About

View Eric's Resume  ↓ Eric's Resume

I am a user experience developer and designer living in the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts. I have been working in the digital interactive space for over 20 years with a passion for creating beautiful, easy-to-use, and intuitive interfaces. I believe that I have wonderful taste and a keen eye for detail and a love for the technical.

Graduating with a Bachelor of Arts college degree in Graphic (Communication) Design, Eric initially directed his attentions to the world of print design working in Erie and then graduating to larger advertising agencies in Pittsburgh. He designed and help prep final files for identity systems, catalogs, brochures, posters, etc. for large local clients. This included final artwork composed using QuarkXPress, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe Photoshop. He made press checks at local printers for his own running jobs and for co-workers. Demonstrating a strong artistic & technical background, he was asked to join the interactive team full-time.

While in Pittsburgh, Eric had the unique opportunity to design user interfaces for Ford Motor Company training CD-Roms after the agency he was working for acquired a small interactive company. Given the nature of some of the desired interactions, Eric started coding the design interfaces in Macromedia Director to alleviate the need for translation. Demonstrating a strong artistic and technical background, he was asked to join the interactive team full-time. This was a wonderful turn of events - as modifications could be made in software, but once a design project was printed - it was set forever.

A short trip down memory lane.
Since the time he was a kid with the newly released Apple ][ computer, he had a passion for coding and learning how computers worked and could be used to express creativity and information.

His Dad bought it for Lotus 1, 2, 3 which was pretty typical purchase reason for the time. But soon afterwards he was using Peeks and Pokes and entering lines and lines of code from Byte magazines. It was a magical time being a kid back then. He took some college computer language courses in grade school to help him stretch his knowledge and understanding of how computers worked and what one could do with them. He helped to set up new machines in his school and was always tinkering with them.

A friend had an Atari (400 or 800) and they purchased a book of memory locations and made some games in Assembly. It was a lot of fun. Eric was interested in the technical side of things and how they worked. He was also interested in the artistic side of things and how they could be used to express ideas and concepts. At the time expressing ideas and concepts with sketches, then audio and graphical sprites.

Interactive design and development: Macromedia/Adobe Flash & Flex.
After spending more time using Director, he set his sights on Macromedia Flash and Flash Builder. He started developing websites with interactive components all the way to fully-Flash interactive experiences. He began experimenting and actively participating in the growing Flash community which was exploding at the time. He attended Flash Forward conferences, met Macromedia staff, and was welcomed onto beta software teams to help drive the future of the platform. Things were moving fast, and to help fellow designers and developers, Eric decided to start sharing what he was learning - and co-authored numerous published books that explained developing interactive techniques and conventions. He won the coveted Macromedia Site of the day twice, once for a conference application made for Adobe/Macromedia deployed to the stand-alone Apollo framework. The other for some Macromedia Flex work (which combined MXML and ActionScript) - a declarative framework.

Eric was fortunate enough to meet and work with web pioneers and peers such as Kevin Lynch (now Vice President of Technology at Apple), Jeremy Allaire, Mike Chambers, Tad Staley, Joshua Davis, Andreas Odendal, Mike Grundvig, Nigel Peg, Erik Natzke, etc.

Some of the books, now collectors items, are still available.

• Macromedia Flash: Super Samurai
• Flash MX Audio Magic
• Foundation ActionScript for Flash 8
• Macromedia Flash MX: Creating Dynamic Applications

Local companies began to take notice, and on one fine June day the Design Manager at Bose Corporation contacted Eric to ask him if he was interested in visiting the Bose campus in Framingham, Massachusetts to talk about interactive technology and how Bose might better implement some of their own while developing their own prototypes, products, and ideas.

Eric was honored and surprised at the invitation and was asked back again later to interview with the design team for a full-time position at Bose. The designers at Bose had many ideas they wanted to visualize and use to sell experiences internally - but they lacked the technical expertise to code any of it themselves. They wanted Eric to design and create a suite of easy-to-use tools that they could use themselves to develop interfaces. They wanted to create visual prototypes.

Being that Eric had an artistic background, as well as a love for the technical, this position was a dream come true. To make beautiful tools that would be used to refine user experience and help to deliver award-winning products was truly wonderful. After a time the tooling interfaced directly with hardware in various ways - allowing to drive more concrete and real experiences that could be demonstrated across the company. Eric continued to deliver beautifully designed interfaces that put the user front and center. Eric had taken inspiration from the days of Steve Jobs and that Apple ][ and it never left him - to this day.

Eric brings a lot of different perspectives to his work, which you can find more about in the Interests section. He has a number of patents he has been awarded while working on various teams throughout the years, developing interfaces and experiences internally at Bose. He enjoys very specific and unusual things - all of which allow him to bring unique insight and motivations to both his work and also in the friendly evaluation of other's efforts.

A hardbiound copy of the book Make Something Wonderful sits prominently in Eric's home office. Whenever he needs a little fresh coffee while working at home, he'll carefully page through the book and take insight and inspiration from examples of Steve's way of observing the world around him.

Steve will always serve as an important inspiration for Eric.

While still actively coding and designing various aspects of interfaces, prototypes, and products, the years of experience have led Eric to want to do more design and help to direct coding efforts.

One really cool thing that happened not too long ago was a work colleague and Eric had a Zoom call with Bryan Transeau (BT) to talk about technology and we discussed some ideas. When the session began we were looking at his magnificent studio, albeit empty except for the audio equipment and the light systems. Then BT walked into view with a coffee while wearing a robe - fresh from the shower. That was pretty amazing. I have followed BT's career for a long, long time and it took everything not to gush over the fact that he was speaking to one of his heroes.

Design trends come and go, but good, well-considered and easy to use systems will always stay in style. Eric fights for the user while also appealing to the technical engineers. Usability is a key consideration in all his work. He has keen insight for user experience design and usability sensibility - helping to craft precise, consistent, easily discoverable and repeatable operation in interfaces and computer interactions.

Co-authored published books

Eric has co-authored a few books when Flash technology was in it's heyday and bristling with vibrancy and experimentation. Some were used in college courses for a time, and for those who may value nostalgia - some are still available today. I have a few copies of each laying around someplace - and I even had the opportunity for the Super Samurai book to go into local Barnes & Noble locations to sign copies that received an author signed sticker on the cover. I have to admit, it was a pretty amazing feeling to browse a book store and see one's name on something.

Oil painting

Eric loves to sketch and paint with oils. Read more about that in the Interests section. He has a French easel, a studio easel, and before he had the funds for anything better a cobbled-together wooden Riunite box with attached shoulder straps. He prefers Rembrandt, Gamblin, Windsor & Newton, and Old Holland pigments. He's painted in forest glades by oil lamp, in front of a studio easel placed in a field, standing in a rushing stream, and more.

Amish Field, oil on canvas.

Millcreek, oil on canvas.

Still Life, oil on canvas.

Interests: Painting

Recognition

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