M. Owen Williams

I'm a visionary designer, coder and entrepreneur with a 25 year career dreaming up innovative user experiences and then building them, by myself or as part of a team.  I have specialized in Ajax programming and design, creating numerous frameworks for delivering cutting-edge web apps. I enjoy creating engaging, effortless applications to manage large sets of data.

My core strengths are: seeing all sides of the problem at once, acting as a bridge between engineering and business teams, and finely honed skills in design, prototyping and development.

From desktop to web, mobile to wearables, productivity apps to retail platforms, I've evolved with the industry since the first GUIs and have created innovative solutions for most relevant platforms.

Development Specialties

• Application UI design and implementation
• Javascript / Ajax framework development
• Rapid interface prototyping
• API specification and development
• Extracting requirements and translating into specifications
• Working as a bridge between management, creative and technical teams

Employment History

Dynabooks Designs 1999 - date

Independent consulting business, concentrating on user interface design for Internet applications and Ajax programming. Clients include:

• AT&T Labs (Ajax email interface)
• Microsoft bCentral (Complete site redesign)
• Amyris (Tablet UI for wet lab data capture)
• Lacuna (Mobile UI for transportation auditing/analysis)
• Octopus.com (Ajax components)
• Linkify (Ajax components, UI design)
• WorkLogistics (UI design for Android-based timecard system)
• MapR Technology (UI design for Hadoop cluster administration, scaling to 10K servers)

Catalog Spree / Quotient Technology (formerly Coupons.com) 2010 - 2016

Co-founder and CTO of Catalog Spree, the leading catalog marketplace app for iOS and web.

• Interaction designer for 5 star iPad / iPhone app downloaded by over 1,000,000 users.
• Architect and primary implementer of publishing system used to create and distribute over 5000 digital catalogs for brands such as Macy's, Nordstrom's, REI, etc.
• Creator of "Spree Studio," a web-based page layout tool, which allows designers to create automatic digital catalogs, customized for each viewer.
• Key member of management team intimately involved in all aspects of this VC-backed business.
• Quotient Technology (formerly Coupons.com) purchased Catalog Spree in 10/14; I stayed with the team through the transition and have been consulting for Quotient ever since.

Gear6 / Violin Memory 2009 - 2010

User interface designer for Gear6, a provider of Memcached Appliances and Cloud Servers. Violin Memory purchased Gear6 in 2010 and I continued working with the team during the transition.

• Designed and implemented UI for Gear6 Memcached Appliance and Cloud Server applications.
• Designed and implemented UI for Violin Memory "symphony" platform, managing 3U server appliances with over 80 PC boards inside.
• Developed API specifications for client/server communication.

Zimbra Inc 2005 - 2009

User interface designer and application architect for this leading Web 2.0 company. Zimbra's main product was an open source Microsoft Exchange-replacement mail server, fronted by one of the most advanced Ajax applications on the market at the time. Yahoo! acquired Zimbra in 2008 for $350M.

• Architected and designed and prototyped all aspects of user experience.
• Developed a skinning framework to allow customers to re-brand the product.
• Worked as a bridge between engineering, marketing and product management to ensure that all business requirements were met in the product.

Isomorphic Software 2000 - 2002

Co-founded Isomorphic Software to productize Ajax technology I created during previous consulting projects. Did extensive work on intranet applications for clients such as Philips Semiconductors.

• Designed and developed Isomorphic SmartClient Ajax development framework.
• Developed intranet applications for corporate clients.
• Served as President of the company and directly managed key employees.

Visto Corporation 1996 - 1999

Architected and developed UI for all aspects of Visto Briefcase, an integrated suite of six web based applications. UI design for Visto Assistant, software that synchronizes PC applications with the Briefcase.

• Application design and architecture for the first of a new breed of web applications.
• User interface design and implementation.
• Server API specification and implementation.

Oracle Corporation1993 - 1996

Client/server development for Oracle's Applications division and New Media division's early (ISDN-based) Interactive TV efforts.

• Application UI design and development.
• Coding and UI standards authoring/review.

Education & Experience

Dartmouth College

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science
• Minor in fine arts (sculpture)

Language Specialties:

• JavaScript/Ajax/HTML/CSS
• Python
• Swift / Objective-C