Sarah (Sally) C. Yeoi 14549 Jura Way, Anacortes, WA 98221 Voice—360-293-7472; Cell—360-421-7472; Email—syeo@usablewebs.com Summary Over my working career I have covered the scope of technical communications. The majority of my experience has been as a consultant—meaning I have worked for many different companies on many types of assignments. I have worked assignments as a single technical writer, as a team with other writers and editors, as a team with technical personnel such as engineers and programmers, and as a project and team manager. * 25 years—technical writing, always as an evangelist for user needs. Includes paper and online deliverables, ranging from user manuals to technical materials to online help. Work involved information design, project planning, estimating and editing of others work. Created standards and guidelines. * 25 years—standup training and instructional design. These assignments were scattered among other contract jobs over this period of time. * 18 years—project, team and department management involving concurrent multiple projects, people, and skills. Performed sales support and marketing activities. Created and managed to budgets. * 7 years—design and creation of usability-based Internet and intranet sites, including web-based applications. Trained in web usability and the use of web tools. * 6+ years—performance of usability assessments of Internet and intranet sites and applications Employment history in Instructional Design and Training 1999-present, President, Usable Webs, Anacortes, Washington Consultant at: Premera Blue Cross, Vulcan, Apex Learning, The Cat’s Pajamas, Alternet Technologies, Whatlow Group ME-Commerce, and other companies * Premera Blue Cross. Designed and wrote facilitator’s and participants manuals for disaster recovery software, including the information gathering phase. Used Information Mapping© style approach to content architecture. * Apex Learning. Designed, researched, and wrote instructions for content authors of web-based learning materials. The authors had to use specific course-development software provided by Apex. Created the instructions as online help that met accessibility standards and could be used on many browsers on multiple platforms. * Vulcan. I designed and created an online help system to instruct librarians in the use of custom software. * Cat’s Pajamas. Designed and wrote instructions for a team of writers so that we could maintain consistency. Wrote maintenance instructions for the website and trained the maintenance person. 1999-2000, Documentation Manager, Elucidex, Bellingham, Washington (now out of business) * At Elucidex I performed project management and technical writing tasks. I trained staff on estimating, standards development, and other technical documentation skills. 1996 to 1999, Solution Director and Practice Leader, Whittman-Hart, Inc., Milwaukee, Wisconsin (now out of business) * As a Solution Director for Whittman-Hart I managed a team of 22 instructional designers, trainers, and writers. The team provided standup training for Lotus Notes and training materials for various ERP programs. * Trainer, contract, for Weinschenk Consulting. Conducted standup training on web usability and web design for employees of American Airlines in Texas. * Instructional designer, contract, for Kohler Corporation. Designed and wrote training materials, and conducted standup training, for employees whose responsibilities now included the creation of content for their intranet. Included how to write for the Web and how to use a specific Web-creation tool. * Presented seminars to technical writers on a course I developed called “Project Management for Technical Writers.” Seminars were presented at national and local conferences of the Society for Technical Communication. 1990 to 1996. Documentation Manager, Compuware Corporation, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. * Instructional designer, contract, for Ameritech. Designed and created training material and then conducted the training classes for an Ameritech budgeting system. * Presented seminars to technical writers on various topics from estimating to risk management. Seminars were presented at national and local conferences of the Society for Technical Communication. * For Compuware, wrote training materials for various Microsoft office products. Conducted some of the training classes. 1987-1990. President, Computing w/o Confusion, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. * Instructional designer, contract, for Johnson Controls, Inc. I designed and created a workbook to accompany training on service operations. 1983-1987. Various consulting positions in New Jersey. Employment history in Technical Writing Work included writing end-user manuals, online help, white papers and reports, system documentation, installation guides, presentation materials, training materials, and other documents as needed as well as editing print documents and online help systems. 1999-present, President, Usable Webs, Anacortes, Washington Consultant at: Vulcan, Apex Learning, The Cat’s Pajamas, Alternet Technologies, Whatlow Group ME-Commerce, and other companies * Premera Blue Cross. Designed and wrote facilitator’s and participants manuals which were also used as user guides/reference manuals for disaster recovery software. Used Information Mapping© style approach to content architecture. * Apex Learning. Designed, researched, and wrote instructions as online help for content authors of web-based learning materials. Wrote an internal white paper on accessibility standards as they applied to their project. Also conducted a software analysis to determine what online help software to purchase. * Vulcan. Designed an intranet site to manage a large number of project documents that also simulated the user interfaces of the various products and, using Visual SourceSafe, tracked changes in the UI. Wrote project specifications documents, created flow diagrams, documented installation guidelines for complex audio-visual application. Edited paper and online work of other technical writers. * Children's Hospital. Analyzed one of their web sites and wrote extensive report on how and where to make improvements. * Cat’s Pajamas. Converted 1700 pages of printed documentation to online help. Maintain this documentation. Managed a group of four remotes in remote locations. * Whatlow Group ME Commerce. Performed a variety of documentation tasks from editing to writing specifications to creating the company’s business plan. 1999-2000, Documentation Manager, Elucidex, Bellingham, Washington (now out of business) * At Elucidex I performed project management and technical writing tasks. 