Coroflot

Resume

SAMEER CHAVAN
Flat 14 Prestige Serene, Bavdhan, Pune, INDIA
Contact: +91 9096811937; Email: Sameerhere@yahoo.com , www.sameerchavan.com
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User Experience / USABILITY HEAD
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PROFILE:

• Competent managerial talent with professional success of total 11years with 8 years in managing User Experience teams, Product requirements & Program Management, predominantly with highly admired multinational companies – Oracle, Siemens, TechManindra, Info Edge, Bajaj and M&M
• Currently working as Vice President –User Experience with Info Edge in defining Design directions & Product strategy, reporting to CEO.
• Worked on diverse projects ranging from Web Applications, Desktop applications, Voice Interface Design, WAP & SMS.
• Proven competencies in User Research, Customer visits, Focus groups, Surveys, User Interaction Design, Competitor analysis, Analytics, Program management & Account handling.
• Built several world-class Product UX teams at Indian and Fortune 500 companies , reporting from different continents.
• Proficient in accomplishing project deliveries maintaining high quality parameters and bottom line expectations.
• Excellent resource balancing and leadership skills with an ability to drive initiatives through efficient team work.
• Motivated & ambitious with excellent interpersonal, relationship management, and presentation skills.
• Excellent temperament to multi-task and coordinate various activities under high pressure and time constraints.


NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENTS

• Interviewed on BBC World as leading Designer of India.
• Appreciation Awards from MD GSSL, President M&M
• Design Patent on “fast user access in Web application” filled in US through Oracle. Application no. 11/849310
• Invited speaker at UMO7 Hyderabad (umo.in) - Presented on "Business Centered Design".
• Invited speaker on Product Design at Pune University, VIIT College, Singhgad college pune
• President of Usability Professionals Association (upahyderabad.org). US ACM & SIGCHI member.
• Accepted paper for HCII2007, China – July07 - "Task description for usability testing"

Academics
• Masters In Industrial Design (M.Des) -Product Design/human factors.
from Industrial Design Center, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, India
• Bachelor in Mechanical Engineering ( B.E Mech) From P.V.P.Institute of Technology Sangli, India


PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

INFO EDGE INDIA Feb 2007-date
Vice President - User Experience & Design
• Spearheading efforts in User Experience, UI design, development, defining design standards and strategy work for many Desktop and Web applications
• Coordinating with the Product Managers, development heads and customers for User Interface Design and development.
• Maintaining perfect coordination with the Sales and Technical Teams to ensure bottleneck free work accomplishment. Periodically holding meetings with all interest groups to review work progress and iron out outages to catalyze work performance.
• Providing leadership and motivational inputs to project teams to maximize individual and team productivity.
• Conducting trainings and workshops for employees to create usability awareness.
• Handling performance appraisals, recruitment and training for new staff.

ORACLE INDIA PVT.LTD Sept 2004-Jan 2007
Manager User Experience

• Responsible for managing the entire UI team and managing User experience/ UCD activities for more than 50 industry vertical applications like Financials Services, Telecommunications, Higher Education, Pharmaceutical & Clinical.
• Played a pivotal role in setting up Usability lab, recruiting new designers, building UI team, coordinating with US Head quarters. Handled a team of 3 offshore and 3 in house UI designers
• Engaged in cross-functional team collaboration sessions, ensuring requirements and design concepts are communicated effectively across functional domains impacting the product
• Led, trained & monitored the performance of the team on Interaction design, UI Standards and Patterns, Usability Lab testing and Remote testing
• Spearheaded efforts across technical/ product escalations, people management, resource planning and skill set planning.
• Was involved in coordinating with the Development, Product management and Strategy teams to define deliverables, timelines and validate designs

SIEMENS (formally UGS) Oct 2001-Oct 2004
Project Leader UX

• Worked as Project Leader & UX Designer for Enterprise products. Initially I was working from GSSL, Pune for Siemens. Later I was absorbed by Siemens.
• Worked for Web interface Design & Rich Java Interface design for Teamcenter Engineering (IMAN) – Rich Java client & Teamcenter Enterprise – Web client.
• Involved in contextual inquiry, user interviews, requirement gathering, User/Task analysis, user profiles, conceptual wire frames creation, UI development, usability Testing develop and document UI guidelines, patterns and standards & review documents as Project Leader for PLM products at UGS.
• Also handled recruitments, team mentoring and trainings for junior team members

