New Website launched!

Well, this blogspot page didn't last that long.  Researching the best options and recommendations for a UXD folio encouraged me to make a full on website of my own.

So, please head on over to

www.willjohnsnow.com

Where my blog continues, and there's much more to see.

Website sneak peek

My soon-to-launch website is primarily to show my portfolio of user experience design work.  

One project is my wireframing work I did for Pinewood Studios, another is my 'fate' course project from General Assembly, and the others are existing problems with a range of things I've been inspired to fix by applying UXD practices to.

One of those existing problems is HSBC's Business Internet Banking website, which I hope you don't have to use.  Its main problem is it doesn't 'show the data', and the user has to work incredibly hard to work out what transactions they're not being shown, and then how to get them shown.

A final touch I've just made HSBC redesign page is an animated GIF showing how the user interacts with my new UI elements, and how the data is now shown to them:

It took me an afternoon to make, which makes it even harder to understand how a company the size of HSBC can have such a woeful banking site.

This, and much much more will be launching soon on willjohnsnow.com (there's just a placeholder there at the moment).

Almost ready...

Wow it's been 1 month and 1 day since my last post.  At least I have a good reason for not blogging ... I've been building my new website!

After doing more research in to UXD portfolios, it seems getting my own site is the best way to go.  

I have a range of projects I'll be showing in my portfolio, and the final one I need to put on it is my course project, fate.  

This blog will be closing down once I launch the site and I'll blog instead on the new site (it makes this blog space look like Berkshire Hathaway's design.)

Once the site is launched I'll have much to say about the process of getting my site up from scratch, and more detail on why I did it.

Coming soon, folks!

Empowering Desgin

I was going to write a post tying up a few things I had been meaning to write about, but I've just come across this video:

https://vimeo.com/123488311

after following Bret Victor on twitter.

It's a very interesting video about an important issues that's arisen from the continuing evolution of technology and our lives.

So before I forget, I thought I should post it.

Now I'll work on my post tying up a few things...

Studying User Experience Design

As part of my career change (I've learnt the trendy new phrase is 'pivoting') I've decided to take the plunge and enrol on a course.

It's a very tough decision, as there's so much information out there already on the tinterwebs, you kind of get the feeling you could learn all there is to know online.

But there's limitless information and then there's curated knowledge.

The other main thing is that to get hired - or even noticed - you need a kick-ass portfolio.  And studying the knowledge only works if you practice the craft (left side/right side of brain) to have something to show for it.

So I decided to do General Assembly's part time course (there is a full time, 10 week immersive course, but the cost and time commitment dissuaded me).

So far, so great.  It's taught by Matt Isherwood who's worked at the BBC and recently did One Fine Stay.

And after my first bit of homework doing some user research, I can already feel the huge benefit of doing a course that forces you to "get out of the classroom" (to adapt a Lean Startup phrase) and get practicing the theory in the real world.

So one week down, another 12 or so to go.

I'm pretty sure I've settled on my project idea for my portfolio piece, something I wrote about in the previous post, which is a shopping list app to save shoppers money, called Fate.

I'll be writing much more about the philosophy behind Fate as it ties in nicely with why I started my career change, sorry 'pivot', in the first place.

Supermarket Haze

When you go shopping at the supermarket - what do you feel?

It's something I've been giving a lot of thought as for my User Experience Design course portfolio I'm working on an idea to save shoppers money.

There's lots of overwhelming facts about how much food UK households waste (you can read all about it here http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/) - so why do we do it?

I've done some research at my local supermarket, and even wondering around the aisles and looking at shoppers, it seems the overall feeling of the shopper is:

• confusion
• indecision
• worry

Should I buy this?  Is it a good deal?  Is that Special Offer worth it?

The supermarket experience is currently one of information overload.  The term 'signal to noise ratio' comes to mind - a ton of noise, and no signal to the shopper of what's actually worth buying - what are they likely to eat?

My good friend Sam Zuppardi has very kindly done me some panels to illustrate this point:

Seem familiar?  Many thanks to Sam Zuppardi for sketch.

Is this a situation that you find yourself in?

I would love to talk with you if it is, so please get in touch.

This is an idea that's been brewing in my mind for some time, and I'm excited to finally be working on the project for my portfolio.

p.s.

I personally get the sense that the facts of food waste make us actually switch off from engaging with the topic, they lose all sense of scale and relevance for us and our wallets.  What do you think?

GMail / Inbox & Calendar cross-pollination

I'm confused.

I'm sure I read about a Google Calendar update that finally enabled Calendar to auto-create events based on GMail messages?

