Fairweather Zealot

When my wife told me that Adobe was putting out the Adobe Photoshop CS3 beta last Friday a few weeks ago (yes, I know – she knew before me), I had a Pavlovian response. So, I kept checking all last Friday day to see when it would (finally) be ready to download. Then, late in the afternoon, it was there and I grabbed a copy. It should be noted that those without a current CS2 license can only try CS3 for 2 days, what is 30-day limit, but those with an authorized copy of CS2 get it for free until the actual release in the spring. Pretty sweet deal, actually. Continue reading

Well, it’s out there now, so I guess I can post it – at least most of it.

I’ve been working at GSI Commerce for the last 9 months, the last six as a permanent employee.  It’s been a heck of a time, and I’ve learned quite a bit during my time there.  It was a good job with a great company that is going to make even more of an impact in the near future.  They’re doing a lot of interesting and good things with their designs and sites, and I think more people will hear about them soon.  It was a great job, but it was also anywhere from 1.5 – 4 hour commute per day for me.

I got an offer from another company, an offer that included a promotion, more money and a much shorter commute.  In fact, I’ll be able to take the train in most days, so even in my 20-30 ride, I’ll be able to get stuff done (reading, writing, work) while on my way – something that is decidely unpossible on the Schuykill Expressway.  And I’ll be doing some design stuff and helping set the standards that the new company (which will remain unnamed for now) will use in the future developments.  Promotion, money, short commute and direct influence  on the development standards of sites – what’s there not to like?

I hadn’t planned on leaving GSI, but this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.  Two weeks from today, I’ll be at my new job, getting myself settled in for the second time in less than a year.  I’m going to miss GSI in many ways, but I’m also excited at the prospects I’m looking at.

IjAD – Information (Inside joke) Architecture Document

Recently, much of my design work has been involving tools work and CMS, back-end systems, etc. I like the challenge of solving design problems and throwing in U/A standards where I can, but there’s not a whole lot of room for creativity. So, to add a small bit of humor to my designs, I started adding small ‘easter eggs’ (for a lack of a better term).

It’s always subtle things that avoid being overtly ridiculous or NSFW. Must of it has been relegated to finding better usernames: instead of J. User or John Doe, I’ve taken to A. Lien, B. Cirius and D. Lishus. Sometimes it’s a subtle joke word or phrase in the Lorem ipsum… text:

“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Nulla ligula ligula, tincidunt vel, insert nifty web twopointoh phrase here gravida ut, gravida consequat, justo. Curabitur sit amet quam ac enim viverra interdum…”

So, aside from amusing myself and the rare notice by anyone else, it’s harmless. But is it professional? I understand that it does have a childish element to it, and that it might be considered so by others, but the outlet after 8 hours of staring at Visio, Dreamweaver and Photoshop is something that I’ve enjoyed.

So, I’m wondering if there are any thoughts out there among the 4 or 5 readers I have about this? Anyone else put in hidden/secret things within their designs? Many artists have done things like this for ages, such as Shepard Fairey and his “Andre the Giant has a posse” graphic which found it’s way into other pieces of art, or the old Iron Maiden album covers by Derek Riggs, who hid his personal Riggs Logo in the drawings of Eddie, Maiden’s mascot. Programmers are notorious for their Easter Eggs, although they are usually hidden; IADs – being a visual medium – aren’t that complex.

I’m just curious how normal this is among IA’s and related design fields.

Last night, GSI Commerce hosted a seminar for AIGA Philadelphia and Phi Chi (the Philadelphia branch of the ACM SigCHI) members, along with Avenue A/Razorfish. The topic was The Visual vs. The Usable, and we were presenting two cases of how we managed to mesh top-notch creative with functional, usable design. Avenue A/Razorfish did the same, talking about how the two groups – often at odds – collaborated on projects to create a better end result. Continue reading

Jazz Coding jăz • cod’-ing(v) -

1. Interpretive and often highly improvisational code development that doesn’t match spec or supplied codebase, and usually doesn’t work.
2. Rewriting functional or base code with non-standard and/or irregular code that is better understood, regardless of its validity.

While highly entertaining if viewed correctly, unappreciated by most. Doesn’t follow standard conventions, often putting completely disparate elements into the expected structure, causing unexpected results.

WIKI addendum: Jazz Coding is often performed by less-informed developers who are unable to understand or modified newer and more compliant code structures. Rather than adhere to the level of code requested/supplied, they rewrite code to include more basic constructs that are better understood, such as <font> tags, incorrect/unmatched tags or structurally invalid code.

See Also jazz code (n); jazz coded (v, adj.), What the hell is this crap? (phrase)

As of July 3, I am officially an employee of GSI Commerce.  I’d been consulting with them for 3 months, and knew that they were a good place to be full-time.  Their client list is enviable and they’re one of the behind the scenes giants in e-commerce.  What’s more, they’re branching out, developing new competancies and applications. It’s great work, with the only downside being the dreaded Schuykill.

More to come in the coming weeks.

While working on a website we are redesigning, I was seeing some minor usability/accessibility issues that I was concerned about. I brought up those issues, mentioning that the site would be significantly less functional in some cases to those with disabilities, such as the vision-impaired and physically handicapped persons for whom using a mouse is difficult. That was when someone asked, “Do blind people actually buy sporting goods?”.

In their defense, the speaker asked the question in good faith, and they were thinking of snowboards, golf clubs and footballs when they said it. It took me only a second to respond perhaps not, and to ask if they had considered sweatpants, baseball caps, knee braces and more. Suddenly, it was more pertinent, and I decided to look into the question – do the disabled really buy sporting goods, or more specifically, do they buy them online? Continue reading

We were doing a usability test recently on a site that I’ve been working on for a major sports retailer. In the tests, we were testing a hover functionality which would prompt the user to click for more information about that product. Continue reading

I have been consulting with a company for a couple of months, and really like the job (mostly Information Architecture with a smattering of other work).  Well, I just got the job offer a couple of weeks ago, and I’ll be starting full time in July at GSI Commerce.  I’m psyched because they are a great company and they are working on some pretty cool projects.  The commute sucks (the dreaded Schuykill), but other than that, it’s a great job.

The money’s great – about a 37% increase over my salary when I left MBNA a year ago – so I’m happy about that, plus it’s nice to have benefits again.  Plus, having paid vacation will be nice – something I haven’t really had since I took the severance package.  Right now the office I’m in is in transition as they start to create an interactive agency for new projects, but it’s still pretty cool. Lots of good people with a LOT of talent around me.  Looking forward to being official in July.

You might have noticed that there haven’t been many updates lately on this site.  I had a major SNAFU with my old host (Affordablehost aka Avoidablehost) and had to get my whole site moved over.  At the same time, I’ve been working ridiculous hours at my new job where I’ve been contracting – AND where I’ll be full-time starting in July.  Pretty cool stuff that I can’t talk about but it’s keeping me more than busy in the meantime.

Hopefully, I’ll have more time to write in June…