User experience designer, technical writer, librarian. Expect much random insanity.

Apologies for lack of new content these days. Still plugging away at things with project Naan Map, and I’m prepping to be a judge for this year’s STC competition. On a completely random note, the lapsed writer in me is working on an outline for a novel-length manuscript. Whether it’ll turn into something that’s publishable or a hot mess has yet to be seen.

Here’s a list of links I’ve found to be informative and inspirational as I try to segue into UX.

So you wanna be a user experience designer – Step 1 – resources

Starting a career in user experience design

Finding an IA job, idea #1: Practice

Hiring the next generation of interaction designers (video from Interaction ’09 featuring Jared Spool and others)

While not UX-related, this is a great article for those who struggle with networking, introverted or not:
Networking for introverts

When it comes to wireframes, I’ve had the tendency to create them directly with a program such as Visio or Balsamiq. But for the review submission wireframes I’m working on for Naan Map, I did sketches on paper first. Now I see why so many do it this way – it allows ideas to flow more freely and consider adding or changing things that would be difficult to do when using a program.

The two things I wish to improve on are making sketches as quickly as possible (since it’s good to have something to work with ASAP, and more than likely things are going to be changed anyway) and improving the quality of detail. Personally I am not satisfied with these, but we’ll see what the higher-ups think.

This is the first version of the review submission wireframe.

This may prove to be a little too bland, since it doesn’t give the reviewer much leeway as to what information they could add that may be useful to others.

Hence, version number two.

It has more details, but it may not cover all the bases.

The seventh session of Whit Hour this past Sunday was the absolute best so far (I’ll post a link as soon as she uploads the text and video.) It was inspiring and gave me much hope. As an introverted and shy person, it’s hard integrating into something new. I’ve been in libraries all my working years, but it’s no longer something I feel passion and enthusiasm for. When I discovered IA and in turn UX, I was unaware that there were people responsible for making websites – among other things – easy to use. I’ve certainly had my share of bad user experiences, so what’s not to love about an entire field dedicated to weeding these out?

In my efforts of taking very, very scary first steps, you may notice that this site can now be Googled. Whitney makes a good point that there’s no point in keeping things under wraps if you want to be a part of the UX community. Hence I have also made my tweets public.

For fellow introverts and shy people, check out Whitney’s slideshow. Listen to the audio for extra tips and ideas.

As I’m working on self-designed IA projects, I was mulling a bit over the overall process. While ultimately it’s better to have these in my portfolio than nothing at all, it bothers me since they’re really no substitute for real life experience. You’re not working with actual clients or with other IAs in person. I feel like I’m just shadow-fencing at the moment – I may be learning how to parry and thrust, but my full potential as a fighter is not being realized since I’m not learning from and testing myself against seasoned fencers.

Thinking at random, I’m not sure if this already exists, but if it does there aren’t any in my area:

Perhaps there could be full-day workshops for those who are new to IA/UX design and want to get started in the field. It would randomly assign 2 or 3 students with an experienced professional to collaborate and produce deliverables on a fictional project. This is something I would gladly pay for. It would give a new person experience with working with others, get a feel for the general process, and have something to put in their portfolio and on their resume. I think this would be much better than just creating wireframes and sitemaps in a vacuum.

The wireframe phase of Project Naan Map is complete! Now we’re going to be working on personas. This is new territory for me, so there will be much to learn. I’m scouring around for ideas, and may even post on IxDA to see how other people develop theirs.

Whitney Hess has an online chat session on Sunday nights, answering questions about IA. It’s really helped me, and I’ve recently gotten in touch with someone who’s willing to introduce me to some people in order to further my goal of getting into the IA door. This field has been a bottomless source of inspiration for me, and I also like its international focus. I’d give my left eye to be attending the upcoming IA conferences and conventions dotted over the globe. It’d be awesome to talk to IAs from other nations, see how they do things and what their thinking patterns are like.

End of rambling. Just needed to put up something new since it’s been nearly a month since the last update. And while juggling all this I’m still trying to design my own WP theme since this is clearly not cutting it.

It’s official – project NaanMap is underway!

Right now we’re in phase 1, deciding on search terms (what we’re calling a “verb list”) and developing wireframes for the home page, search results pages and details pages. Hopefully we can wrap this up around three weeks. I met up with my IA mentor for lunch today and he gave me great feedback and advice, bringing up things I previously hadn’t considered or had even overlooked. Among the things I want to remember:

The latter really hit home with me. After lunch, I had mentioned in passing that I’m considering getting a CrackBlackberry, and that I preferred it over an iPhone. He asked why; I said it’s because I don’t like touch screens (they’re too reminiscent of ATMs to me, and you can only imagine how much germs and what not are on those….) And he rightfully pointed out that that is not a valid reason. What is it specifically about touch screens that I don’t like? Personally, I have a hard time typing with them – for me the feel of actual keys is better, and I often make mistakes with touch screens (another reason why I don’t like to use ATMs unless absolutely necessary.)

This also had me thinking about other things when it comes to my personal preferences. I chose the PS3 over the 360 and Wii because I can handle the controller better. I like Stuart Weitzman shoes because he’s one of the few designers who realizes that women with wide width feet want pretty shoes to wear as well (I cannot fit into Jimmy Choos or Ferragamos, among others, and I’ve only encountered one pair of Manolo Blahniks that fit me…I own those, of course.)

Articulating why it’s best to place something here and not there, or using this instead of that…. These are things an IA needs to convey to clients to justify the decisions and subsequent changes they make. This is something I want to extend beyond IA. Doing this kind of gruntwork – almost like having a Socrates Café session – will not only help get the bills paid when it comes to one’s profession, but it’s a good thing to do in one’s life overall.

Here’s a great post by Whitney Hess about becoming a UX designer. I eagerly await part two! My main hurdle is just getting sufficient experience to get my foot in the door and compete for jobs.

My Visio trial expired today, but I feel I’ve fiddled around with it enough that I can use it effectively. If anything I regret not getting in enough practice on making my own shapes, simply so I can say I’ve made my own shapes. :) At this point it’s only natural to start working more with Balsamiq as well as the CS4 programs (Fireworks vs. Illustrator vs. InDesign – wonder which will prove to work best for wireframing as well as blueprints?) I’ll actually have time to experiment since this upcoming weekend is one of the few this summer I’ll have off.

Since I haven’t updated in what seems to be forever, now would be a good time. I have a Twitter account.

http://www.twitter.com/mortvia

I’m keeping the updates locked, but as long as I have an idea of who you are I’ll add you. Tweets are now open. Basically I’m using it to keep abreast in the IA field. I wasn’t aware that so many were using it this way until I was encouraged to join (I always thought Twitter was strictly for shooting the breeze with other people. Isn’t blogging sufficient?!)

Just stumbled across Dante Murphy’s blog that he plugged on PhillyCHI. I hope as many people as possible in the IA/UX field read this post and take it to heart. I guess it stings me a little since I’m dying to get a job as an IA. If only more people thought along these lines….

It would be awesome to have a hand in redesigning the website for my local library. I was speaking with the reference librarian recently, and she mentioned that it’s in need of an overhaul (and it really does – it looks like it was made with MS Frontpage circa 1995.) For now I’m suggesting ideas such as adding a navigation bar and a search box, and I hope to at least be able to produce a sitemap and wireframe. No word yet on who’ll be officially hired for the project.

Even if nothing of mine is used, this’ll be a worthwhile addition to my portfolio, which I am still piecing together.  I’ll be juggling this along with improving the CCPL site and creating a completely new practice site (the “if I had my own IA company, what would the site be like?” project.)