A blog about User Experience Design with a dash of Technical Writing. Expect much random insanity.

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.)

A tad late with this entry, but I have to say how much I enjoyed Bill Buxton’s lecture. It left me with much food for thought. Among other things, I learned:

Products encompass individual, social and cultural experiences. A design falls flat if it doesn’t.

Humans tend to act like lemmings; hence multiple similar products.

Don’t be a one-dimensional designer – collect things and be observant.

All this from a guy who spent ten years looking for a Casio watch with a calculator. Ten years. I really can’t complain that I’m still looking for my holy grail doll for nearly two years.

In addition to the awesome talk, I got to chat with some wonderful ladies who are also on the learning path towards understanding usability better. Because of this I am once again eyeing the bandwagon known as LinkedIn that I’ve been avoiding all this time. But wouldn’t joining make me one of the lemmings Buxton was talking about?

In completely unrelated news, I’ve switched the colors of the background and text. Hopefully this will make the site more readable for the majority.

Hopefully I won’t run out of ammunition just yet. I’m really looking forward to the Bill Buxton lecture at Princeton. Glad to have an excuse to hang out on Nassau Street! I haven’t been to Micawber Books since it became Labyrinth, and I may very well pick up a volume or two when I’m there.  And there will be plenty of people to be met (this is one of the very rare instances where I’m willing to set aside my anthropophobia.) But I’m in dire need of advice and guidance as to how to break into IA/IxD/whatever they want to call it now since there’s been so much  over it on the mailing lists as of late. I’m learning the programs commonly used in the field and of course have set up this website to practice on, but I know I need to do more. 

Of course, the current economic fallout leaves no room for novices – every job posting has been for senior level positions that require years of experience. While some have encouraged me to send my resume to them, it’s gotten to the point where I don’t even expect to hear from them again (the “throw crap on the wall and see what sticks” approach.) Applying for a job is no different than buying a lottery ticket these days. Admittedly I am in a more fortunate position than many in that I am merely underemployed at the moment, but it’s barely enough to keep me out of the red. I can’t even rejoice over the tax refund I’ll be getting shortly since it’s just going to go up in smoke as soon as it’s deposited. Damn you money and your necessary evilness!