In addition to founding and leading Cognitive Aquarium, Damian is a User Experience Designer/Architect/Researcher and Technology Consultant with a background in cognitive and behavioral psychology, and sociology.
Damian has over 20 years of experience researching, designing, testing, and optimizing user experiences for large and small touch-screens, web-based, PC, Linux, Macintosh, Android, Apple, and Windows mobile phones and other mobile device software. He has worked with numerous websites, software and RIA's, and devices. Damian has proposed, designed, and conducted numerous research projects including needs analysis, contextual inquiry, and out-of-box experience beta studies in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South America, China, and Europe.
Leveraging tools and methods of Iterative-User-Centered Design, several of Damian's projects and clients have been recognized successes by independent third parties.
Most recently, Dallas Children's Hospital network was awarded one of 12 IBM Lotusphere awards given globally in 2012. Dallas Children's Hospital authenticated user portal which Damian designed was awarded the Lotusphere award for, "Delivering an Exceptional Web Experience driving Business Value".
In the 1990s Damian worked for Intel Corporation in the Pacific Northwest where his career began. Just prior to leaving Intel for a position at Kodak Damian designed and prototyped the first Bluetooth management console for PCs and the Bluetooth development consortium. As part of the Bluetooth management console GUI Damian proposed "device profiles" which are now a part of the Bluetooth protocol. Additionally as a member of Intel's User-Centered-Design group Damian performed extensive usability tests focused primarily on software, web pages, and web-based applications as well as contributing to multiple longitudinal field studies. Other publicly recognized design accomplishments include the Intel Online Learning Center Desktop Companion. In 1999 it received the 2nd place award for Design Excellence in the Windows Open out of thousands of submissions.
Damian joined Kodak.com's customer experience team in the last week of 1998. As a Usability Engineer he contributed to the corporate web site, its style guide and specific web applications by working within his group as well as by assisting and guiding individual business units from a perspective of user advocacy. Damian left kodak.com in 2002 for a position within Kpro's (Kodak Professional) output systems division. There Kodak received a yearly "Hot1 Award" from Professional Photographer Magazine for Kodak ProShots Basics Software which Damian led needs analysis, multi-country data acquistion, and the design of.
Following the aforementioned "Hot 1" award with Kpro, Damian was recruited within Kodak to improve the user experience of Picture Printing Kiosks. Damian spent two busy years there including designing and conducting world-wide user research and out-of-box evelautions in seven countries on three continents. As a result, Kodak made a large splash with an "easier to use" kiosk, the GS Compact. Within one and a half years the GS Compact sold more units than 10 years of sales of Kodak’s existing flagship kiosk.
At the end of 2007 Damian was recruited by another Kodak internal organization, Kodak's Entertainment Imaging Division, to lead their digital cinema user experience. While leading Kodak's Digital Cinema Systems user experiences Damian conducted extensive needs analysis with corporate cinema leaders in North America and designed and developed a revolutionary Theater Management System user interface and prototype (patents applied for) that was displayed and demonstrated at several global trade shows prior to Kodak's decision to exit the Digital Cinema business in 2010.
In 2010 Damian joined Xerox designing and documenting numerious software and web-based user interfaces. Downsized again in 2011, Damian became a consultant working with most major medical, financial insitutions in North America as well as numerous other corproations needing web, mobile-web, and mobile user solutions. In 2013 the consulting agency Damian worked for was purchased by a large west-coast conglomerate. In 2014 the conglomerate began reductions. Damian and several of his former colleagues currently continue their professional relationships as an independent organization.
