theBside

Table of Contents

• User Interaction and Design

  • Personas for an Open Source Usability Testing suite
  • Expert Review of Website Mockups
  • Expert Evaluation of the Totem Media Player Video Search feature
  • theBside Co-op Mockup
  • Web-based VPN Control and Status Page
  • Storyboard of New Generation VPN Page
  • Kiosk Evaluation and Mockup
  • Conference Presentations

• Business Analysis

  • Conference Presentations

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User Interaction and Design

Personas for an Open Source Usability Testing suite (2010)

A project was proposed on the Gnome Usability mailing list in early 2010 to create an Open Source usability testing suite.  A few designers began creating mockups of various screens, but I felt we needed to have a better understanding of who would be using the software prior to creating wireframes.  I initiated a survey of various communities that included people who might use a usability testing suite.  I compiled the data and began creating a few personas based on the results.  This is currently a work in progress, and the draft work can be found on the Gnome website.

Expert Review of Website Mockups (2009)

I was invited to provide feedback to a startup company who was in the early stages of constructing their website.  They were looking to use a commercial theme for an Open Source CMS, but to have the theme tweaked and modified to meet their specific needs.  The initial request was to provide a general high level review of the proposed theme changes from a user experience expert point of view.  The company decided to implement a majority of the suggestions and produced a second iteration for review.  I am continuing to help the company arrive at a website (theme and content) that meets their needs and the needs of their target users.

Expert Evaluation of the Totem Media Player Video Search Feature (2007)

The Totem Media Player team request a usability review of a new feature they were implementing.  As with most Open Source projects the communications were done mostly via email.  Here is the email I sent to the developers.

theBside Co-op Mockup (2006)

This page was something I was tinkering with in my spare time some years ago.  We have a tight-knit group of friends and the idea was to have a central location where we could all track what kind of “property” each of us had.  Property in the sense of “owned items”.  That way we could quickly find out who owned a chainsaw, what their phone number was, and was it at home or already lent out to someone else (as an example).  This also gave me the opportunity to teach myself a little something about CSS, DIVs, etc.

The design didn’t get much past this mockup using HTML.  I found very little interest in actually contributing ideas and feedback and the project just kind of fell by the wayside.  I imagine this is much like wikis – if you don’t have a few key people pushing forward with content and vision things just fall stagnant.

Web-based VPN Control and Status Page (2004)

In 2004 I decided that the way a part of my organization’s infrastructure worked was just too inefficient.  We used email to communicate our intentions to join, leave, raise, drop specific VPN connections to customer sites.  Email was not meant for this kind of use, and things quickly got confusing, inaccurate, and laborious.  I designed, implemented, and supported a web-based system that allowed users to control the various VPN boxes, check their status, etc.  It rolled up a few different things into the single interface.

It was implemented via PERL in cgi form.  I learned a great deal about hovering, styles, etc via this project.  I added LDAP authentication too, giving me the chance to learn a little open OpenLDAP at the time.

The design was intended to be open almost permanently on the user’s desktop.  The page periodically refreshed to ensure the latest info was there for the user.  It also used cookies so the user could close the site and return without having to login again. This was my first time creating something using cgi, and I wrote it in HTML/frames to learn about frames.

Overall it was a huge success.  It was only recently (2009) retired and replaced by something that has tighter integration into other IT systems now present in the organization.  The overall design approach of the new implementation is very similar to the old, indicating that the design was adopted and found to be useful to many employees.

Storyboard of New Generation VPN Page (2004)

After seeing the success of bringing together various systems into a single interface, I was inspired to broaden my scope to include all connectivity methods in my organization.  I created this initial storyboard of how I would incorporate dial up modems and proxy-based VPN systems into the interface.  In the process I was revamping the VPN interface as well, but re-using the existing mechanisms of interaction to ensure minimal training was needed across 100 people in the department.

I used Visio to build the storyboard.  In the process I discovered Dia and switched to that as quickly as I could get permission to.

The project stopped when I moved on to another department at the company.  It has not been continued since then.

Chapter’s In-store Kiosk Evaluation and Mockup (2002)

As part of a final group project in CMPT 873 at SFU in 2002 I helped evaluate the Chapter’s in-store kiosk interface.  We did a comparative analysis with Future Shop’s CD Playing kiosk interface and the Bay’s Registry kiosk interface.  We then created a new proposed interface for the Chapters kiosk based on feedback seen during use by customers.  I created it primarily using basic HTML with the design aimed at someone walking in off the street looking for  specific things.  We narrowed it down to 4 specific tasks, as shown in the launch page.

We created a high fidelity prototype in HTML to demonstrate our design to the class and professor.

Conference Presentations

• Eliminating the Odd – An Introduction to Interface Design Concepts (presented at BAWorld 2009 Vancouver)

Business Analysis

Conference Presentations

• Flying An Analytical Kite (presented at BAWorld 2008 Vancouver and to the Vancouver IIBA Chapter in February 2009)