Meet the Team

InContext teams consist of two to four core people fully dedicated to a project. The core team is trained and experienced in all aspects of Contextual Design. In addition, Karen Holtzblatt and Hugh Beyer, the co-founders of Contextual Design and InContext, oversee the work of each team.

The InContext teams have used customer-centered design to solve problems across a wide range of industries, producing data characterizing the target population, personas, product and system concepts, detailed designs tested with users, and visual design specs.

Every team works closely with the customer to tailor the process and the solution to the specific business challenge, resources, budget, and time frame.

Our business growth has provided us with the opportunity to expand and staff our team members around the US. We now have staff in New York City, NY, San Francisco, CA, Chicago, IL and Seattle, WA. In these locations we can now staff projects with local talent and resources. The Seattle and SF team is primarily focused on our West Coast clients and the Chicago teams are working with our Mid-west clients. This gives us the opportunity to have a more intimate relationship with local companies we do business with while still providing the same high quality Contextual Design deliverables we always provide our clients.

We have opened a new satellite office in Chicago, IL. Find the address and details in ‘contact us’.

Managment Team Biographies

David Rondeau, Design Chair

David has over 12 years of design experience that spans disciplines (graphic, visual interface, user interaction, and user experience) as well as media (print, multimedia, software, and web). Since 2001, he has served as the Design Chair at InContext, overseeing designs produced at the company, in addition to being the Lead Interface Designer on many projects.

He has gathered and analyzed customer data to create design solutions across a wide variety of projects, including: enterprise portals, websites, collaboration environments for distributed teams, financial reporting tools, information environments, web publishing workflow support, video editing tools, and new approaches to online learning. He also developed designs for products created at InContext: CDTools™ — a Windows-based application that supports the Contextual Design process — and mSports — a mobile phone application for real-time information about sports games.

Prior to joining InContext, David was a Senior Multimedia Designer at SilverPlatter Education, Inc., where he designed and developed award-winning products for medical education. He holds a B.F.A. in Graphic Design from the University of Lowell, MA.

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Eli Wylen, Delivery Manager and Project Manager

Eli draws upon broad experience with the timely delivery of software systems to drive the processes behind Contextual Design. He has managed small and large engineering teams in the creation of web-based applications, back office systems, database applications, consumer shrink wrap software and middleware. Eli ensures that InContext’s projects are well managed, meet client’s expectations and are delivered on time and at budget.

Eli has provided solutions as a team manager, a project manager, and a developer in multiple markets including Publishing, Healthcare, eCommerce, Marketing, Computing Systems, and Storage. He has led the creation of repeatable, reliable processes at companies such as Iron Mountain, Upromise, Sun Microsystems, and a variety of startup companies where entrepreneurship required speed and flexibility.

Eli holds B.S. degrees in Computer Science and in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Kelley Wagg, Director of Marketing and Project Manager

Kelley brings over 22 years of experience in marketing and business analysis including product management, system requirements definition, competitive analysis, and go-to-market strategies. He has worked in the high technology field with both hardware and software companies, bringing customer knowledge into the organization and applying that understanding to product development and business strategies.

Kelley's experience gathering and analyzing customer data spans large and small software and hardware projects encompassing cross-functional teams. His experience covers many industries, such as high technology, manufacturing, insurance, legal, and consumer.

Kelley joined InContext in 2007 after previously working as a contractor on numerous projects with the InContext team in 2005 and 2006. He previously spent 20 years working at Hewlett-Packard, where he was a marketing manager and business analyst, and where he also used Contextual Design on a variety of projects. Kelley holds a M.S. in Computer Science from Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H.

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Larry Marturano, Business Manager and Project Manager - Chicago Office

Larry brings both a passion for Contextual Design and a rich multi-disciplinary skillset to his work at InContext, built upon over twenty years of user-centered design and technology development in the communications industry. Larry applies his project management, user-centered design and technical skills in matching clients’ strategic needs with InContext’s innovative coaching and design services, fostering new and existing client relationships, as well as leading individual Contextual Design projects.

Prior to joining InContext, Larry spent twenty years at Motorola Labs, where he participated in and led numerous technology research and development projects, spanning consumer cellular telephony, cable and IP television applications and services, public safety and government wireless communications, and most recently, ubiquitous social computing. While at Motorola, he led the successful commercialization of research application and service concepts in these areas, matching emerging technologies with the future strategic needs of Motorola’s businesses and shepherding technology transfer across organizational boundaries. He played a key role in introducing user- centered design methods into Motorola Labs’ strategic technology research, leading to the systematic adoption of Contextual Design and other user-centered methods in future technology ideation and research.

Larry holds a Ph. D. from Northwestern University, and M.S. and B.S. degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, all in electrical engineering. He holds four U.S. patents.

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Nancy Fike, Project Manager

Nancy has over 20 years of experience in the software industry. She joined InContext in 2001 to work on tool development, supporting the design teams. In 2003, Nancy became a member of the design teams, using her project-leading skills and Contextual Design techniques to complete client design projects. In addition, she has worked on a variety of projects including designing systems, processes, tools, and websites, where her highly technical background is an asset. She continues to develop and support CDTools.

Prior to joining InContext, Nancy worked at AT&T/Lucent Technologies for 18 years. While there, her primary work was leading teams responsible for the design, development, and support of software tools for engineering switching systems. She left as a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff with Bell Labs.

Nancy holds a M.S. in Computer Science and a B.S. in Social Welfare from the University of Illinois in Urbana, IL, and a B.S. in Computer Science from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL.

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Shelley Wood, Senior CD Coach and Training Services Manager

Shelley brings a breadth of business, design, training, and Contextual Design expertise to projects, with more than 15 years of experience in the high technology industry. One of her primary responsibilities at InContext is to provide side-by-side coaching and training for client teams as they use Contextual Design for their projects, products, and deliverables. Shelley also participates as a project leader on design projects.

Shelley has worked with a wide range of industries and systems, including: insurance; financial management; professional information; publishing; medical devices and applications; supply chain management; customer relationship management; school communications; online learning; commercial real estate management; and ERP systems.

Prior to joining InContext in 2000, Shelley held senior management positions in product management, product development, business development, and training. She is a co-author for Rapid Contextual Design and holds a B.S. in Political Science from the University of California, Davis.

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