1. Pups and Cats… Yin and Yang… love it… :D Pet Taoism by ~chunkysmurf

    Pups and Cats… Yin and Yang… love it… :D Pet Taoism by ~chunkysmurf

  2. I made this as a wallpaper for a friend of mine a couple years ago.  He took his netbook and created a Hackintosh (Mac OSX on non-Apple hardware) from it. We were joking around that he had put a soul into something dead, and thus was born its name: Frakenmac. 

    I made this as a wallpaper for a friend of mine a couple years ago.  He took his netbook and created a Hackintosh (Mac OSX on non-Apple hardware) from it. We were joking around that he had put a soul into something dead, and thus was born its name: Frakenmac. 

  3. Through a couple iterations, we have developed the interface prototype we will be testing over the next few weeks.  I have been working hard transforming it from a series of images to a workable model using JQuery, HTML & CSS3.  We have already gotten a lot of valuable feedback, and are very excited to start testing tomorrow.  After being trained in both Morae and UserZoom, we have decided to use UserZoom as our testing platform due to time constraints. 

  4. Fall 2010 - Shelves was a web service that I developed with a team of other computer science students.  Designed to take some of the hassle out of home inventory, it tracked purchasing patterns in order to determine when you might run out of products on your shelf.  Working in ASP.net, we managed both server and client side processes.  I was the primary design guidance, as well as helping develop the site. 

  5. Spring 2010 - As a part of my undergraduate research in the Virtual Reality Application Center, I created user persona and scenario illustrations to communicate goals for a project aiming to provide proof-of-concept for a mobile military application that would be used in the field.  Along with a team of two graduate students, we built and tested lo-fidelity paper prototypes. 

  6. Fall 2009 - CyTrip was developed as a pathfinding algorithm and web application that would determine optimum bus routes for riders of the local Ames bus service, CyRide.  This was made when Google Transit was in beta and not available in the Ames area.  Using the Google Maps API and custom optimal route finding algorithms we presented users with options of where they wanted to go, when they wanted to arrive, and how they wanted to optimize their route.  We pitched the product to CyRide, and though they loved it, because of lack of budget and a technical support staff they turned us down. 

  7. Yesterday, I finally got around to uploading all the photos from my wedding onto Facebook.  I then went through and began the process of tagging and captioning all those photos (about 190 in total), something I’m pretty sure Facebook users are expected to do.  Unfortunately, a bit over halfway through tagging the friends and family in these photos I received the above announcement.  I was blocked from tagging any more people, as I was “misusing” this feature.  I fully understand and encourage Facebook taking steps towards stopping spammers and harassment.  I do, however, have a few questions to this block from both the perspective of a customer and a user experience designer. 1) Why is Facebook punishing a user for using a feature?  Tagging is a core feature of Facebook.  Beyond the large number of tags in the short time period, what evidence did Facebook have that I was misusing this feature?  If other users found my tagging disruptive, they have the power to remove themselves, un-friend me or even report me to Facebook (which I’m nearly certain did not happen).  2) Why does Facebook use such scolding and aversive language in both the warning that appeared before this message?  Especially when implementing a system where it is possible that there are false positive, I would think that as a developer you would either tone down your language to take those false positives into account, or allow for some way of contacting support if you think there has been a mistake.  Instead, they insist the mistake is completely mine and make threats about banning me from the site. While I realize that my use of Facebook is a privilege not a right, Facebook is profiting from my using their product.  I have complained about Facebook updates and privacy in the past but this is honestly one of the first things that Facebook has done that really makes me want to use a different service (cough… Google+). As a user experience designer, I know the importance of respecting the user. Just sayin’….</rant>

    Yesterday, I finally got around to uploading all the photos from my wedding onto Facebook.  I then went through and began the process of tagging and captioning all those photos (about 190 in total), something I’m pretty sure Facebook users are expected to do.  Unfortunately, a bit over halfway through tagging the friends and family in these photos I received the above announcement.  I was blocked from tagging any more people, as I was “misusing” this feature.  I fully understand and encourage Facebook taking steps towards stopping spammers and harassment.  I do, however, have a few questions to this block from both the perspective of a customer and a user experience designer.

    1) Why is Facebook punishing a user for using a feature?  Tagging is a core feature of Facebook.  Beyond the large number of tags in the short time period, what evidence did Facebook have that I was misusing this feature?  If other users found my tagging disruptive, they have the power to remove themselves, un-friend me or even report me to Facebook (which I’m nearly certain did not happen). 

    2) Why does Facebook use such scolding and aversive language in both the warning that appeared before this message?  Especially when implementing a system where it is possible that there are false positive, I would think that as a developer you would either tone down your language to take those false positives into account, or allow for some way of contacting support if you think there has been a mistake.  Instead, they insist the mistake is completely mine and make threats about banning me from the site.

    While I realize that my use of Facebook is a privilege not a right, Facebook is profiting from my using their product.  I have complained about Facebook updates and privacy in the past but this is honestly one of the first things that Facebook has done that really makes me want to use a different service (cough… Google+). As a user experience designer, I know the importance of respecting the user. Just sayin’….</rant>

  8. We performed the second round of user testing for our photo organization software. We have decided to focus in on the tagging aspect of photo organization.  Participants were a series of tasks tasks and worked through a paper wireframe interface. We noticed that once users discovered a way of tagging, they didn&#8217;t deviate much from that process even though there were easier alternatives. 

    We performed the second round of user testing for our photo organization software. We have decided to focus in on the tagging aspect of photo organization.  Participants were a series of tasks tasks and worked through a paper wireframe interface. We noticed that once users discovered a way of tagging, they didn’t deviate much from that process even though there were easier alternatives. 

  9. March 2010 - Self portrait. To create this I used only cyan, magenta and yellow, applying them with a square brush at different opacities using Photoshop.

    March 2010 - Self portrait. To create this I used only cyan, magenta and yellow, applying them with a square brush at different opacities using Photoshop.

  10. January 2010 - Branding and web design for the Roling Dobbels 2010 campaign for Iowa State Government of Student Body President & Vice President. They went on to win the election and serve Iowa State students for a year long term.