lisa falkson

senior vui designer

About

Editor and author of “Ubiquitous Voice: Essays from the Field” (available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle). Experienced designer of speech-enabled, multimodal applications on various platforms. Strong background across the project lifecycle: requirements, design, development, test, deployment, and post-deployment support. BS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, MS in Electrical Engineering from UCLA (SPAPL, Speech and Auditory Perception Laboratory)

Country

united states

City

los altos

Industry

computer software

Skill

speech recognition, mobile devices, user interface, user interface design, user experience, usability testing, user centered design, start ups, mobile applications, software development, speech technology, saas, software design, agile methodologies, voice user interface design, human computer interaction, natural language processing, enterprise software, software as a service, ivr, usability, user experience design, user experience, user research, persona, tts, usability engineering, interaction design, rapid prototyping, wireframes, agile project management, web applications

Experience

vui designer

google

2017-9 - 2018-1 · 5 mos

contract, VUI Frameworks team.

member board of directors, communications committee

stanford professional women bay area

2016-10 - Present · 10 yrs

First year as a member of the Stanford Professional Women (SPW) Bay Area Board of Directors.

user interface designer - temporary

nuance communications

2010-8 - 2011-3 · 8 mos

Part-time consulting on new/existing user interface designs, grammar development, and tools.

speech technology specialist

nuance communications

2000-4 - 2001-10 · 1 yr 7 mos

Specialized in design and tuning of financial applications.

product engineer

sun microsystems

1998-7 - 2000-4 · 1 yr 10 mos

Evaluated and tested SRAM for high-end server and desktop systems.

principal voice user experience architect

nio

2016-4 - 2017-6 · 1 yr 3 mos

senior vui designer

amazon

2018-7 - Present · 8 yrs 3 mos

Lead Voice User Interface Designer for Alexa Communications: calling, messaging, drop in, announcements

senior vui designer

amazon lab126

2013-10 - 2015-2 · 1 yr 5 mos

Lead VUI designer and speech technology expert for Fire Phone, Amazon's first smartphone. Collaborated with Product and Engineering teams to produce a natural, conversational speech interface for the following domains: Voice Dialing, SMS, Email, Web Search, Maps, and Q&A -Launched 3 speech-enabled products in 2014: Fire TV, Fire Phone, and Echo.

senior voice user interface architect, speech technology expert

nuance communications

2004-1 - 2007-4 · 3 yrs 4 mos

* Acted as VUI design and development lead on numerous projects. * Performed call monitoring, data analysis, grammar and parameter tuning to improve speech system performance. * Led projects with customers in a variety of verticals: brokerage, banking, travel and healthcare.

voice user interface consultant, business analysis and presales

nuance communications

2001-10 - 2004-1 · 2 yrs 4 mos

* Supported the sales team in creating business cases for new speech applications. * Visited customer call centers, performed remote call monitoring, evaluated current automated systems and proposed new ones. * Created and maintained custom proof-of-concept demos for customers. * Designed and implemented vision clips (in Flash) for selling to specific customers and verticals.

senior vui and user experience designer

cloudcar™

2015-2 - 2016-4 · 1 yr 3 mos

Lead Voice User Interface Designer for connected car solution. Designing a simpler, more accurate user experience for navigation, communication and media in the automobile. Working closely with visual UX designers and software developers to implement the solution. Also responsible for analysis and improvements of speech recognition and NLU (natural language understanding) technology.

principal experience engineer

volio

2011-10 - 2013-9 · 2 yrs

* Designed, developed and tested multimodal (speech and touch) applications for mobile devices on the Volio platform, which delivered an interactive video experience guided by the user’s voice. * Bridged creative and engineering teams to design the most effective, natural user interface. * Managed external QA team for testing and maintenance of deployed iOS application.

advisor

witlingo

2016-2 - Present · 10 yrs 8 mos

Advisor to start-up focused on designing and deploying Ubiquitous Voice Solutions.

Education

the brearley school

1986-1 - 1992-1 · 6 yrs 1 mo

National Merit Finalist Advanced Placement (AP) Scholar Community Service Award Recipient of 2 Senior Prizes: Science, French Activities and Societies: Varsity Tennis Team (Captain, 2 years), Varsity Field Hockey, Yearbook (Layout Editor), The Beaver (contributor, Assistant Editor), The Zephyr (Layout Editor)

stanford university

electrical engineering

1992-1 - 1996-1 · 4 yrs 1 mo

Activities and Societies: Resident Assistant, Peer Tutor (Multivariable Calculus), Tournament Tennis, Intramural Sports (tennis, softball, volleyball)

university of california, los angeles

electrical engineering

1996-1 - 1998-1 · 2 yrs 1 mo

UCLA Speech and Auditory Perception Laboratory (SPAPL) Masters Thesis: "A Circuit Model for Studying the Dynamics of the Intracranial Compartment" Publications: -Amit Rane, Derrick C. Wei, Lisa E. Falkson and A. Alwan, "Modeling the Transitory Behavior of Speech Using a Time-Varying Transmission Line Model,"Proceedings of the ICA/ASA Conference, Seattle, pp. 261-262, June 1998. -Bergsneider M; Alwan AA; Falkson L; Rubinstein EH, "The relationship of pulsatile cerebrospinal fluid flow to cerebral blood flow and intracranial pressure: a new theoretical model,"Acta Neurochirurgica, Supplementum, 1998, 71:266-8. Activities and Societies: Intramural Softball (team captain)