Curriculum Vitae for
Mathew Sanders

I am T-shaped designer who is equally happy conducting user research as I am iterating concept sketches, perfecting pixel compositions, building interactive prototypes or analyzing production metrics.

I have 9 years experience creating pragmatic, usable designs for consumer-facing products at a variety of companies from large corporates to niche design agencies.

Currently I am the lead product designer for a Boston based mobile/retail start up operating in stealth mode.

Professional Experience

Stealth Mobile Startup Boston, MA
Lead Product Designer 2012 – current
Monster Worldwide Cambridge, MA
Senior Interaction Designer 2011 – 2012
Air New Zealand Auckland, New Zealand
Lead Interaction Designer 2010 – 2012
E-commerce Development Specialist 2003 – 2006
Datacom Systems Auckland, NZ
Senior Information Architect 2010
Information Architect 2006 – 2008
LeftClick Christchurch, NZ
Senior Interaction Designer 2008 – 2009
RHE & Associates Auckland, NZ / Brisbane, AU
Usability Consultant 2006

Design Tools

  • Pen & Paper
  • Omnigraffle Pro
  • Adobe Fireworks

Research Skills

  • Metrics Analysis
  • Card Sorting
  • Usability Evaluations
  • Remote Research

Prototyping Tools

  • HTML5/CSS3
  • jQuery
  • Flash Catalyst

Education

BSc Computer Science
The University of Auckland
Class of 2002


Projects

Air New Zealand: Global Sites Refresh

Air New Zealand is an airline serving domestic and international flights with 4 billion annual revenue from online sales.

I was the lead interaction designer on the first major website redesign in 5 years. The goals of the project were to increase revenue from ancillary sales (such as accommodation & rental cars) and to matching Air New Zealand's online presence with it's brand values and new in-flight experience.

Research during this project involved a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods.
  • I spent a lot of time analyzing metrics for existing pages to identify current key pages and red routes.
  • A workshop with key stakeholders created a set of design principles to help guide the projects goals
  • Card sorting exercises to model associations and groupings of content.
  • Remote testing of potential site structures using TreeJack
  • Usability testing and informal cafe studies of design prototypes

The bulk of this project consisted of exploring, iterating and refining designs from sketched concepts through to medium fidelity and annotated wireframes.

This project is being pushed to production is multiple sprints. See what's live at airnewzealand.com.

Air New Zealand

jQuery Prototype: Take a Weekend Away

Airlines and online travel agents spend a lot of time making their booking flows frictionless.

Most travel interfaces ask for a set location and provide flexibility in dates. This concept explores the needs of a niche persona: "the weekend traveller" and instead uses a set travel period (next weekend) and allows people to explore possible destinations.

This was a quick prototype built using using html and jQuery to explore a novel concept that uses rich interactions that can not easily be communicated using static wireframes.

Open prototype or read more.

Weekend Away Boston

Facebook App: Monster Jobs Tab

Social media continues to attract people's time online allowing companies to form closer direct relationships with their customers.

As a response to this trend, Monster is experimenting with different methods of reaching people from it's traditional destination-site model.

This Facebook app I designed is one part of this strategy. It allows companies to aggregate their job listings from multiple sources into a single tab on their Facebook profile.

Working with the BeKnown product manager I designed administration screens that allow HR staff to link their Facebook pages with the app and customize the content that is shown on the tab, and also the jobs tab itself.

An emphasis was placed on making the installation, configuration and maintenance of the tab app as easy as possible.

An example of the jobs tab can be viewed on Monster's Facebook page.

Beknown Jobs Tab

Wikipedia: Easier Navigation & Reading

During the annual Wikimania conference I discovered that growth on Wikipedia is flattening, and in some areas trending at a negative rate.

Research presented at the conference suggested that Wikipedia was facing challenges with declining participation in it's community of wikipedians – the network of people who are actively maintaining wikipedia content, especially people who had just joined the community.

I explored concepts for the design of the main Wikipedia article page that focused on:
  • increase visibility of actions (View, Discuss, Review, Edit);
  • integrated the wikimedia family of products (such as Wikipedia, WikiNews, WikiQuotes, Commons);
  • applied navigation conventions (search at top right, local navigation in a side column); and finally
  • typographic enhancements such as a fixed line width, and styles for markup such as blockquotes.

Due to the large variety of page formats that are possible on Wikipedia I further explored these designs by creating a browser extension for Chrome that alters the css on Wikipedia article pages to test the proposed design changes.

Install Chrome extension or read more

Wikipedia Article

Monster & Yahoo!: Career Answers

This project was part of Monster's ongoing strategy to attract more visitors from search-engine referrals with the creation of keyword-rich landing pages to capture the long-tail of career-related searches.

Working with product and technology teams I started with researching what content is available through APIs from our content partner Yahoo!

