Duff Wilson
Understanding Human Experience
RESUME
Summary
Extensive experience in all phases and aspects of user research, product design, and development as a practitioner as well as a manager/leader. Focus on creating programs and products that are grounded in user data and are rewarding, easy to use, and maximize benefits to the customer and the company. Familiar with international issues and have worked as a Product Manager, User Experience Designer and Researcher in the US, UK, Ireland, Australia, Germany, The Netherlands, France, Sweden, Poland, Israel, and Mexico.
Specialties: Product planning and requirements, user research, contextual design, interaction design, user interface design, prototyping, usability and other types of product evaluation.
Work
experience
Principal Product Manager, International—Ancestry
March 2021 - October 2022
Work closely with the broader International team and represent the product needs of International customers to the organization to guide product priorities and direction. Work closely and collaborate with international product stakeholders including product, engineering, research, localization, commerce, marketing, operations, and member support to identify, define, and implement international product solutions.
Focus on strategies to build and expand our target market internationally, to expand our product offering for international customers, and globalize existing features and site capabilities for a global market.
Coordinate product work with international entities that are part of the Ancestry portfolio of companies.
Sr. User Researcher—Ancestry
March 2015 - March 2021
Design and conduct research projects using a variety of methods such as field studies, moderated and unmoderated usability testing, card sort, surveys, observations, interviews, and more. Implemented methods for identifying and recruiting targeted research participants.
Work closely with product managers, designers, and engineers to communicate and incorporate research findings into improved product solutions. Conducted remote in local research in the US, UK, Ireland, Germany, and Mexico.
Sr. Product Manager—Ancestry
October 2010 - March 2015
Managed product direction and priorities, defined product and user interaction requirements, gathered and incorporated customer feedback. Coordinated development and product release with engineering, QA, marketing, member support. Managed and coordinated development involving multiple outside contractors over several product cycles. Managed international development of product for US, Canada, Ireland, Sweden, and Germany.
Sr. User Experience Designer—Ancestry
September 2004 - September 2010
Lead company-wide contextual inquiry project to discover user work practices and design effective solutions. Created UI framework that facilitates UI design and prototyping from initial rudimentary wire-frames to finished UI. Created UI prototypes and conducted usability studies. Worked on web and Windows applications.
Sr. Software Engineer—NextPage
March 2001 - August 2004
Designed and implemented user interface model and framework for Windows and web applications. Designed and implemented UI framework that allows interface to be created and manipulated separate from program logic. Involved in defining requirements, high-level and low-level user-interface design, prototyping, implementation of user interfaces and conducting usability studies.
Manager, Human Factors Engineering—Novell
January 1994 - September 1999
Managed human factors personnel responsible for User Interface Design and Usability of GroupWise, a market-leading e-mail, GroupWare, and communications software program. Drove and championed human factors concepts, user-centered design, and usability. Conducted user analyses; created product specifications, requirements, user interface designs and prototypes. Coordinated with management, team members, marketing, education, customer support, and external stakeholders. Familiar with international issues related to localization of software. Designed creative new interfaces that are currently under patent pending at the U.S. Patent office.
Sr. User Interface Designer—WordPerfect/Novell
February 1992 - January 1994
Conducted "Contextual Inquiry", field research and analysis of computer users. Created and prototyped designs for InForms and GroupWise projects. Conducted usability tests and iterated designs. Developed interface resources including Windows and Mac dialogs, menus, icons, cursors, etc. Coordinated the development of a corporate user interface standard.
Human Factors Analyst/Instructional Designer
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
1988 - 1992
Defined and created user interfaces for Family History and other software projects following industry standard best practices, and conducted usability evaluation on these systems. Also wrote user instructions for these and other software systems.
Multiple other shorter term positions in various aspects of UX analysis, design, and evaluation.
Skills
Usability testing
Contextual interviews
Unmoderated testing
Focus groups
Affinity mapping
Phone interviews
System usability scale
Task analysis
Personas
Prototyping
Card sort
Surveys
Ethnio
Clicktale
Languages
HTML/CSS
JavaScript
Navajo :)
Education
Master of Education, Instructional Technology
Utah State University, Logan, UT.
August 1986
Studied theory and practice of facilitating learning based on user understanding and improving performance through appropriate technological processes and resources. Specialized in designing instructional systems for computers.
Bachelor of Arts, Organizational Communications
Brigham Young University, Provo, UT.
August 1983
Studied theories of effective communication and human resource management as applied to professional organizational training and development.