Berm Lee, Interaction Designer

I live to…

Ship things with self-evident value, and make a terrific mess on the whiteboard every day
Promote disciplined creativity based on the continual testing of assumptions, and ensure a clear “why” for what we are building, and clarify the entire development process
Balance integrity—down to the pixel—with tradeoffs to ensure that we ship
Generate shared energy from start to finish, facilitating constructive dialogue among executives, product managers, designers and development teams

Experience

metro.useicons.com

Founder | metro.useicons.com
Beijing and Seoul | 2012.02 to present

Created a set of 300+ AppBar icons for use on the Microsoft Windows Phone and Windows 8 platform

Striiv Inc.

Interaction Designer | www.striiv.com
Beijing (with Redwood City, CA) | 2011.06 to 2012.02

Helped a startup launch a smart pedometer: designed how the device syncs “walkathon” donations and updates with clean handling of error conditions, edge cases and COPPA compliance
Collaborated with a developers in California, Hawaii and Shenzhen
Pivoted the design of Striiv Sync from desktop app to web app, back to (scaled-back) desktop applet to meet constraints in time and developer resources, negotiating compromises and building consensus around detailed specifications
Also produced final pixel-level UI, illustrations and icons

Saymeon Inc.

Designer and Fellow Lab Rat | 2009.11 to 2011.03

Coralled, pruned, and shepherded the founder’s myriad explorations while managing non-western developers working on computer vision
Deciphered Android platform UI standards for the team’s first Android project

Various Companies

Interaction Design Consultant | 2002.10 to 2009.10

Served 10 clients with interaction design, visual UI, and branding
Redesigned an operating interface for scientific optical equipment for both daily routine tasks and long-range experiment management
Clarified goals and momentum for an automated kiosk for a mobile services company
Introduced, taught, and practiced scenario-based design for an all-volunteer, non-profit effort to provide advanced linguistic analysis tools and computer-aided translation software for minority languages

SAP AG, Eventus Concept

Contract Co-Lead Designer | www.sapstreamwork.com
Palo Alto, CA | 2006.11 to 2007.01

Co-directed the birth of a concept project that incited SAP to rethink basic assumptions about “business processes” and the tools that support people who respond to disruptions and surprise
Discovered the elusive glue that would finally pull together the promise behind enterprise software
Featured in CEO Henning Kagermann’s keynote presentation at SAP’s main industry conference, SAPPHIRE ’07, and laid the groundwork for eventual productization as SAP Streamwork in 2010

SAP AG, Design Services Team, Office of the CEO

Interaction Designer | www.sap.com
Palo Alto, CA | 2005.09 to 2006.09

Provided design triage to high-profile projects, evolving SAP’s offerings to a changing world of knowledge work
Assisted in coaching the teams in “design-Led Innovation,” helping establish a practice of user-centered design in development

Yahoo! Inc

Contract Interaction Designer | www.yahoo.com
Sunnyvale, CA | 2003.10 to 2004.03

Raised standards for clear thinking and alignment between design direction and product mandates via reality-based project scheduling, focused design sessions and clear communication as Contract Designer for Yahoo! Messenger and Lead Interaction Designer for Yahoo! Avatar 1.0
Received CNET Editor’s Choice (Flash Video FLV) for Yahoo! Messenger 6

Cooper Interaction Design

Interaction Designer and Visual Designer | www.cooper.com
Palo Alto, CA | 1999.04 to 2002.07

Led multi-disciplinary teams in inventing and improving a range of new products including knowledge management systems, a handheld for the college-age market, and a control terminal for implantable medical devices
Brought discipline to Cooper’s visual design practice, helping move clients closer to solutions that can actually be built, leaving behind tools and practices still in use today at Cooper
Clients included SAP, HP, Informatica, Discover Financial, St. Jude Medical, Fujitsu Softek, Adobe, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and a “large semiconductor company.”

Skills

Communication

Writing clear Behavior Specifications, Visual Style Guides, storyboarding, illustration, pixel-level UI, icons, animation, walkthroughs, facilitating discussions, furious whiteboarding

Tools

Adobe Fireworks, Photoshop and Illustrator, rapid prototyping using PowerPoint, familiarity with XHTML + CSS, Flash, unusual Microsoft Office hacks, GTD, Markdown, PC and Mac omnivore

Languages

Native in English, business fluency in Korean, and beginner’s enthusiasm in Mandarin Chinese

One more thing

3D character animation using Maya, mentored by current professional animators in the industry, www.animationmentor.com, 2007-2009

Education

Pomona College

BA in Science, Technology and Society | www.pomona.edu
Claremont, CA | 1994.08 to 1998.05

Inter-disciplinary coursework in the history and process of science and technology. Advanced psychology coursework in cognitive science.