I then created pixel-perfect wireframes for a number of screens including search and browse discover pathways, and custom modules to provide targeted content on the highly trafficked Monster homepage and job search results pages.

The launch of this project resulted in the meaningful positive changes to Monster's target KPIs.

Monster Answers

Mega Breadcrumb Prototype

The goals of commercial and government websites have striking differences. Commercial websites often aim to be 'sticky' to keep visitors on their sites longer, either to increase advertising revenues, brand exposure, or possibility of increased revenue.

Government websites however strive to enable citizens access to information and services quickly and efficiently because excess distraction ultimately leads citizens to alternative channels (such as phone or in person visits) which are more expensive to provide.

One pattern that I developed in response to this goal was the mega breadcrumb which combines mega menus with a breadcrumb to replace a traditional global and local navigation patterns.

To explore this pattern I created a HTML prototype based off the NYC.gov page for licensing your dog.

Open prototype or read more

Mega Breadcrumb

References

Scott Giles

Matt worked with us on a number of key strategic projects at Air New Zealand. He demonstrated a keen insight for technology solutions and was always passionate about creating a world class user experience for customers. He has a talent for quickly evaluating business opportunities and developing technical concepts.

His skills and background were very beneficial to us at a difficult time in our project and he was able to provide clarity and innovation in his analysis. His friendly style, can-do attitude and sense of humor made him a great fit with our team. I would hire Matt again in a heartbeat.

Scott Giles — Grab-a-Seat, Online Marketing Manager, Air New Zealand
Laura Lilienthal

Matt was a pleasure to work with! He is the consummate professional: friendly, approachable, and focused on achieving the tasks at hand.

I was particularly impressed by Matt's rare ability to understand and work in both development and user-centric areas. This unusual skillset made him a very valuable team member.

On a personal level, Matt's thoughtfulness and impeccable manners made him a firm favourite with everyone he met. He would be a valuable asset to any company he chooses to join.

Laura Lilienthal — Online Marketing Manager, The University of Auckland

Mat came with strong recommendations and he didn't disappoint. His ability to understand business and customer requirements and develop creative UI solutions was a huge help to our project.

He provided structure to our customer experience design process that stood up to rigorous reviews, debate and formal presentations. For every ounce of energy he put into his work during the day, he always came in the next day with even more.

Mat's an absolute pleasure to work with and I hope that one day I'll get the opportunity to again.

Lynsey Blacklock — Customer Experience Designer, Telecom New Zealand
Mandy Neal

I have worked with Mathew on a number of web projects in the past 5 years. Mathew is charming, intelligent, and gets along with all of his clients. Mathew is a strong information architect and user experience analyst and always over delivers both my own and the client's expectations.

Mathew's documentation and diagrams clearly communicate the user's needs and what is required from the designer, and works well with the client to find the best experience for the end-user.

Mathew is constantly researching the most up-to-date information on user experience models and keeps up with the latest.

Mathew is not afraid to state his expert opinion and backing it up with good reason and explanation. I would hire Mathew in his expert role anytime.

He is an absolute pleasure to work with, and blows me away every time with his new thinking.

Mandy Neal — Senior Business Analyst at Terabyte Interactive

Matt is passionate about working with people and their business to deliver their online vision and strategy in a way that is innovative, refreshing, but most of all in ways which creates impact to the end customer.

He feels strongly about delivering results with scalable benefits beyond the online space. Matt has always been fantastic to work with, he is highly intelligent and well articulated and would be an asset to any team he joins.

Kanaway Yusingco — Market & Business Development Manager, Air New Zealand

I’ve worked with Mat on the client side at Air New Zealand and later within our team at Datacom. He has real passion for creating the best possible user experience in internet and software solutions.

Mat has excellent analytical skills, the ability to run focused, interesting and valid workshops, producing quality outputs.

He develops easy to understand User Interface concepts focused on delivering business and user goals. Mat is also easy to work with and gets through a lot of work quickly, without fuss. Just the sort of guy you want on the team!

Dave Flemming — General Manager, Datacom Interactive Design
Shelly Mutu-Grigg

I worked with Matt during the NTI Insurance project at RHE. NTI was a complicated, highly demanding project on both a technical and customer level.

Mathew displayed professionalism and dedication during his time on the project, and built strong bonding friendships with both his fellow colleagues and client staff. I wish Matt well in all his future endeavors.

Shelly Mutu-Grigg — Test Manager, RHE & Associates
Winnie Ng

Mathew is a hugely talented user experience architect with exceptional insights into consumer behaviours. In all the projects he has worked on, clients have always commented on the high standard of work produced.

He is an active member of the Usability community, and always contributes new and thought-provoking ideas.

I worked alongside Mathew at Datacom, and I have learnt such a lot from him with regards to UX. He is a super lovely guy to work with and I miss him greatly.

Winnie Ng — User Experience Architect at AKQA