Yay for me! I started today as the User Interface Developer for DotNetNuke Corporation today – a small company managing a Web Content Management Server application also called DotNetNuke (DNN) written for ASP.NET and SQL Server. There’s a marked similarity to NCompass Labs in its early days, so I kind of feel like I’m going back to my roots (I started at NCompass as a "Demo Programmer" writing "smoke and mirrors UI" code in VB which sat on top of the alpha-product code and emulated the planned behaviour to be used at Trade Shows and to attract Investor interest.
DNN is actually an open source project and there is a basic version of the software available for download free of charge and it can be installed against Microsoft SQL Server Express which is also a free download. The Professional version of the software has a subscription cost associated with it (which is what "monetizes" DNN) and provides customers with full technical support, end user and administrator documentation, and several features that are unavailable to the free version.
Because the product is open source its evolution has mainly been dominated by the predilections and preferences of developers and therefore had only a minimum of focus on usability and interaction design. DNN Corp was looking for someone with skills as a user experience designer and a front-end developer – that is, someone with the background to provide design requirements and user centered design processes to the product while also being able to produce shippable UI code based on these designs. So, my new role will actually be split between User Experience design and Front-End Development and this has me really excited because it means making full use of the development skills I renewed by earning my Programmer Analyst/Web Developer Diploma (with Honours!) last year.
I’m pretty excited – my first day went quite well – and I’m certainly looking forward to tomorrow and beyond.
:-j(enni)
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Looking for UX work again...
Yes, I’m back on the job hunter trail again. My previous employer was a start up and they have used up too much of their funding before getting to a point where new investors could be attracted. So they laid off the entire development team on Dec 21, 2009, ostensibly for a “6 week development break” – they have a plan to attract new investment with the existing product and then re-hire the dev team Feb 1, 2010.
Unfortunately, I have my doubts about them being able to land more investment under the circumstances – there are too many issues with the product, mostly due to a lack of adequate design and development processes resulting from the dev team being given extremely short, date driven deadlines with an excessively large feature scope expectation. In fact, although I was hired as a Usability Manager, the time given was so tight I found myself being a glorified interaction designer, with no opportunity to develop UX requirements documents or do appropriate user research to base my work on.
Anyway, I don’t think I’m going back even if they do find more investors – after some offline conversations with the CEO it seems we have a difference of opinion about what a Usability Manager should be doing. It seems he wants someone who can show him a “Usability Vision” for the product. I’m not entirely sure what he meant by that, but it is presumably a complete vision of how the application should look and how the interaction should flow, but before there has been any chance to obtain stakeholder consensus or do any user research. :P
sigh. Such an unsatisfactory situation. For the health of my career I guess I should just wash my hands of them.
If there's anyone out there seeking someone for an upper level, hands on role (i.e., not management alone) in user experience design or an intermediate level role in web, multimedia or game design and/or front-end development, please let me know! I’m particularly interested in permanent positions but will consider contracts of 3 months or longer, especially if they are contract-to-hire.
:-j(enni)
Unfortunately, I have my doubts about them being able to land more investment under the circumstances – there are too many issues with the product, mostly due to a lack of adequate design and development processes resulting from the dev team being given extremely short, date driven deadlines with an excessively large feature scope expectation. In fact, although I was hired as a Usability Manager, the time given was so tight I found myself being a glorified interaction designer, with no opportunity to develop UX requirements documents or do appropriate user research to base my work on.
Anyway, I don’t think I’m going back even if they do find more investors – after some offline conversations with the CEO it seems we have a difference of opinion about what a Usability Manager should be doing. It seems he wants someone who can show him a “Usability Vision” for the product. I’m not entirely sure what he meant by that, but it is presumably a complete vision of how the application should look and how the interaction should flow, but before there has been any chance to obtain stakeholder consensus or do any user research. :P
sigh. Such an unsatisfactory situation. For the health of my career I guess I should just wash my hands of them.
If there's anyone out there seeking someone for an upper level, hands on role (i.e., not management alone) in user experience design or an intermediate level role in web, multimedia or game design and/or front-end development, please let me know! I’m particularly interested in permanent positions but will consider contracts of 3 months or longer, especially if they are contract-to-hire.
