Usability Team
The members of our team are:
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 François Aubin President (514) 707-8856 |
Francois is a cognitive ergonomics and usability practitioner. Over the last 18 years, he has designed over 100 systems, performed over 2,000 cognitive task analysis in the field and 2,000 usability testing sessions. Some of his clients are : Amazon, Ericcson, Nortel Networks, Royal Bank of Canada, Air-Canada.After completing a B.Sc in Physics, he became interested in interactive systems through contracts with multimedia artists. He completed a Master’s Degree in Cognitive Ergonomics at Polytechnique of the University of Montreal. While pursuing his Master Degree, he researched human errors, 3D display, and Usability Principles and guidelines.In 1994, after 3 years as a practitioner at CRIM, he formed Cognitive Group Inc. He provided consulting in user interface design and process simplification.Over the last three years, he completed the development of complete end-to-end solutions for credit adjudication and compliance monitoring for commercial lending. He has published numerous papers on 3D display, wearable computers, input device, and task analysis.
He frequently gives workshops on usability, web design and task analysis and teaches at University of Quebec and Polytechnique. |
 Jerome Paradis Senior Software Developer |
Jerome holds a B.Sc in Computer Science from the University of Montreal. Jerome worked at Sobeco and Ernst & Young. Jerome is known in the industry as a “super-programmer”: he designed his first application – a grammar learning game – at the age of 7 and wrote video games at the age of 12.Jerome has comprehensive experience and expertise in designing and building end-to-end operational applications. His designs are currently in use at a number of major client sites. As Business Banker obtains the funding it requires for expansion, Jerome will lead software architectural design, management and testing activities. |
 Derek Brans |
Brans graduated in 2000 from the University of British Columbia with a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Computer Science. Since then, Derek has developed user interfaces for videogames, mobile devices and the web using Flash, Java and Javascript. He has worked with such companies as Electronic Arts in Vancouver and Bluesponge in Montreal.His work has been nominated for a Webby Award by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences and a Prix d’excellence – Domaine de la culture et des arts vie moderne by Canadian New Media. Derek enjoys hard technological and design challenges to solving real life usability issues. |
 Daniel Spooner |
Daniel Spooner works as an industrial design engineer for 15 years. He brings a unique ability to balance engineering and design needs, mechanical and software functionality. He can always bridge the gap that occurs between what can be produced economically and what the market demands.He thrives in making sense of ambiguity and chaos. He delivers production-ready, user-centric products that produce the expected profit margins.In 2003, Daniel started designfabrik to help customers bring to market innovative products that edge out the competition.He has designed products for: Nortel (saving a $500M contract with product upgrades), Victhom human bionics (world’s first motorized leg prosthesis), Hydro-Québec (first hydrogen powered bus in service), CAE Electronics and Omron Japan among others.
Daniel teaches at the University of Montreal in the engineering and industrial design faculties. He created a program where students from engineering, design and business collaborate on common industry driven, open ended projects. Demand for graduates from this program is rapidly growing and is satisfying a long unanswered industry need. |
 Marie-Claude Prévost |
Marie-Claude has been working in the field of software and hardware product development since 1993. She quickly became interested in system and human-machine process failures, which drew her toward private training in cognitive ergonomics.She has been practicing cognitive ergonomics since 1997, a discipline that she integrated into her systems’ engineering work at Nortel Networks. In this role, she began using cognitive ergonomic techniques in numerous development projects. These include needs analysis, high-level design, detailed design, verification tests and implementation at user sites.Marie-Claude is recognized for her ability to analyze and concisely formulate user goals for telecommunications, Internet and financial sector systems. She became acquainted with the Cognitive Group in 1997 when the company was completing mandates for Nortel, and then again later, when she herself took professional training at CRIM. Eventually Marie-Claude joined Cognitive Group where she now specializes in transactional websites and on process control projects.She obtained a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from Ecole Polytechnique of Montreal in 1991 and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in software ergonomics. |
 Hasmik Atoyan |
Hasmik is a human factors engineer with multidisciplinary educational and working backgrounds. She completed her B.Sc in physics. She has earned Master’s degree in 2006 in applied science (ergonomics) from École Polytechnique of Montreal. During her Master’s degree she developed human factors guidelines on “How to support the operators to develop appropriate level of trust in the systems”.She has significant experience in developing and implementing concepts of human-centered design, user tasks and workflow, information needs, different methods of usability evaluation of software and hardware products, including demanding military systems such as the shipboard Command and Control systems applying different tools and methods of physical and cognitive ergonomics. For the last several years Hasmik has worked as ergonomics specialist at Lockheed Martin Canada and CAE Professional services. |