Here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about myself.
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on the profession: |
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What’s the difference between User Experience and Information Architecture? I’ve never heard of User Experience Design |
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Glad you asked. Take a look around my site – if you don’t understand something, I’d be more than happy to explain it or to point you in the right direction. I’m working on a ‘dejargonizing’ page explaining these concepts. There is no one ‘book of user experience design’, but I can happily point you in the right direction. |
on the associations: |
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What associations do you belong to? |
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I belong to the Information Architecture Institute, the Interaction Design Association, and BayCHI, the Bay Area chapter of the Computer-Human-Interaction Association. I’m also branching out into non-design related organizations in the Bay Area. |
on my availability: |
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Are you available for contract work? I have a small web site… |
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I’m actively looking for full time work or contract work. Feel free to contact me via email to discuss user experience as well as sustainability consulting- I don’t mind advising or providing some direction to people, especially small businesses and non-profits. If you are looking for an IA or UX designer, try the following organizations (all links open in a new window)
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on my background: |
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How did you get started in user experience design? |
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While working as an information management consultant, I attended a presentation about taxonomies. As part of my job was to build file plans for how people can better file their papers – and these file plans are essentially taxonomies. I started researching about taxonomies the day after that presentation; while I’m very glad to have learnt about Information Management, I found that the problems in an discipline are more than just managing information or organizing or ‘architecting’ information – it’s about designing a user experience with that information, to solve the user’s problems. The tools, methodologies and medium of delivery must all serve that aim – designing a superior user experience. I didn’t realize that that was what this discipline was called – user experience design – but the path that lead me there (through the jungle of information management, down a path of information architecture) make me absolutely sure of my destination.
I consider myself a designer who analyses and designs solutions involving information – or, in other words, “I solve problems” (with apologies to Quentin Tarantino – that comes from Pulp Fiction). |
on nationalities: |
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I see you’re Canadian – do you know my friend Bob from Canada? |
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Probably not, although you never know. I don’t, however, know any Bobs or any of them from Canada. Contrary to public belief, Canadians don’t all know each other (it being the second largest country in the world and all, and a population of 30 million and growing). Having said that, yes, the Bay Area has a large concentration of Canadians, some of which I know and hang out with. A good organization for Canadians in the Bay Area is the Digital Moose Lounge. |
on extra curricular activities: |
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Do you do anything that’s not related to sitting in front of a computer? (question symbolically submitted by my mother) |
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A. Ironically enough, yes. I go to various local groups out here in the Bay Area – some professional (like BayCHI), some not related to my profession at all (Peninsula Peace and Justice Center events, a local Craftster group, the Bay Area Bertrand Russell Society, the monthly Socrates Cafe group, and the expat Canucks in the Bay Area group). There’s never a shortage of things to do out here in the Bay Area- the trick is, of course, to keep track of them. Luckily I subscribe to a bunch of feeds that keep me in the loop, and I let people know what I’m attending via upcoming.org. |
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I see you’ve listed going to Burning Man on your ‘Woman’ biography page as ‘one of your interests’. I didn’t take you for the naked hippie stoner type. Is it as trippy as everyone says it is? |
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Yes, it’s a bit trippy; no, there aren’t quite as many ‘naked hipped stoner types’, and yes, feel free to ask me questions regarding my experience, which was a blast. I go primarily for the art – honest. |
Have a question you need answered? Send them my way.
