Jessica Ivins :: User Experience Architect / Web Designer
News & Thoughts
June 4th, 2008
Good news: I was recently promoted to the position of User Experience Architect (UXA). I was originally hired as an Associate UXA, a junior position. The promotion brings with it a raise and increase in responsibilities. I'll now be involved in usability testing, and hopefully I'll get to do some specialized work in HTML prototyping, which would utilize my development skills. Things are looking good. :)
March 3rd, 2008
My current full-time role at G2 Interactive consists of User Experience and no Web development or design. To keep my Photoshop and development skills fresh, I decided to do some volunteer Web work. Long story short, I was put in touch with Community Housing Services (CHS), a non-profit located in Lansdale, PA. I just recently designed, coded, and launched their new site.
CHS's old site was woefully outdated and difficult to use. I gave the site a face lift and rearchitected the content, making it much more user-friendly. I really enjoyed working on this. Like all volunteer work, it was very fulfulling, and it was fun to get my hands dirty with development again.
February 6th, 2008
For a good chuckle, check out the 2008 Bad Usability Calendar (PDF). It's as witty and dry as last year's calendar (PDF). I think my favorite is January's iTunes scrolling emulation, or the mess of dropdown menus in March. They've taken quite a few jabs at AJAX and other Web 2.0 technologies this year. Good stuff. :)
January 18th, 2008
I've been working on a site redesign for a non-profit in Lansdale, PA. It's been moving slowly but keeping me stimulated all the while, and it's allowing me to touch all the fun stuff I miss so much from development, like Photoshop, CSS, XHTML, and even FTP. :)
So today I was visiting one of my favorite veggie sites, only to be defeated by a rollover ad upon login. I was very confused and annoyed by the obtrusive ad, as it was covering a text link that I just wanted to click, but my efforts were fruitless. The ad was blocking me from interacting with the Web page components. I don't know where the ad came from or whether or not it was "user-initiated" - meaning it was triggered by me, probably unintentionally by rolling over an ad in the side column. I wasn't sure what to do. Should I refresh the page? Try to click on the navigation? Kick, shout, and scream? Was there any point to this annoying thing at all?
)
Note: I finally noticed the Close button in the upper right hand corner (but not until after I composed this diatribe). Finally came a sigh of relief, albeit a little late.