Back to blogging

It has been more than a year since I have spent time on my blog.  Honestly, I have been so busy at my job I have had no energy to spend on my own work. I have spend the past year and one half designing the user interface for enterprise social networking software. Yes, basically this software mimics the web, but can be used for government, education and business applications. I consider this software the Swiss army knife of social networking software. All in one, Wikis, blogs, photo galleries, file archiving, discussions, chat, teaming, email, presence, personal profiles and the list goes on….

This has been the most challenging project I have had in my career.  I spent countless hours researching social networking applications on the web and tried to meld the look and feel into software which was previously designed.

I quickly became passionate about this software application. I was surrounded by amazing people who worked years on this software evolving it to the point where it was purchased by a much larger company. It is with this acquisition where my passion ends and I am now looking forward to the next project.

I learned a great deal, most amazingly, I have learned to once again not to get too attached or too passionate. All it takes is one business decision…and you are back on the job boards looking for work again.  The product has been moved across the country to be developed by a new team.  And I am left to scratch my head wondering why I did not choose hairdressing for my career.

Web 2.0

What is Web 2.0? Another one of those terms we can sling around as egotistical technologists. Mcgiver of the web. While looking for a new gig I have been exposed to lots of job descriptions which require knowledge of Web 2.0. I do know this for sure, my web site does not qualify for this status, does not validate! Reason being I would need to fullfill 51 rules at least and as far as I know I have only three.

Web 2.0 Compliance – Just to mention a few
RSS Feed. Podcast, XML Compliant, Use of CSS styles, Cloud Tags, Inline Ajax, Google Maps API, Refers to Flickr, Mentions VC, Appears to be built on Ruby on Rails, Uses Zope, Has cool words, Has a Blogroll, Refers to del.icio.us, References Firefox, Preaches Simplicity, Uses the Blink Tag!

Remember less is more!

Mind Mapping and UI Architecture

Driving along the highway today I was thinking about mapping. I am one of those drivers that needs a visual picture of how to get from here to there. Directions are fine under one condition, I am given visual cues. I use map quest, I look at the map, look at the mileage and get directions from a human who can give me visual cues. Forget the linear directions, they do not compute. I can follow the directions, but I make more mistakes, get insecure and doubt myself at every passing mile. I use mind-mapping. If I am lucky enough to have a map, compass and visual cues I can easily follow linear directions. So I did a little research, I looked up mind-mapping. Mind mapping is how I think, in fact, mind mapping is how I develop UI architecture, but I map backwards.

While reading “The Web Designers Guide to Web Applications” by Hagan and David Rivers I was amazed by the simplicity of the methods suggested, this method resembles mind mapping, but instead one uses tasks. Task-mapping.

Of course this is the method I use, but I never really put a method to the way I think, I was in my mind being logical. Undoing the linear and reformatting or re-mapping the logic to the way a user may think or work. The components we need to give our users when developing web applications are simplistic – a good map- clear directions as to how one will navigate, visual cues, a beginning and an end – distance (how many steps) – organization of tasks.

Periodic Table of Rejected Elements – Icon Design

CreativePro.com is one of my favorite Email newsletters. In fact, I think this is the only newsletter that does not get sent to trash. This week Terri Stone wrote an article about Adobe’s new icons for CS3. Immediately, I visualized that periodical chart hanging on the wall, in my chemistry class in High School. I am not liking these icons, I cannot see the logic.

I have always upheld Adobe, Macromedia and Mac OS as the best in software usability. Using these products since their inception has spoiled me. Truly, they knew their users, they understood the logic of a creative. The most important rule of UI to me is understanding the USERS. The second rule is NO memorization. Memorizing letters – ouch! This is why I probably why I so disliked chemistry, I had to memorize that damn periodic table. I could easily understand the properties of each element. In fact, if the periodic table contained pictorial icons, I would have probably loved chemistry.

So what is wrong with the butterfly, the pink flower, the feather, the green thing-a-m-jig, the yellow thingy and all those lovely desktops icons I recognize, these are like faces. So faces grow old, why not the icons.

OK, now my desktop tray is going to look like a science project.

Exploding Heads

This week I thought I’d add a little humor to my friends Lyndsay’s day. She recently started a job as a UI designer at Keane Associates in Cambridge. She came from the advertising industry. She and I have been friends and colleagues since we met at The Image Factory. I love Lyndsay’s design style, but what I most respect about her is that she like me is a an artist-geek. We speak the same language and it is comforting to know that I have a friend here in the middle of nowhere who has some sort of understanding of what I love to do.

I am so excited for Lyndsay, she moved to the city and she has realized her dreams. Taking the big step from Web Designer for an Agency to UI Designer for Web Applications is quite ambitious and it takes a lot of brain power to handle the intensity of such a culture shock. So each day I would call her in the evening and ask about her day. Each day she would say, information overload, this is so much to learn, my head is going to explode. Now what is quite freaky, is that this is an actual phenomenon. And yes, I quite agree that there have been times where I have listened to members of my team, trying to teach me some complex transaction, speaking in acronyms, where literally, my brain goes into overload. It has become so serious at time, that my head pounds, and I feel like I am completely dehydrated. Oh no, not of liquid, dehydrated of reasoning, I just cannot think for another second, feeling like my head is just going to explode. So I was completely sympathetic to her plight.

This plight makes me think of a bobble head. Glazed look comes over your face, your head nods with each pause, too weak to even speak a word from your lips. But the best part of this is I usuallly have a long commute to re-sort my day and reorganize the thoughts in my hea d. Or there are many days I just decide to go into the zone and listen to the radio instead, requiring passive listening, the best medicine for the exploding head syndrome.

The cobbler’s children don’t have shoes…

….And this UI designer struggles to create personal web site.

Now I am distracted by the new political face.

What do you suppose the cobbler was distracted by?

Engineering and the Artist

OR…The Beauty and the Beast. Somehow, I managed to stray off the career path of graphic design and veered left into the world of web application engineering. There are days I feel quite at home, but then there are moments where I just shake my head in disbelief. I have spent hours analyizing why I enjoy designing UI for web applications. I consider myself a design engineer based on the psychoanalysts, yet I have the ability to understand the creations of the left-brainers. I want to eliminate the complexity of everyday processes and make everything around me attractive, orderly and easy. I have this need to fix what the software developers and engineers create….simplify….organize….and make it presentable and usable! I have the upmost respect for the complication and difficulty of backend programming and the talent and skill it takes to design software and program complex data models to work smoothly, without error. It is so important that the artists, engineers, and users unite to create the BEST possible products.

In 2001 while working as a UI consultant for Coriva Inc. I found myself designing interfaces for applications while all my peers were designing creative web sites that blinked, flashed, and were promising great stock options. Yet, I found my passion in the most unlikely place, designing a mutual fund table for a financial institution for weeks. Then the dot.com bust. burst my addiction. and it took a few more years for this dicipline to float to the top of the heap, for another round. I am so excited about the opportunities ahead.

Well, I have not met too many people who have the same skill set. The few Artist-Geeks I have met, have me gasping for air, validating that I am not the only artist-geek on the planet. Please contribute to my blog and give me validation that the world I exist in is not so small.

I hope to share with you my insights as a designer working in the world of engineering as well as, ideas, techniques, and technology.