BART data visualization?
February 3rd, 2009 § Leave a Comment
16th & Mission
Well that’s what it looks like to me, anyway.
As I start my second semester at AAU, I’ve been leanding more and more thought to my thesis project. Originally I was leaning towards a rich, community driven site for carpoolers in the Bay Area… but we ended up concepting just that for my last usability class project.
Then, I really wanted to revamp BART.gov, but they recently launched a very lovely revamp (which actually enacts some of the ideas I had for them, ie. more user generated content, visual refresh, improved navigation etc. )
Grrr…. guess I’ll keep brainstorming!
Decemberrrr
December 13th, 2008 § Leave a Comment
Wow. December already? This year is flying past.
I’ve been swamped with school and work stuff mostly. The new year is looking even busier. My first semester at AAU is drawing to a close, and I’ve feel like my brain is about to burst with all the new stuff I’m learning… and that’s just from 2 classes. Next semester I’ll dive into web tech, which should be interesting.
Visited Intuit’s usability lab with my ux class. We got to poke around their observation rooms and play with the ultra-cool eye-tracking software. I wish every practitioner could have this asset at their disposal. We got to run a quick test on the university’s website, which confirmed my initial reaction when I enrolled that the user has no idea where to look or what to do first.
Heading to Louisiana for the holidays next week… but I’ll try to make my annual top ten albums post before then!
Exploring San Francisco
May 14th, 2008 § Leave a Comment
This year, I decided to live up to an old resolution to start walking to work (thanks to the San Francisco Bay Area’s wonderful public transit system). During these walks, I am often reminded of a chapter from Peter Morville’s 2005 book, Ambient Findability, where he discusses the notion of navigating through a Built Environment. A city’s inhabitants tend to form an environmental image of their hometown using landmarks like paths, districts, nodes and landmarks to aide in wayfinding. Having lived in the Bay Area for only a short time, I have not completely gotten my bearings yet. Walking the sidewalks of the town you live in is a great way to enhance your relationship with it. You begin to map the city out in your mind according to the things you pass every day, and new facets of the city begin to jump out at you.
I recently snapped a few pictures during my daily commute. Enjoy!
File under: user experience
January 12th, 2008 § Leave a Comment
When I told my nephew Mason about my new job, he offered this:
“You should work on improving the structure of the Bionicle website, and also you should make the games easier. Also, can you fix the website for the new Transformers? It does not work very good.”
He’s the only member of my family who automatically “gets” what I do for a living now. He’s 9.
