About Me

Professional Goals

• Career in User Experience
I recently wrapped up an graduate associateship in User Experience with Disney Animation Studios. I would like to continue this professional trend with other organizations.
• Work with a diverse creative team
Diversity in all aspects (discipline, culture, approach) leads to a superior end-product.

Design Philosophy

• Focus on the user
Positive user experience should be the key driver for a project, not the technology supporting it.
• Do one thing and do it well
Understanding on the 'core' of a design frees the designer from concentrating on features. Features should be window dressing for an outstanding core design.
• Keep it Simple
I write down everything I want to do in a project, then I cut it in half. Priorities can quickly be realized after scope is cut to the critical path.
• Iterate, iterate, iterate
Never fall in love with a design, always be re-imagining.
• Computer Imagination
Computer Imagination involves understanding a technology inside and out to maximize its potential. Computer Imagination can mean the difference between a mediocre product and exceptional.

Background

• I was a Consultant for three years
It was sweet and sour, but I learned a lot about working with people.
• I am a tinkerer
I love to take things apart and examine them, software or hardware. I've explored a variety of technologies to understand how they might be applicable to my work. I always find something valuable in this extremely nerdy process.
• I prototype
I believe strongly in prototyping using as close a medium as possible to the final developed product. Paper prototypes and simple mockups work for initial tests, but to truly understand how a user will interact with a system, there is no substitution for a functional prototype.

Why I love Interaction Design and User Experience... a quick story

When I began my career I was tasked with the ostensibly 'not-so-fun job' of creating an electronic version of HIV tracking forms nurses were using to report disease information at hospitals. The nurses would manually enter form details using a pen, fax the sheet to the City of Chicago, and the information would be re-entered into computers there.

When the City wanted to change these forms to an electronic version the nurses fought back. Most were not used to working with computers and felt uncomfortable with a web form, preferring a COBOL mainframe entry or paper/fax instead. This eventually became a major conflict between the City and the hospitals: the City wanting to modernize to web, the hospitals wanting to stick with the tried-and-true method.

I took this conflict into account when designing the forms. Instead of creating a strictly web-enabled form, I created a PDF version which could either be submitted electronically with one click or faxed into City offices. The form used the same tabbing feature as COBOL interfaces; hitting TAB would iterate between entry cells. The result was an adoption of the forms by the nurses, and a general end to the form conflict.

I love Interaction Design because it centers around the user, not the technology, as the mechanism for change. Making the users job/life easier translates into a successful project.