Profile
Nick is a digital native and joined Razorfish in 2005. Since then, he has set new standards in the financial advisor experience for Oppenheimer Funds, designed acclaimed data driven visualizations for Billboard Magazine and used visual storytelling & psychology to increase funds under management for Prudential Retirement. He has designed mobile experiences for Oppenheimer Funds, Ford and Mercedes-Benz. In 2013, Nick began a career at ADP's Innovation Lab to experience startup-like culture, develop software-at-scale for millions of people worldwide and build a productive and passionate user experience team.
EXPERIENCE
2013 - CURRENT Lifion by ADP User Experience Lead
2005 - 2013 Razorfish, part of Publicis Groupe, previously Avenue A | Razorfish of Microsoft, previously Razorfish of aQuantive and SBI Group
EDUCATION
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
2002 - 2006
B.S. Electronic Media, Arts & Communications
Management & Technology Minor
Greens Farms Academy
1996 - 2002
Greens Farms, CT
Strengths
Agile & Waterfall experience; Landscape Auditing / Analysis; Whiteboarding / Sketching; Robust Wireframes; Clickable Prototypes; Sitemaps / User Flows; Functional Annotations / Specifications; Content Inventories / Taxonomies, Feature Matrixes; Interview, Discussion and Testing Guides; Resource Screening and Onboarding; Typography, Color Theory, and Visual Design; Attention To Detail; Initiative; Persistence; Curiosity
Client Work
Oct 2013 - Present ADP, LLC
Please inquire for recent work.
Jun 2011 - Sep 2012 Oppenheimer Funds
In an intense 15 month effort, Nick lead the detailed user experience redesign of Oppenheimerfunds.com. The legacy content was culled, focused and rebuilt to support an entirely new and intuitive way to present mutual funds, portfolio managers, advisor discussions, and client account information in context of one another. At the core of the experience are deep insights about the post-2008 financial world, which affects advisors in several specific ways. The crux of the redesign responds to a strong need to understand underlying risk and exposure & communicate that clearly in a branded and differentiated way to advisor's clients. It took a monumental effort to achieve this simple vision & the feedback has been extremely positive. Launch is expected in early 2013.
Conducted extensive financial advisor research
Produced a mountain of wireframes to communicate ideas & guide the creative process from start to finish
Created an industry leading design earning top marks from 3rd party monitors Kasina and Blueberry and high praise from stakeholders
Consistently received high praise from clients despite challenges, earning the distinguished Alfred Pennyworth company award for service
Intense collaboration with product owners and technology partners with frequent presentation to stakeholders
Jan - May 2011 Bank of America
In an advisor capacity, Nick reconciled major navigation hazards to enable legacy investor websites to work seamlessly with redesigned account management software.
Created wireframes and presented design solutions to business analysts and technology partners
Sep - Dec 2010 TIAA CREF
Nick defined the strategic direction for a living intranet styleguide
Audited existing style guides and analyzed competitive/comparative design standards for best practices (print & digital)
Established comprehensive baseline for visual and interactive elements
Recommended business processes & governance structures
Mar - Sept 2010 T. Rowe Price troweprice.com
Nick led a team to create a mutual fund product finder for prospects and investors.
Facilitated client work sessions and reviews
Created detailed wireframes and a lightweight clickable prototypes
Conducted task-based user testing
Wrote functional annotations and collaborated with developers
Jan - Mar 2010 The American Red Cross
Nick audited the American Red Cross intranets, presented a strategic best practices review to stakeholders and pitched a mobile experience for volunteers.
Dec - Apr 2010 Mercedes Benz MBusa.com/whatdrivesus
Nick created an augmented-reality mobile experience and campaign microsite.
Created wireframes of an AR mobile experience for prospective customers
Conducted a triple bid vendor review process of potential AR partners
Led the user experience design process for a summer campaign called What Drives Us; responsible for wireframes, sitemaps, functional specifications and QA test scripts.
Sept - Dec 2009 Morgan Stanley Smith Barney
Nick created an interaction and usability standards manual.
Conducted a content gap analysis between the two parent brands’ existing interaction style guidelines & produced a best-of-breed set of interaction patterns for the newly merged companies
Apr - Aug 2009 Prudential
Nick educated Prudential’s customers how to get the most out of adding a Social Security Strategy to their retirement plan.
