Talented people working together on your web solutions
FAST Consulting is a member of the East Coast Consultants web design and usability coalition. Our members can help you with nearly everything: from showing you how to use your software to designing and testing your database-driven web application.
Together, we have track records in biomedical websites and devices, international information databases, non-profit membership and information systems, telecommunications, online catalogs, web and mobile storefronts, and more.
We've also done usability testing, both in-lab and remote unmoderated, as well as project management, business-systems consulting, graphical design, and interface design.
Each member has an extensive network of his or her own, so if you don't see your area listed on this page, just ask--we'll be able to draw in someone with the right expertise.
No unnecessary overhead
A project has enough internal overhead without your contractor adding more.
FAST Consulting adds neither time nor financial overhead to your projects. If you just need mentoring, you can work directly with one of our mentors. If you need help with a major project, FAST Consulting can manage it and subcontract with the other members for you. Or if another member would be the better lead, he or she will manage the project.
Contact us
Please send requests for proposals (RFPs) to
or, for a free half-hour consultation from FAST Consulting, call us at 718 720-1169.
Members
Skills & Expertise
Biographies
Jim Bradford, Ph.D.
Usability Testing
Requirements
Specifications
Teaching
Dr. Bradford was the founding dean of the College of Information Technology at Georgia Southern University and, as of Fall 2008, a full professor of computer science. He teaches human factors and usability at both the graduate and undergraduate levels at Georgia Southern.
He has written user requirements specifications for the Canadian Post Office and user interface design for Bell-Northern Research. See Jim Bradford - Mini Bio for details.
From May 2006 to April 2007, Susan Fowler was an analyst for Keynote Systems, Inc., which offers remote unmoderated user-experience testing.
She is currently a consultant at FAST Consulting, the sole proprietor of Fast Smart Web Design, and an editorial board member of User Experience magazine.
With Victor Stanwick, she is an author of the Web Application Design Handbook (Morgan Kaufmann Publishers), and two other interface design books.
Creates point-of-sale (POS) systems including hardware, software, training and maintenance
Runs intelligent automated telephone ordering systems
Does off-site data protection
Creates integrated multi-channel solutions and mobile device management including BlackBerry’s and PDAs.
We also serve the hospitality industry (cafes, restaurants, bars, clubs).
Chris Koster
Usability Testing
Information Architect
Facilitation
Podcasting
Telecommunications
Chris Koster is a researcher, workshop facilitator, and writer. He is currently managing editor of User Experience magazine.
Chris has over 25 years of experience as a user-experience professional, most of it at Bell Laboratories creating the software used to route phone calls, monitor networks, create directories, and otherwise make the voice, data and wireless network services work reliably and efficiently.
Chris specializes in information architecture, user experience design and usability testing.
Norbert Elliot, Ph.D.
Statistical Analysis
Teaching
Dr. Elliot is a specialist in the statistical analysis of written communication, a researcher,
and a
professor of English in the Department of
Humanities at
the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Hoboken,
NJ.
One of his research areas is testing the efficacy,
using student portfolios, of literacy teaching methods.
Alice Preston is a user experience specialist with extensive experience in large, small, and nonprofit companies. Alice is especially interested in how technology can provide good solutions for those with special needs, whether cultural and language differences, physical or mental access challenges, or access challenges stemming from equipment and bandwidth difficulties.
Most recently, Alice has been part of a project digitizing and presenting large amounts of research material about Africa, on a Web-based application suitable for low-bandwidth situations (see http://www.aluka.org).
Ramona Ramadas
Usability Testing
Medical System Analysis & Design
Ramona Ramadas is a registered nurse with over 14 years of program management, product management and usability experience. She has worked in California, Washington and New York for dotcoms, dotbombs and large corporations including Microsoft. Ramona recently completed nursing school, earning a BSN and a number of large student loans. She is pursuing more student loans and higher education in Nursing Informatics.
Ramona currently works as an RN for a community mental health agency where she is often able to combine her passion for helping others and her passion for technology.
Maria Santeramo
Project Management
Information Technology and Business Consulting
Software Mentoring
Maria Santeramo is a project manager and workshop facilitator.
She is a senior information technology professional with experience supporting human resources, finance, legal, public relations and operational risk, and other corporate systems. A 20-year consultant and project manager for Keyspan, she has planned, organized, analyzed and implemented appropriate solutions in support of strategic goals.
Mary Smith
Usability Testing
Digital rights Management
Telecommunications
Mary R. Smith is a researcher, workshop facilitator, and writer.
Mary provides consumer interface analyses of ‘black box’ products that are unsupported by documentation or staff. Mary has consulted on digital-rights management, teleconferencing, automatic speech recognition, interactive-voice-response systems, monitoring systems, inventory systems, and geographical information systems, among others.
Victor Stanwick
Graphic Design
Web Design
Cartoons
Mortgage Applications
Victor Stanwick was born, quite accidentally, into genteel poverty along the shores of the East River in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, sometime in the middle of the last century. He was raised in an atmosphere of benevolent violence and readily adopted mayhem as a personal code of conduct. Victor attended school sporadically throughout the last half of the previous century and still cannot spell worth a dingo's kidneys. Victor acquired his extensive knowledge of graphics and design through innuendo and conversations in bars and has parlayed his talents into a successful business career by marrying wisely.
Victor helped start a small software company about ten years ago that was recently acquired by IBM (much to IBM's dismay). Victor currently sits in an office paid for by IBM and does little if anything to uphold the great traditions of hard work and diligence so vital to the corporate identity IBM has strived so long to achieve.
