creative Volunteer
  • Assisting and participating in various BlueQ events.
University of Guelph-Humber Student Committee — Toronto, ON
2002 – 2003
Computing Co-op Program Representative
  • Academic Executive Council member
  • Computing Co-op Program Committee Leader
  • University of Guelph-Humber Joint Programs Committee – Curriculum Development
University of Guelph-Humber — Toronto, ON
September, 2002
Student Ambassador — Ontario Universities Fair
  • Representing the University of Guelph-Humber as an ambassador
  • Dealing directly with prospective students and their parents, selling the school’s features and benefits

Awards Received

Best Mobile Application – Canadian New Media Awards — Toronto, ON
December 2009
Information Architecture & Interaction Design
  • (December, 2009)
  • Awarded to IBM Interactive team for which I was apart of working on the Air Canada iPhone application.
University of Guelph-Humber Last Lecture — Toronto, ON
November 2006
Student Lecturer
  • Presented a year-end speech to graduating classmates, faculty, and administration.
Outstanding Contribution to the University of Guelph-Humber — Toronto, ON
April 2003
University of Guelph-Humber Entrance Scholarship — Toronto, ON
September 2002
Ontario Scholar and Certificate for Academic Proficiency — Pickering, ON
November 2002

Interests

  • Design, art, history, architecture, music, movies, photography and writing
  • Reading, cooking, exercising, cycling and Yoga
  • Gaming (PC, Console), gadgets, mobile technology, the Web, social networking, blogging, new media, and podcasting
  • Human-Computer Interaction, usability, user interface design, and interaction design