Ideas

User Interface and User Experience Projects

1. (submitted to an engineering company as an unsolicited review and offer to revise)
   Hi Designer Guy.
   I'm sharing with you my suggestions for simplification and ease of navigation for your site as a complete layman.
   
   So take these with an eye for the general, not get lost in my specificity. I'm not best at making clear explanations on User Experience/Interface. I have gut instincts but not much schooling about confusing navigation, I haven't had any proper schooling on conveying these ideas or even what some of the terms are.
   
   My background is 6 yrs of autocad drafting--making surveys and then civil engineering construction plans--in a large graphic/text format. Sometimes the drawings are QUITE detailed and specific and information-dense. But in the "pictures are worth a thousand words," vein I've got experience getting ideas conveyed graphically and clearly. I actually worked at the premier Engineered firm in Asheville, renowned for their consistently clear, wonderful, dense, and beautiful drawings. A result of multiple years of sharing of knowledge and industrial trade secrets. CDC is often imitated by its rivals.
   
   I learned lots of industry-specific tricks, rules of thumb and guiding concepts. The results would frequently seem magic to city-councils, to clients, and to others. Producing all that beautiful work was something I grew to enjoy fiercely. But I wasn't born good at that trade, and that was only after 6 hard working years learning and using the tools everyday. I'm the first to admit that the web is quite different (hello, can someone say interactive?) than 24in x 36in black, white, and grey construction drawings. I'm the NEWEST rookie on the block.
   
   I'm the first to admit that you have the designer and the web is his medium. But I do humbly offer that interfacing with the customer and building wireframe models that serve the designer's needs is something I WANT to do and do well for him, for the customer, for the company...and ultimately as part of a team effort to build a better web page. I hope that my skill-set is translatable into gleaning the necessary information and desires of the customer. I hope to be able to provide a framework to the designer that he can run with. A lists of ideas, a vehicle, that ask all the right sorts of questions.
   
   My background skill that's relevant is getting documents to and from the USACOE (US Army  Corps of Engineers) so that our plans are in compliance with Water Quality / Soil Erosion regs. They are definitely able to enforce their requirements. Silt runoff from a construction site is such a definite no-no that site foremen and GCs have been known to go out and started bulldozers in rainstorms themselves on weekends to avoid a shutdown order from USACOE DWQ in a rain event.
   
   On materials use an indicating graphic (like a thumbnail) for the pdf. It speeds perception and is recognizable. is good or 2010 Fundraising Brochure isn't is good. also, consider using the term "Order Form" rather than "Fundraising Brochure" its simpler to comprehend and will be a very specific (an example is http://www.butterbraidsandiego.com/)
   
   Seth Russell - BlueTone Media, Inc. - Wilmington NC 28401 - (910) 795.2280