Nate Bolt, El Presidente

Nate is fascinated by the personal, social, and cultural role of technology, and how research and design can transform those roles. After pioneering and directing the User Experience department at Clear Ink in 1999, which included the construction of Natural Environment and Remote Observation laboratories, Nate co-founded Bolt | Peters. He now serves as el presidente, where he has overseen hundreds of user research studies for Sony, Oracle, HP, Greenpeace, Electronic Arts, and others. Beginning in 2003, he led the creation of the first moderated remote user research software, Ethnio, which is being used around the world to recruit hundreds of thousands of live participants for research.

Nate regularly gives presentations on native environment research methods in both commercial and academic settings, and is currently co-authoring Remote Research, a book on remote testing. Working with faculty at the University of California, San Diego, he created a degree titled “Digital Technology and Society,” which focused on the social impact of technology. He also completed a year of communications studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he was jailed briefly for playing drums in public without a license. You can find more about him at all these handy places:

**  boltron.com (his personal blog)  |  twitter |   facebook |  linkedin |  flickr |  vimeo **

Mike Towber, Captain Ethnio

Mike makes the fourth member of the Bolt | Peters team to hail from University of California, San Diego’s Cognitive Science Department. He holds a degree in Cognitive Science with a specialization in Human Computer Interaction. In addition to HCI, Mike’s varied interests include studies in Japanese, Design and Web Standards, and Computer Science.

When he’s not improving Ethnio or creating mockups, Mike enjoys record collecting (and word has it his record shelf is quite scary). He also has a soft-spot for video games – particulary 8-bit ones. He’s been overheard saying “I’ve had Ramen for two days in a row now and I feel kinda gross.” He also attempted counting to a million for an elementary school science fair project, with encouragement from his mom, and had counting time for thirty minutes every night where he had to sit and count. He made it to the low ten thousands before realizing it was futile.

** twitter | facebook | linkedin | flickr **

Kate Nartker, Office Superstar

Kate calmly balances running the office, accounting, and incentive management at B|P with an astonishing ability to keep the vivid office plant life flourishing. With a degree in Media Studies from Ohio State University, she has researched the relationship between technology and people from several angles and continues to pursue this interest at Bolt | Peters.

While originally from the mid-west, Kate finds San Francisco to be much more inhabitable and interesting. When not sitting in front of a computer, she is probably in front of a sewing machine honing her fashion design skills or riding her bike. She also holds the distinction of having the best quote describing life in the Pacific NorthWest – “living with the rain in Seattle is like being in an abusive relationship. It will be great for a few months but then it’s right back to the same old crap.” She also once performed a syncronized swimming dance to Paul Simon’s Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes in Napolean, Ohio.

** twitter | facebook **

Cyd Harrell, Director of Research

Cyd has had a passion for the way things work since before user experience was a recognized field. She received her formal training from Yale University, where she studied Linguistics with a focus on socio-linguistics. Cyd’s career has included roles in Marketing, QA, Product Management, and official User Experience. Her expertise in qualitative analysis and her interpretive skill have enabled her to bring together user needs and business requirements to the benefit of both. Along the way, she made time to help found San Francisco Women on Web, an education and networking organization.

Cyd joined Bolt |Peters in July 2006 after several years at Charles Schwab. She manages B|P’s consulting arm, handles sales, and researches as well. In the rest of her life she writes poetry, practices yoga, studies Thai cooking, and hangs out with her young daughter.

** cydharrell.com (personal site) | linkedin **

Tony Tulathimutte, UX Writer

From the frost-riven crevasses of Western Massachusetts to the cabalistic machinations of Stanford’s Symbolic Systems Master’s program (whence he was imbued with arcane Human-Computer Interaction magicks), Tony has roamed the earth in pursuit of the fabled race of the Yu’zuur. The only time he feels anything is when he is asking unbiased, open-ended questions, divining from the Yu’zuur their esoteric, oracular Truths.

Tony specialized in user research for video games, working for Time Warner’s GameTap service and NHN USA’s online games portal, ijji.com. (His honors thesis was about video game controllers, and his Master’s thesis concerned game menu interfaces; in this way, he makes the world a better place.) He joined Bolt | Peters in 2007, and has done remote studies for Autodesk, AAA, HP, and Harvard Business Review; more recently, he was the lead researcher on the player experience study for EA’s Spore.

He recently won a 2008 O. Henry award for one of his short stories, originally published in Threepenny Review. He is available to DJ your house party. He has twice forgotten how to ride a bike, and he never learned how to swim: he gets by, instead, on his youthful optimism.

**tonytula.com (personal site) | twitter | linkedin **

Frances James, UX Researcher

Frances originally hails from Cambridge, England, though you’d never know it to listen to her. After moving around the US and Europe during childhood, and studying in Japan, she settled in Atlanta, GA, where she picked up a slight southern drawl and spent her days coordinating a study abroad program. Realizing that it would be much more interesting to study different cultures rather than just coordinate their students, she pursued her degree in Cognitive Psychology, traveling to Indonesia to complete her MA on cross-cultural differences in attention. Following graduation, Frances was thrilled to discover the world of usability research, where she combines her knowledge of how people organize and use information with her passion for people of all types.

Frances worked for several small Atlanta-based usability consulting firms before deciding the time for A/C-less summers was nigh, and packed her bags for San Francisco. When she’s not engaging users in fascinating tasks at B|P, Frances still enjoys frequent globe-trotting to chow down on exotic specialties and immerse herself in diverse cultures. If she happens to be in San Francisco, she can generally be found either on her bike, eating sushi, drinking coffee in excess, dancing to the Smiths, or picking through scarves at a thrift store.