Created wireframes that leveraged visual storytelling to explain Social Security and retirement investment products in plain everyday language
Interviewed stakeholders, designed wireframes, created clickable Flash prototypes & conducted user acceptance testing
March 2009 Billboard Billboard.com
Nick created an engaging visualization to increase page views and dwell time.
Invented a new way to engage with billboard data, creating an overall stickier website experience by visualizing artist and album chart history
Received the Ellie Design Award for best appearance and usability of a magazine website
Jul 2008 - Feb 2009 Ford Motor Company
Nick launched FordVehicles.com, FordOwners.com & pitched a mobile experience.
Created Global Patterns to standardize Search, Dealer Location & Payment Calculators
Designed a Vehicle Health Report to explain engine diagnostics to owners
Prototyped an iPhone VIN Lookup webapp to help put consumers on an even footing during dealer negotiations
Jul - Dec 2007 Merrill Lynch MyMerrill.com
Nick designed an investor / advisor file vault and message center to help make financial advisors more accessible to investors.
Collaborated with business analysts and developers
Jan - Feb 2007 Honda MyEarthDream.com(defunct)
Nick architected & launched a site for users to laser-etch their names into an F1 race car to support Honda’s “make a green pledge” initiative.
Oct - Nov 2006 L’Oréal GarnierNutritioniste.com
Nick designed & launched a microsite and skin care product wizard.
Created a tool to help people identify skin concerns, receive a recommended product regimen, and learn about nutrition.
Agency Work
Dec 2007 - Mar 2008 Razorfish Wiki
Nick upgraded and advocated greater employee adoption of the Razorfish Wiki.
Conducted a quantitative functionality prioritization exercise with users, community managers & developers to create a feature roadmap
Evangelized adoption of the Wiki through newsletters and round table discussions
Simplified search & file uploading, created community calendars, and reduced company spam through topic-specific blogs
Mar - Aug 2007 Razorfish.com
Nick worked closely with executives and subject matter experts to redesign Razorfish.com. Responsible for wireframes and sitemap.
August 2008 Forest Labs
Nick helped the Razorfish Forest Labs team build a better Atlas Report (akin to Google Analytics) for conveying organic search and banner campaign performance to clients.
Optimized presentation templates and developed department writing guidelines
CLIENT LIST
ADP
The American Red Cross
Bank of America
Billboard
CBS Radio
CIT
Condé Nast
EMC Corporation
Ford Motor Company
Forest Labs
Garnier
Honda
Kodak
L'Oréal
Maybelline
Mercedes-Benz USA
Merrill Lynch
Morgan Stanley Smith Barney
Oppenheimer Funds
Prudential
Staples
T. Rowe Price
Tag Heuer
TIAA-CREF
Travel Channel
Wired Magazine
DISTINCTIONS
2012
ALFRED PENNYWORTH AWARD Razorfish company award for service
“I WANT TO TAKE IT TO BED WITH ME” - Enamored client
2010
MB-USA.COM/WHATDRIVES US FWA Site of the Day Award
BILLBOARD.COM American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME): Ellie Design Award
2009
RAZORFISH.COM Webby Award - People’s Voice
2008
RAZORFISH.COM New Media Age Effectiveness Awards: The Grand Prix
MAYBELLINE.COM Webby Award - Honoree
2007
RAZORFISH WIKI WebAward: Best Intranet
RAZORFISH WIKI Groundswell: Managing
MAYBELLINE.COM WebAward
MAYBELLINE.COM American Graphic Design Awards
GARNIERNUTRITIONISTE.COM WebAward
GARNIERNUTRITIONISTE.COM American Graphic Design Awards
MYEARTHDREAM.COM WebAward
TOOLS
Windows, Mac (preferred), Axure, Sketch, Principle, Adobe Suites, Drive/Box/Dropbox, Jira/Rally/Confluence, GTD and lots of sharpies
Interests & Inspirations
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's concept of Flow; Jeff Gothelf's agile and lean IA practices emphasizing prototypes over documentation; Electromyography and Electroencephalography for emerging HCI and interface design, Ray Kurzweil's notions of Singularitarianism, Aubrey De Grey's investigation of longevity escape velocity, Peter Diamandis' use of prizes, Dean Kamen & Elon Musk as self made, DIY industrialists... and other things like world cup soccer, olympic weight lifting, triathlons, yoga, surfing and more.