:-j(enni)
Monday, November 16, 2009
The Galaxy of Social Media
Having recently started to work in the social media industry I realized I didn’t actually know all that much about it.
Up until now I primarily associated the term “social media” with community sites like My Space and Facebook, blogging sites like Blogger and LiveJournal video sharing sites like YouTube and microblogging sites like Twitter. However, I have quite quickly come to realize that the term encompasses a lot more than just that.
At its core “social media” is any service or application that allows users to create or collect content with the intent of sharing it with others. Which means that this descriptor can also be applied to content reputation sites like digg, link collection sites like delicious, and even wiki sites like Wikipedia and TV Tropes.
As it is, I wasn’t particularly prolific on the social media I was already familiar with, and (perversely) this has dropped further due to this (wonderful!) new social media related job taking up my time. However, it occurs to me that I need to fix this – in fact, participating in different types of social media should almost be a mandate of my job!
So, it looks like I have a lot more learning, posting, blogging, linking and editing to do.
To facilitate this learning I've decided that the best approach for me will be to do some user experience focused reviews of the various “social media” sites out there and post them to this blog. Keep your eyes peeled – I’ll try to have the first one up in a week or so.
Jenni
PS: For those who may be interested: a few of the social media accounts I maintain for my “professional” persona:
-J
Up until now I primarily associated the term “social media” with community sites like My Space and Facebook, blogging sites like Blogger and LiveJournal video sharing sites like YouTube and microblogging sites like Twitter. However, I have quite quickly come to realize that the term encompasses a lot more than just that.
At its core “social media” is any service or application that allows users to create or collect content with the intent of sharing it with others. Which means that this descriptor can also be applied to content reputation sites like digg, link collection sites like delicious, and even wiki sites like Wikipedia and TV Tropes.
As it is, I wasn’t particularly prolific on the social media I was already familiar with, and (perversely) this has dropped further due to this (wonderful!) new social media related job taking up my time. However, it occurs to me that I need to fix this – in fact, participating in different types of social media should almost be a mandate of my job!
So, it looks like I have a lot more learning, posting, blogging, linking and editing to do.
To facilitate this learning I've decided that the best approach for me will be to do some user experience focused reviews of the various “social media” sites out there and post them to this blog. Keep your eyes peeled – I’ll try to have the first one up in a week or so.
Jenni
PS: For those who may be interested: a few of the social media accounts I maintain for my “professional” persona:
-J
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Hello and Welcome
Well hello and welcome!
An eon ago in internet time (>4 years), when I was working in the Windows Security group at Microsoft, I maintained a "professional" blog on Technet (strawberryJAMM's Security and User Experience WebLog). I essentially abandoned it when I left Microsoft and the Security field in the winter of 2005 and, for a variety of reasons, never felt the desire to start a new one. But now, four years of personal and professional turbulence later, I've reached a place where the idea of collecting and distributing information related to my field of experience has once again become attractive, so here I am.
I've just taken on a new position as the Usability Manager for a start-up in the social media space (more about that in a later post). We are developing a new service that I'm really very excited about and it is this, more than anything, that has reignited my desire to share my thoughts about user experience design in general and within the context of my work.
So once again I say, Welcome! And if you stick around for a bit and offer a comment here and there maybe we'll learn something from each other.
Jenni
An eon ago in internet time (>4 years), when I was working in the Windows Security group at Microsoft, I maintained a "professional" blog on Technet (strawberryJAMM's Security and User Experience WebLog). I essentially abandoned it when I left Microsoft and the Security field in the winter of 2005 and, for a variety of reasons, never felt the desire to start a new one. But now, four years of personal and professional turbulence later, I've reached a place where the idea of collecting and distributing information related to my field of experience has once again become attractive, so here I am.
I've just taken on a new position as the Usability Manager for a start-up in the social media space (more about that in a later post). We are developing a new service that I'm really very excited about and it is this, more than anything, that has reignited my desire to share my thoughts about user experience design in general and within the context of my work.
So once again I say, Welcome! And if you stick around for a bit and offer a comment here and there maybe we'll learn something from each other.
Jenni
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