People profile : User Experience Specialist

Name: Dominick Reed

Education: BA in Ergonomics from Loughborough University, UK

Position at Red Gate: User Experience Specialist

Start date: December 2004

First job ever: Self employed – Director of company that attempted to build and sell computers

Before you arrived at Red Gate what did you do?

My path to Red Gate has been somewhat varied, so I'll try to pick out all the interesting bits and keep the mundane stuff about washing and eating to an absolute minimum. I'll start at university, since before then the only interesting stuff involved conkers, bike accidents and bike accidents as a result of conkers. As a way to fund my way through university I bought and sold bits of computers with loans taken out that were meant to sustain me with beer and food. After graduating, it seemed right to continue this and make my millions by my mid-twenties. It didn't work, and a year later I was no nearer to, or further from, becoming rich, but it did set me off on a career in IT. I did that for a number of years, ending up at a company called Markem – a global company that manufacture barcode and labelling printers. Then I got bored. I realised fixing computer stuff was less exciting than creating computer stuff, so I managed to wiggle my way out of my IT role and morph into Markem's first usability engineer, finally applying what I learnt at university. That was fun – or at least as much fun as it can be when you're designing stuff that prints barcodes. Looking for something more exciting, I took a big leap of faith and went contracting for Nokia over in Helsinki. Working in their research department as part of the user experience group was just fantastic. Bonkers technology and exciting projects all in one of my favourite places on the planet. Only now are some of the fruits of my labour starting to emerge, with Nokia about to release the phone I helped design – with nearly all of my big ideas still in the product. But my contract came to an end and I had to decide if I was prepared to move life and wife to Finland, or take a new job back in the UK. Luckily, that's when Red Gate made the decision easier...

What does your job involve on a day-to-day basis?

I'm always working on a number of different projects at Red Gate, getting involved at the early stages on stuff that is often top secret. It sometimes means that I have to wear dark sunglasses and sit on park benches – waiting for special agents to appear with a briefcase to swap. At least that's how it seems inside my head. Ultimately, my aim is to ensure that Red Gate products match the needs of our users. If I've done my job properly, someone using a Red Gate product should be successful at what they are attempting to do and they should feel that the process was efficient and required minimal effort. I'd hope that they feel that the tool has real value to them.

What do you need to be a Usability Engineer?

Foremost, you need to have a questioning mind that looks at a problem laterally and you need to be a good communicator. You have to be able to interpret what users are trying to achieve and find ways that allow them to achieve this, taking into consideration human strengths and weaknesses.

Why did you choose Red Gate?

After Nokia, I wanted to work for a smaller (read fast-paced) company that was still a fun and creative place to be. Red Gate impressed me with their commitment to usability and their easy-going attitude, too.

What are your favourite Red Gate perks?

It's hard not to love a company that regularly takes the whole company out for meals and day trips, gives you massages, teaches you foreign languages and lets you get yourself tangled up during a yoga class.

What's your most memorable Red Gate experience so far?

Being locked outside in a gorilla suit.