Michael Keara's Bio
A Passion for Innovation and Communication
Michael (Micha) Keara has a long track record of developing innovative solutions and helping technology be more useful, productive and better understood by non-technical people. As a User Interface Systems Architect, who combines a background in Fine Arts with over 20 years of experience as a software developer, his key passions are for creative problem solving based on solid technical understanding and communicating this knowledge to benefit others.
Innovation and communication have always been the signature of Keara’s multifaceted career. As an artist and art center administrator, Keara was the founder of the SAW Video Co-op in Ottawa and staged a 1981 cross-Canada tour (featuring New York artist Willoughby Sharp and Ottawa poet Mark Frutkin) and a satellite broadcast (featuring a video interview of Dr Robert Arn, produced by E. Jane Northey) designed to educate Canadians about the impact of the coming revolution of satellite communications. In 1982 he organized the communication technology and logistics for the Canadian side of the first Trans-Atlantic satellite video art performance (featuring Kitchen Sync Productions) between the Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa and the Pompidou Center in Paris.
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His work with computer graphics began with the creation of an advanced ‘paint’ system that was capable of integrating high resolution raster images with a vector data based control system. The paint system produced images that were 4000 x 3000 pixels (almost unheard of for PCs in 1988) and used vector data created in Autocad to drive shape rendering and a special technique for 'algorithmic brushes' which simulated natural media. Keara used this software as the backbone of his architectural imaging service bureau. In 1990 Keara developed a script parsing component that allowed him to use the paint system to create raster images, in this naturalistic style, almost entirely from vector information. This system was used to produce dozens of renderings for 2 editions of the book 'Great Golf Courses of Canada' published by Summerhill Press.
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From there he joined the team at Corel Corporation where he created various special effects for CorelDraw, designing and developing key features such as dynamic blends, PowerLines and PowerClips. Along with current TUAG team member, Tom Hoferek, Michael Keara pioneered a radically new production-oriented user interface system for non-experts with the design of Corel Printhouse. Further work at Corel included the creation of a script driven, multi-media presentation engine that anticipated many of the animation features of Flash several years before Flash came onto the scene. Keara used an object oriented programming language (C++) to build a content authoring and presentation system that was designed to help cut down the production costs of multi-media CD-Rom titles which were often prohibitively expensive in the 1990's. This pilot project was titled "The Art of Playboy" and featured hundreds of artworks from the Playboy collection that were published in the magazine over its first 40 years. As a key part of this system, Keara developed an Information Architecture strategy that he called 'overloaded content' to make the CD educational, entertaining and fun to use with minimal interaction cost.
In the mid-1990’s Michael Keara began to focus primarily on user interface systems. Overhauling the UI for CorelDraw 6 (for Windows 95), creating the design paradigm for PrintHouse and refactoring the user interface design for CorelVentura 8 (along with Dave Williams) all served to whet his appetite for designing integrated user interface systems. As an independent consultant and as a User Interface Systems Architect for start ups such as TeleVitesses and March Networks, Keara has designed both simplified consumer level applications as well as complex, multi-product solutions for call centers, networked video appliances and video-based investigation systems.
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Michael does not shy away from technological challenges that may present themselves on the road to better designs for user interface systems. Turning his focus to web based solutions in 2006, Michael Keara learned the PHP web server programming language by building a custom content management system. He then turned to the Drupal open source platform because of its power and flexibility. Designing and building Drupal based web applications, Keara once again brought his technical and creative skills to devise innovative solutions that have a positive impact on the user experience for clients such as The Ottawa Public Library, POV Magazine and Youth Science Ontario.
Having spent over 20 years focusing on understanding the needs of users and with extensive practical experience in various technologies, Michael Keara is oriented towards not only helping clients produce more powerful user experiences for their applications, but also sharing his thoughts and ideas with all who care about the meaning and impact of technology and design.
