My full name is Steve Joseph Bayer.

I currently reside in Kochi, Kerala, India since Late 2006. I was born in Kochi and moved at the age of 2 to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

I've done my initial schooling in Abu Dhabi, moved to Dubai for a university entrance diploma and then moved for graduate studies to Sharjah until Late 2006.

While I am Indian by passport and skin, I have European ancestry that dates back to the 1600s. My ancestry/heritage (which I've ordered alphabetically) includes: Dutch, German, Portugese and Spanish roots as well as indigenous roots from the city of Kochi, Kerala, India.

While in the U.A.E, I used to drive around to explore, smoke Sheesha (tobacco without the tar,) play pool, attend social awareness events, participate in LAN tournaments, head to the beach and chill out at cafe's.

Since I moved to Kochi in India, the most I get to do is chill out at cafe's.

Work:

I currently provide services in Brand Crafting as an Experience/Interaction Designer to increase consumer consumption of products and services (both online and on location.)

I've done (and on rare occasions still do) freelance work to convert designs into CSS/XHTML templates for websites on a part time basis.

I have been remotely employed from Kochi, Kerala, India as a full time Information Architect with a focus on User Experience Design (UXD).

I have worked in a call center to get to know young professionals in the city of Kochi in Kerala, India and to learn how people work in a corporate environment as well as the software interfaces they use.

I have also been a registration operator at technology oriented exhibitions in Arabia.

For more details on the work I've done, please view my Linked In profile at:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevejbayer

Non-Academic Education:

• Consistently researching Experience Design, User Experience Design and their related philosophies and principles since Summer 2007.
• In Early 2009, I attended private webinars on how to design for software by Mozilla as part of the Mozilla Design Challenge of Spring 2009.
  • Presenters included Aza Raskin, Alex Faaborg and Wei Zhou among many more designers and developers from the Mozilla Corporation and the Firefox Developer Community.
  • A special mention to Pascal Finette for organizing the Design Challenge.
  • Despite not being in a timezone that allowed me to attend lunch meetings to discuss the refinement and presentation of Design Ideas, I received a honorary mention for my Browser Dock Design Idea.
• In 2008, I forwarded the idea of using the Vertical Tabs interface pattern to solve an interface issue in the Open Source Web Building Platform called Drupal.
  • I used self formed crowd sourcing techniques to source input from the Drupal Developer Community on how to solve the issue of Drupal 5/6's long content entry forms.
  • A special mention to Károly Négyesi, Bevan Rudge and Thomas Moseler  for their co-operation and input during the issue resolution and the solution design process.
  • The Vertical Tabs interface pattern has been accepted and developed by the Drupal Developer Community and included as an interface pattern in Drupal 7 along with a Human Interface Guideline (HIG) on the best uses of the Vertical Tabs interface pattern in Drupal.
• In 2008, I self learnt how to transform visual designs into Drupal 5/6 compatible theme files.
• In 2007, I self learnt how to transform visual designs into Wordpress and Wordpress MU theme files.
• In 2007, I was trained in Wireframe Design and Functional Specification Documentation
  • I was selected as the prime candidate for training and employment when I answered an anonymously posted questionnaire (found on a job board) about what I had seen as the interaction and navigation based issues on the most popular sites in 2007 as well as how would I solve or approach such issues.
  • Training was provided by http://thinkdynamik.com (Dynamik Incorporated) while I was remotely employed by it prior to its incorporation.
  • The training was to be a full time Information Architect focused on UXD with Microsoft Visio 2007 as the Wireframe Design and Functional Specification Documentation platform.
• In 2007, I self learnt the advanced CSS structuring techniques, CMS driven website installation, configuration as well as generic website and content administration.
  • Learned rudimentary Information Design and Site Map building while working for Quilla as a site administrator and content administrator/editor.
• In 2006, I was trained as a Technical Support Executive (Call Center) by Sutherland Global Services, Kochi.
• In 2006, I attended a course for the 'Microsoft Certified Professional' certificate.
• In 2005, I received a certificate for a course on 'Computer Networking Basics.'
• In 2005, I was trained in registration systems administration by the Dubai Internation Convention and Exhibition Center in Dubai, U.A.E as a  face to face, visitor registration operator  for GITEX 2005.
• In 2005, I attended workshops by Emirates Aviation College in Dubai, U.A.E to learn about air cargo warehousing operations and to discover the hardware devices and software interfaces used by warehouse employees.
• From 2001-2004, I attended multiple professional development courses in Skyline College, Sharjah.
• In 2001, I received a certificate for learning the Basics of HTML and CSS.

About My Website:

http://stevejbayer.com currently runs on the Drupal Content Management System platform.

Initially, http://stevejbayer.com was more of a personal website than a professional services website or a media publication website.

As of Late 2009, I've begun to transform the website from a personal website to a website for increasing awareness of design thinking, experience design and user experience design.

You can use the links at the top of the website to find the main sections on the site which includes

• Landing Page (Welcome)
• About Me (the page you are reading now)
• My Blog
• Provided services
• Portfolio of past work (mostly contributory due to NDA's on commercial work)
• A list of the latest entries from
  • My blog
  • On-site wiki (it can be seen as an internet based encyclopedia)
  • Product reviews (I haven't really had much of a reason to focus on reviewing products or services)
• A contact form to send me a message to contact me for personal, social, professional or business related reasons.

I can be e-mailed directly at hello@stevejbayer.com