Major Projects:

1. UGS -Contextual Enquiry & User interview: Deftly handled the responsibility of testing our Product interface and interactions by visiting two clients- Siemens and Lucy Switchgear in United Kingdom.
Activities involved- Usabiltiy test planning & Design, Recruiting participants, Contextual enquiry and user interviews, Analysis of findings, Publishing report for improvements

2. UGS - Usability Lab Testing- Represented the company at PLM World Conference at Anaheim California, US to conduct full fledge Usability Testing using Portable Lab equipments like video camera.
Activities involved- U test planning & Design, Recruiting participants at Conference, executing tests, Analysis of findings, Publishing report for improvements, Coordinating and follow up with Development managers

MAHINDRA BRITISH TELECOM Oct 2000-Sep 2001
Senior User Interaction Designer


• Functioning as Senior User Interaction designer, handling assignments for Telecom and e-Commerce projects
• As UI Designer, was mainly involved in the Front End design and integration for Web applications, B2B web sites, Mobile devices & Web Portals.
• Closely coordinated with Developers for bringing the Layout Consistent in all Phases.
• Developed UI designs through an iterative process which employs task analysis, functional specifications, flow charts, paper prototypes, wire frames, realistic Flash prototypes and working prototypes.
• Effectively interacted with the clients, involved in usability evaluations with internal users/ to identify issues and presented creative ideas.

Major Projects:
1. Location Based Service, a project in collaboration with Nokia for designing interfaces for WAP & Speech.(voice reorganization)
2. Peer to peer music search on a Micro browser interfaces for PDAs

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PREVIOUS ASSIGNMENTS

BAJAJ AUTO, PUNE (Jun 1999-Oct 2000)
Industrial Designer/ Ergonomist
• Worked as Industrial Designer & Ergonomist at Styling Studio(R&D).
• Received Design / Problem brief from marketing and engineering department.
• Did competitor study, market trend analysis and came out with concepts and different product user interfaces in terms of form and function.
• Also worked on ergonomics of human posture and control system.
• Involved in Computer Aided Design of vehicle parts.
• Worked on scooter instrument panel design, 3-wheeler front redesign, bike graphics.
• I also worked on Auto-Portal. This was bajaj Autos online automobile portal. I did graphic designs for vehicles too


MAHINDRA & MAHINDRA LTD, NASHIK (Jun 1995-June 1997)
Computer Aided Design Engineer
• Worked as Computer Aided Design engineer in the R&D Design Dept.
• Worked on IDEAS & CATIA Solid modeling, Surfacing, Drafting , FEM analysis of Body design for Jeep, mini bus and car.
• Interacted with Design heads, VP R&D, CAD Engineers and Sheet metal craftsman. Managed a team of 14 Sheet metal craftsman to build custom prototypes.

PIAGGIO SPA, ITALY (July 1999)
Industrial Design Consultant
• I was called by Piaggio Scooters (ITALY) for designing scooter for India. I worked as a industrial design consultant. I sketched different concepts for Scooter and discussed with Engineering.

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PAPERS / PRESENTATIONS/ PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

• Design Patent on “fast user access in Web application” filled in US through Oracle. Application no. 11/849310; Filed on: 03-SEP-2007
• Presented on "Business Centered Design", invited speaker at UMO7 Hyderabad (umo.in) -
• ACM & SIGCHI member. President of Usability Professionals Asso.
• "Task description for usability testing" Accepted paper for HCII2007, China – July 2007
• "Opportunity for Industrial Engineers in Human Computer Interaction" article in theglobaleducator magazine - Sept 2006
• "Culture & Usability in Enterprise Applications" paper presentation at IIT Guwahati, - May 2006
• "What is HCI" an article published in Indian magazine, "DeveloperIQ" - April 2006
• CHI paper presentations “Standards based User Interface Development” at Easy6 Bangalore, India – Jan 2006
• Co-authored paper with my manager Delight Demulling on “Virtual or Remote Collaboration”(.ppt) at UPA Minnesota – Aug 2003
• Presentation on “Product Design” at Design conference, pune India
• “Need for Usability “a presentation at Chi chapter, Pune India