Refined by Fire

In response to an excellent article by Sharon Lee at ALA, “Human-to-Human Design“, I made comments. I thought it would make a good blog post too. I’m still fleshing these thoughts out. So, any feedback would be helpful.

As a user experience designer to some interesting and large projects, I’ve had to advocate the persons on “the other side of the screen” numerous times. Much of the time to the humbling response of something along the lines of “well, because of the business goals…” [insert objection here].

It seems we ‚Äì as the craftspeople in this industry ‚Äì are in the position to take this type of stand for the humans who must use our clients’ [insert service here.]

In fact, this weekend, I’ve started a process in myself to stoke some emotionality for the “user” and move away from two heavily used terms that I think are actually hindering us from totally empathizing with our audience and creating the best experiences imaginable.

Continue reading Craft of the {human} Experience

Ack. Fffft. {brushing off Wordpress interface… dust billows through the air}

Wow. How’s that for a slight hiatus. 9 mos or something?? Not that very many were following along with the whereabouts and whathappenings of me, but I’m looking to get this domain back inline. After doing some research recently and some soul searching (plus busting my tail off doing the NYC commute everyday now!), it’s apparent to me this blog was suffering from a lack direction; a lack of focus. So, I’m going to see just what I can do about that.
Continue reading Caugh! Caugh! Hack! Hack!

Okay. So, I’ve finally done it. I’ve got some visuals on display in My Work. Granted, it’s not the most professional presentation, but I’m getting there. I don’t like using the over-used Lightbox, and I REALLY don’t like that I can’t properly use it by grouping related pictures together. I cannot wait until I rebuild my own theme so I don’t futz around with other people’s code. It’s getting there, though. :-)

Well, here it is. I’ve finally got my new layout up and mostly working. (Sorry, not completed with IE fixes) The thing of it is, the majority of the time spent on it was battling K2. With all the complexities of the theme, I feel a lot was wasted. It was an excellent learning experiece, though. It really opened up the possibilities of WordPress to me. I’ll probably go back and start from scratch with my own theme next. Plus, I’ve got a bunch of new design ideas to break away from the typical horiz. nav bar sidebar and fat footer. I also need to get my portfolio done. Still trying to figure out how to approach that… Oh yeah, I also want to pretty up the forms a bit.

Well, bit by bit…step by step. Perhaps I’ll shoot for the Fall CSSReboot.

Hey Everyone, I know it’s been awhile since I’ve made a post. Things have been super busy. It’s good, but as you can see, I haven’t made a post in almost two months… that’s not good. :-) Partly it’s because my WP editor gives me grief. Now, I’m using ecto and I find that same excitement of creating content for my blog as when I first started… well second-started ;-)

Work on BlueFlame CreativeGroup has been plugging away. We’ve nailed down a logo. Leave any feedback. Our first client, Artisans Design Co., among many other interior crafting services, creates beautiful masterpieces of Italian plastery for high-end interior design. We’re still working on their site, but it’s coming along. There are few other projects under wraps right now, and I’ll be posting about those when the time is right.
Continue reading No, I Didn’t Fall Off the Face of Creation