An email with this in the subject:

FW: Booking confirmed (7890-WWW/SDPIPER893): Table for 7 at Lunch Munch Restaurant 25 April 2015 at 12:30

would surely be a ripe candidate for context gathering?

There's even a ton more info in the email body.

Nothing in Calendar, nothing in Google Now.

What's going on?

Frustrated by your food waste?

Are you always:

• busy
• tired
• hungry

and never really manage to make the most of all those helpful shopping list and food saving apps on offer?  (Or didn't know they existed?)

I'd love to have a quick chat with you.

I'm doing some research in to how we struggle with using our food, just by simply shooting-the-breeze about our experiences.

Drop me a message or leave a comment if you'd like to chat.

Quick snippet: Adobe Reader error message

One of the things I've constantly read about in my UXD studying is how error messages should be informative, helpful and constructive for the user.

Good work Adobe, good work.

It reminds of me of one time I was "using" Baselight, an incredibly advanced/complicated colour grading system made by Filmlight.  It's a desperately unwieldy system, with not so much a learning curve but cliff.  (I get the sense the developers and company take pride in that, though.)  

Anyway, while frantically trying to get some work done it spat out this garbled error message that ended with:

"This can't happen."

Oh wow, good to know, THANKS.

Two snippets: Merrell and Inside No.9

There's an advert I've been seeing around the Tube for Merrell walking shoes.  I've had a quick search online but can't find it - next time I see it I'll take a photo and update this post.

UPDATE: HERE'S THE AD:

I've just started a part time UXD course (more on that later) and quite a few of my new classmates come from a design background - which makes me panic as I don't.

However, even I can't quite believe this advert got released.  There's a big wide shot of a couple hiking in the background on the bottom layer, but they're massively overlapped by a hulking great portrait shot of a bloke's face that looks like it's taken from a Hugo Boss advert or something.

Worst of all, the actual shoes themselves - correct me if I'm wrong, but the supposed star of the advert? - are superimposed on top of the above, with one pressed down at the toe angle.  (So ... the USP is the shoes can bend like 100% of the other walking shoes out there?)  BUT, the madness doesn't stop there folks.  Because these shoes are next to a whopping great head shot of this guy, they look LIKE TINY TOY SHOES - it's ridiculous!  I couldn't stop looking at the advert with disbelief at its design.

I really hope this advert isn't considered decent design, because then there's not much hope for me.  

As I see it, placement, scale, identity, theme and focus are just completely out of whack.

On a more positive note...
I'm just catching up with an excellent series on the iPlayer - Inside No. 9 by those League of Gentlemen blokes.

It's an anthology series, so each episode is unrelated to the next.  I've only caught the odd episode so far, but having just seen Sheridan Smith's episode, I cannot rate it highly enough.

If you're looking for superb examples of sheer economy of storytelling, transitions, subtext, a twist, and an emotional thump at the end, then look no further.  Totally top notch stuff.

You can watch the episode here.

You've only got until Saturday so hurry.

Brand new CV

After many years doing back to back Marvel films in the UK (Thor: The Dark World, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Age of Ultron) I've had to revamp and update my CV as part of my career change.

It was a tough but great exercise to concisely summarise what I'd been doing these past years, and state my future goals.

As part of it, I had to update my LinkedIn profile which was [sarcasm/] REALLY FUN! [/sarcasm], and can be seen here:

My LinkedIn Profile

For the CV, I did a lot of searching around for great examples of UX CVs, and found this template that you can buy to get started with a great design:

Light Resume Template

I've opted for a two-page CV, and you can see it here:

My April 2015 CV

Before the moment passes.

I'm not sure how long Blogger will be around for (I may have even read somewhere that Google plans to scrap it) but for what it's worth I need to get somethings off my mind, and without a website or actual blog, I've hastily set this up.

I'm an apprentice in User Experience design, coming from a career in feature film digital workflows - Marvel's Avengers: Age of Ultron and Eon's Skyfall amongst others - and hopefully this blog will chronicle my successful transition to UXD.

Other than my thoughts and adventures on that particularly journey, other things to get off my mind are:

• my feature film career, the films I worked on, the environments I've left behind, and the software and hardware combos I struggled with
• photography and filmmaking
• My personal digital/tech life - e.g. I'm really very close to leaving Facebook, and why
• My hobby of creating animated book trailers
• My ongoing fascination with storytelling and its importance

After lots of reading and typing up notes from UX books, I spent today searching the prospective London job scene and how I may enter it, so now I need to kick back and relax for a bit.

Lots more coming very soon.