1996 to 1999, Solution Director and Practice Leader, Whittman-Hart, Inc., Milwaukee, Wisconsin (now out of business) * As a Solution Director for Whittman-Hart I managed a team of 22 instructional designers, trainers, and writers. Individuals worked for many different customers on many different assignments. I made sales calls, placed writers, mentored and monitored them on their assignments, and helped them achieve positive results for their customers. * Managed many projects involving writers and developers. Developed standards. Tracked projects and brought most in on time and under budget. * Conducted training and prepared training materials for a number of customers, including Kohler Corporation. * Performed Web usability assessments for customers, including Johnson Wax. * Created user manuals and technical documents for a variety of customers. 1990 to 1996. Documentation Manager, Compuware Corporation, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. * Mentored and managed a group of writers that grew from 1 to 40. Made sales calls, managed projects. * Wrote user manuals, training materials, and developed web sites for many different customers. 1987-1990. President, Computing w/o Confusion, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. * Designed and wrote user manual for Ameritech for the construction budget system. Conducted training on using this software. * Designed and wrote materials for other customers. 1983-1987. Various consulting positions in New Jersey. Employment history in Web development and usability Note: My expertise in web development is in designing and assessing sites for usability. I also design and develop sites using tools such as DreamWeaver and FrontPage. I can write HTML, use style sheets, and use some JavaScript. I am not an ASP developer, server administrator, or Flash developer. 1999-present, President, Usable Webs, Anacortes, Washington Consultant at: Vulcan, Apex Learning, Children’s Hospital of Milwaukee, The Cat’s Pajamas, Alternet Technologies, Whatlow Group ME-Commerce, and other companies * Children’s Hospital. Conducted an assessment of one of the web sites and prepared an exhaustive report on needed improvements. Next phase will be to redesign the site. * Premera Blue Cross. Created a training/user manual designed for usability. Created a list of usability recommendations for the software and suggested a few changes to the UI where appropriate. * Art Jewelry Network. Designed and created Yahoo shopping site selling unique pieces of jewelry. * Alternet Technologies. Assessed the UI of a site they were developing for a customer. Made a number of suggestions, many of which were implemented. * Apex Learning. Created web-based help system designed for accessibility (to meet guidelines for educational materials) and usability on a variety of hardware, operating systems, and web browsers. * Vulcan. Worked with the software designers on usability issues in the interface of the products. Made suggestions for improvements, tracked UI problems, and collaborated with the development team on improving overall usability of the software. * Cat’s Pajamas. Designed and developed a new web site for the company. www.tcpj.com * Have developed web sites for a number of artists and for other personal projects. 1999-2000, Documentation Manager, Elucidex, Bellingham, Washington (now out of business) * Led design meetings with leaders of Trillium Corporation to design. Goals of the meetings were to educate some of them about the benefits of what a web site could do for the company, look at the issues they had, and develop an overall organization and navigation for the site. 1996 to 1999, Solution Director and Practice Leader, Whittman-Hart, Inc., Milwaukee, Wisconsin (now out of business) * As a Solution Director for Whittman-Hart I managed a team of 22 instructional designers, trainers, and writers. In this group was a sub-set of about 10 technical writers who focused on web-site development. * Created an approach, including a lengthy checklist, for assessing web site usability in a logical and organized fashion. * Created a generic style guide for web sites that could be easily adapted to the needs of individual customers and projects. * Conducted user interviews and designed framework for an intranet for Kohler Corporation. Designed specific section of the intranet for the golf courses. * Conducted an in-depth analysis of a website for Johnson Wax. This site had international customers. * Worked with Lotus Notes developers to create a Lotus Notes-based website that used Domino to access a product database. 1990 to 1996. Documentation Manager, Compuware Corporation, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. * Designed and created my first extensive website for the Milwaukee Circus Parade. 1987-1990. President, Computing w/o Confusion, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. * Led a group of 4-5 other technical writers in various projects. No web work. 1983-1987. Various consulting positions in New Jersey. 1983-1987. English instructor, Somerset Community College * Taught English to community college students. Prior to 1983 * Personnel director for a nursing home. Conducted standup training for new employees. * English teacher in high schools in Portland, Oregon and Syracuse, New York. Professional achievements Co-Author of GUI Design Essentials with Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D. and Pamela Jamar. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1997. Co-Author of Guidelines for Enterprise-Wide GUI Design with Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1995. Author, “Designing Web Pages that Bring Them Back,” Intercom, March 1996. “Fidalgo Island’s Beauty, A Simplified Field Guide,” October 2001, A Different Slant of Light, November, 2002. Presenter of workshops and sessions at six Society for Technical Communications annual conferences on topics such as project management, selecting software tools, and usability-based Web design. Winner of several Society for Technical Communication competition awards and the Distinguished Chapter Serviced Award from the Wisconsin chapter of STC. Member (former) of technical communications advisory boards for Marquette University Web Masters program, and Milwaukee School of Engineering. Technical skills Communications: Information design, whitepapers, business plans, speaking, writing, training. Software: MS FrontPage, Dreamweaver, other HTML and various web development tools. MS Office: Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, and Project. PageMaker, FrameMaker. PhotoShop, Paint Shop Pro, Visio. RoboHelp. Acrobat. Lotus Notes. Visual Source Safe. Windows XP, 2000, 98. Many other tools and utilities. Industry experience As a consultant and manager, I have worked in many different industries. Specific strengths are software development, telephony, health care, wireless technology and education. Degrees B. A., English, Lewis and Clark College, Portland Oregon. M.A.T., English, Reed College, Portland Oregon. Resume: Sally Yeo page 2