Mikol Graves
Senior User Experience Designer and Browser-Based Application Developer

My name is Mikol (MEE kle) Graves. I live with my wife and son in San
Francisco, CA, where I'm currently VMware's technical lead for Management
Platform User Experience Standards.

I've been designing, prototyping, and developing software for consumer,
enterprise, and personal applications for more than 11 years. I have a solid
understanding of human-computer interaction conventions, aesthetic principles,
web technologies, and W3C standards, with a special emphasis on cross-browser
development.

My greatest asset is the range of skills that I can apply to a problem--from
strategy and scoping, to interaction design and application architecture, to
programming and visual polish. I'm deeply interested in all of these areas, and
I strive to be fluent in each of them.

Whether I'm writing a functional specification, designing a user interface,
developing an application, refactoring code, or reviewing my coworkers'
contributions, I value simple, clear, and effective communication most.

In my experience, software is only as complicated as we make it, and the best
way to manage complexity is to stay focused on what users need. So I try to
concentrate on the narrowest, simplest, most self-contained solutions possible.
They're easier to understand, design, develop, maintain, and enhance.


Employment History

   VMware, Inc.
   Since May, 2000

   Netscape Communications Corporation
   December, 1997 - May, 2000

   Lucent, Apple, and Georgia Tech
   Before December, 1997

Skills

   Excellent
   AJAX, CSS, DOM, HTML/XHTML, Interaction Design, JSON, JavaScript/EcmaScript

   Very Good
   Perl, Technical Communication, Visual Design

   Good
   Audio Engineering, PHP, Sound Design

   Practical
   Apache, Apple Macintosh, CGI, Drupal, GNU/Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat),
   Microsoft Windows, mod_perl, Shell Scripting, XML, XPATH, XSLT

   Basic
   C/C++, Flex/MXML/ActionScript, IIS, Java, MySQL, Objective-C, REST,
   SOAP, Vala

Education

   Master of Science in Information Design and Technology
   Georgia Institute of Technology, 1997

   Bachelor of University Studies, Magna Cum Laude
   University of New Mexico, 1995