Curriculum Vitae
Download Tara Cleveland's CV as a PDF document. 
PROFESSIONAL PROFILE
- A strong aptitude for usability, interface design and information architecture
- Possesses more than 11 years of experience in web design and development
- A leader in and teacher of standards-based HTML and CSS
- Has a solid understanding of the entire web development lifecycle from both a design and development perspective.
EMPLOYMENT EXPERIENCE
Lead Web Developer — Project Spot Portal Team — IBM and BSkyB (full time contract)
May 2007 — present
- Worked with the Portal team, external suppliers and the client to build site according to the design requirements supplied by external marketing and branding agencies.
- Designed sections of the site within the look and feel of the brand.
- Responsible for ensuring site meets accessiblity, usability, standards and coding guidelines.
- Built interactive features of the site using a cohesive javascript library.
- Initiated team-wide security audit to guard against cross site scripting.
Webmaster — Trinity College at the University of Toronto (part-time contract)
July 2006 — May 2007
- Migrated all of the content from the old site to the new site.
- Adapted the design and information architecture to the changing needs of numerous stakeholders.
- Liased between the college staff and system administrators and programmers.
- Proposed, persuaded a large group of stakeholders to agree to, and implemented substantive usability improvements to the previously approved design.
- Recoded the custom content management system (CMS) templates to achieve standards compliance.
- Rebuilt entire 400 page website using Drupal - in less than one week.
- Developed an analysis of the College’s custom CMS in comparison to standard features in open source CMSs with regard to the needs of the College.
Freelance and Contract Web Site Design
September 2001 — May 2007
- Developed online marketing and communications strategies for small businesses and non-profit organizations.
- Adapted and augmented open source software to develop content management systems for clients.
- Consulted for several firms about moving to standards-based web sites.
- Designed and developed sites for small local and large multi-national companies.
- Coded and designed the online banking navigation interface for one of the major banks in Canada.
- Rebuilt and redesigned several sites and web applications to achieve standards compliance.
Senior Designer — TiCorp Interactive
December 2000 — September 2001
- Designed graphical interfaces and information architecture for intranet applications with a small team of creative and technical staff.
- Primary designer of a web-based document management system for a government ministry.
- Facilitated the planning and implementation of a quality assurance and bug testing system.
- Worked closely with the engineers and the art director to develop functional specifications.
Aquent
July 2000 — December 2000
- Adapted to different roles (production artist, a senior designer, and an HTML coder) as a temporary employee for medium, large, and start-up companies.
New Media Director — Tone Interactive
March 1999 — June 1999
- Managed e-commerce projects.
- Devised unique and creative web marketing strategies.
- Drafted proposals including budgets and timelines for numerous projects.
- Designed and developed high-end web sites with a team of developers.
Web Designer/Developer — On2logic New Media
May 1998 — March 1999
- Primary designer on numerous corporate and high-tech websites.
- Planned and managed the design and completion of projects.
Freelance Multimedia and Web Site Design
June 1996 — May 1998
- Developed and designed web sites for small and medium sized businesses.
SKILLS
- Software: Photoshop, ImageReady, Dreamweaver, GoLive, FrontPage,, Illustrator, Quark Xpress, InDesign
- Coding: Standards-based HTML, CSS, XHTML, JavaScript, experience working within ASP, JSP, Cold Fusion code and making small changes as necessary. Some PHP scripting.
- Operating Systems: Macintosh, Windows, some familiarity with UNIX.
URLs
View my full portfolio.
EDUCATION
1996-2000 University of Toronto — B.A. History of Science and Technology and English Literature (pending)
1996 International Academy of Design — College Diploma in Computer Graphics
1994 University of King’s College — Foundation Year Programme
VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE
Evolt.org
Steering committee member and organizer of TOevolt 2004 conference
Making A Commercial Case for Adopting Web Standards (MACCAWS) (2002-2004)
Co-founder, steering committee member and leader of the Marketing Group
Toronto Webgrrls (1997)
Assistant Meeting Coordinator
WRITING
- “Accessibility Laws in Canada”
- evolt.org, 25 May, 2002
- “The Way Forward with Web Standards”
- contributor and editor, maccaws.org
- “What Every Web Site Owner Should Know About Standards: A Web Standards Primer”
- contributor and editor, maccaws.org
PRESENTATIONS
- “Using Web Standards with Macromedia Contribute”
- Design Fest ’05 — October, 2005
- “Web Standards and Dreamweaver”
- DreaminginTO — August, 2004
- “The Train Track Gauge of the Future: Solving Usability Problems with Web Standards Today”
- The Toronto Usability Summit — May 2003
REFERENCES
References are available upon request.