John Gnotek - User Experience Designer

249 Peninsula Lake Drive Highland, MI 48357 248-760-0270 [email protected] www.JohnGnotek.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/johngnotek

Pioneering spirit, creative soul and body of experience.

Experienced, multidisciplinary, interactive skills with a fervent aspiration to synthesizing current, established media with emerging technologies—to produce a whole profusion of new interactive experiences: responsive, immersive, and other new interactive methods to engage users. Over 20 years partnering with internal and external stakeholders to explore, construct, revise, improvise and invent the user experiences for such brands as Thomson Reuters, Holley Performance Products, FUJI, BASF Automotive, Mahindra of Michigan, AbGONE, NutraCal, and InTouch to name a handful. A demonstrable history of creating forward-looking, leading edge interface designs and methods for user interaction—websites, portals, modules, guides, instructional and marketing materials—across a wide range of industries through proven programmatic and inventive measures.

WORK EXPERIENCE

Thomson Reuters Feb 2013 – Present USER INTERACTION DESIGNER

* User interaction designer and member of a UX/UI team to refine, design and give a common look and experience to Thomson Reuters' Intellectual Property applications via Microsoft Silverlight/XAML/Visual Studio—from disparate legacy products.

* Hired in three months from an original one-year contract position.

* Researched, designed and created POC mockups to investigate frameworks and technologies to transfer existing Silverlight applications to responsive HTML5. * Conceived, designed and mocked up an application utilizing and incorporation pertinent IP & Science products into a single workflow platform, allowing the user to research, collaborate and execute ideas, discoveries and inventions within a single interface. A concept-to-market workflow and experience.

* Designed and created a Common Controls Resource Library via Microsoft Sharepoint allowing a much more user-friendly resource for developers, solution analysts and user interface designers alike. This has allowed users a 60% increase in time to find resources and requirements.

* Iconology: designed and created icon libraries adjoining four products.

* Work in an iterative, Agile environment with business, development, analysts.

* UI representative of several Scrum teams for enterprise application development.

* Member of Thomson Reuters IP & Science UX Council.

The Gallery of the Arts Jan 2010 - Feb 2013 INTERACTIVE DESIGNER / UX / UI / IA / SEO / HTML/CSS

* Created, designed and built this art gallery to be truly virtual and interactive on shoe- string budget.

* Developed relationships with a wide variety of artists, to create galleries for each, offering original art and giclee prints.

* Automated sale to fulfillment process.

* Devised the individual artwork to be easily accessible from multiple ways of searching (e.g. artists, art forms, medium, style, color, price).

* Very SEO-strong, with most all the artist's galleries ranking page 1 when searching by artist name. This SEO aspect has accounted for the majority of sales.

* Conceived, designed and built Detroit Rock N' Fashion: A Virtual Art Exhibit to be a dynamic,multi-purpose, media experience. Presented at several functions (art shows, art exhibits, art and rock show, conference)

- 25-Minute presentation, viewable projected on a wall, HDTV, or interactively on a website, computer, or tablet.

- Designed to drop-n-play on any co-host gallery website or computer. - Eight artists from The Gallery of the Arts—involved in Detroit rock and/or Detroit fashion, showcasing 160 works of art.

- Driven by 14 songs from eight Detroit bands these artists are directly involved.

- 300 Photos from 40 photographers.

- Acquired permissions and developed relationships with a network of artists, musicians, labels, photographers and other creatives.

- Branded "Detroit Rock N' Fashion." Developed into a live Web TV show.

Holley Performance Products Sept 1995 - Aug 2003 INTERACTIVE & WEBSITE DESIGNER / GUI / UX / IA / SEO / HTML / WEBMASTER

* One-year contract and consulting project that lasted eight years.

* Presented and sold many “new media” initiatives to CEO/president, marketing director and leadership team.

- Interactive resource and marketing CDs

- Website

- Interactive modules (for CDs and website) for users to find exact product matches for their individual needs.

- Online dynameter concept

* Conceived, researched, designed, built and led a team of designers, developers, artists, usability testers to develop a unique, innovative, multi-purpose, interactive, resource CD.

- Researched and tested technology to develop, design and manage the requirements for this project.

- Saved Holley $40K+ annually by providing print-ready photos in this user-centered, ready-to-use format (new concept at the time).

- Included a very user-friendly interface for Holley customers (warehousers and speedshops) to find proper photos, art and logos for their marketing needs.

- Included an informative, entertaining Flash presentation of Holley’s “Past, Present and Future.” * Conceived, designed and developed (GUI, UX, IA, HTML) Holley’s initial website.

- Launched with 80 pages and 200 visitors a day, grew it to over 20,000 pages and 40,000 visitors a day—without a major redesign. Much of the original IA structure exists to this day.

- Structured the website in a three-tiered model: multimedia version, graphical

version and text version.

- Highly search engine optimized so that any speedshop could Web-search for any Holley part number or description and hit with that individual product page featuring full catalog information, including full screen pictures.

- The ability to provide such detailed, catalog information saved Holley 100s of thousands of dollars annually in print and distribution costs.

- Forethought in the initial design and wireframes allowed great scalability and expansions, SKU additions/consolidations/deletions, and inclusion of diverse product acquisitions.

- Seamlessly incorporated Holley’s company acquisitions (NOS, Hooker Headers, Weiand, Lunati, Flowtech, Earl’s and others) into the umbrella website while also

keeping individuality to the brand name.

- Initiated an online presence and tools for tech support.

* Conceived, designed and developed numerous interactive portals guiding consumers to ﬁ nd exact match products for their applications and speci ﬁ c needs.

- “Holley Interactive System Selector,” allowing correct match ups of Holley products for specific applications.

- “Holley Interactive Product Selector,” a step-by-step method leading to correct match ups of Holley products for specific needs.

- “Holley Reman” website and CD.

- “Holley Interactive Resources” CDs.

- An online dynameter research and concept.

* Developed and presented informative, “new media” presentations at trade shows for several years. * Traveled around the country surveying the needs, introducing and teaching Holley customers the new interactive tools available.

CyberAlley ~ New Media April 1994 - Feb 2013 INTERACTIVE DESIGNER / CREATIVE DIRECTOR / UX / UI / IA / SEO

Creative, interactive director and designer on projects for clients across a wide span of industries (automotive, manufacturing, consumer products, professional services). Account management and relationship building with clients directly: agency, corporate, small business and non-proﬁ ts. Wireframes, ﬂ owcharts, information architecture, usability testing on dozens of websites, ranging from one-page, product announcement sites to 20,000+ page corporate sites.

SKILLS

* Vision and Conception * Interactive Design (UX/UI/IA/GUI) * User-Centered Design * Creative and Art Direction * Team Building * Storytelling * Wireframing * Visual Mockups * Prototyping * Heuristics * Site Mapping * Task Flows * Storyboards * Style Guides * User Personas

EDUCATION

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor Film & Video / Screenwriting Oakland Community College – Union Lake Graphic Design