Michael A. Nelson,
PhD, CUA
Consulting Project Director

Job with HFI

• Product and software design
• Meta-UI design (assistants and experts and wizards)
• Usability engineering
• World wide web application design and evaluation
• Rapid application development
• Low-fidelity prototyping

Experience

More than 25 years experience in the design and evaluation of man-machine systems and software applications. Ten years as DoD contractor. Fifteen + years as entrepreneur, manager of human factors and usability testing groups for Lexis/Nexis and Borland International, adjunct associate professor.

Mike has worked on a diversity of applications, including consumer products (shrink-wrap software), command, control, and communications, database applications, decision support, electronic mail, information retrieval, medical electronics, personal information managers, process control, telecommunications, training and simulation, and Web design.

Education

Ph.D. 1974, Experimental Psychology and Visual Science, University of Rochester

M. A. 1969, Experimental Psychology, California State University at Los Angeles

B. A. 1964, Psychology, Oberlin College

Favorite Projects

Consumer products where extreme ease-of-use and ease-of-learning for non-power users is needed for success; projects where the customers’ needs are not known and the solutions don’t exist yet; projects that require new, unique design solutions; products that are under extreme time pressure to deliver effective solutions.

Areas of Interest and Design Orientation

Consumer products, meta-UI design (agents and experts and wizards); UI architecture, anything on the World Wide Web, products for sale that have real competition; software design for knowledge workers.

Hobbies and Special Interests

Sailing, wood turning, amateur radio, and creative cooking. He especially like cruising in unpopulated places for extended periods of time. Mike also likes making foods of a wide variety of ethnic origins and matching them with wines. Has just mastered the art of pizza crust making (good for calzones, too). Sometimes exercises by bike riding along the ocean (discovered mountains are too much work).

Character

Depends on who you ask. Not a morning person. Dry sense of humor. Hates TV. Likes books. Mellowing out.