Down time at work = inspiration wall

A week or so ago, my fellow WagEd designer Sara and I went on the AIGA studio tours in downtown Seattle. We had the opportunity to peek inside the inner workings of three amazing design studios: Frog, Garrigan Lyman, and Fitch. Both of us agreed that our humble office space (think fluorescent lights and no windows… we’re unfortunately housed in the middle of the building in what is called the training room) needed some work, mainly that we were lacking something that all of the other companies seem to have… an inspiration wall.

A few days later we finally had some down time, and so was born ‘The Wall’. It’s still quite bare, but it’s a start! And if you’re curious, the word ‘inspire’ is a cutout made out of scotch tape.

New Camera!

After many years and many memories with my trusty Canon Powershot, I finally gave in and invested in a shiny new upgrade. I’d like to introduce you to the Panasonic Lumix  LX5:

I’m not an expert photographer by any means, but after weeks of research this lil guy came out on top. I still have a lot to learn about how to use it properly, but so far the photos it has produced are leaps and bounds ahead of what my old point-and-shoot can do. I’m posting a couple new photos of mine below. I’ve yet to take it out and really break it in… since I bought it I’ve either been sick or the weather has been awful!

Seattle Rally to Restore Sanity

On October 30th I ventured downtown to Westlake Center to meet up with some of my Bellingham friends and stand in support (and soaking wet in the rain!) of reason and civility in Seattle’s Rally to Restore Sanity, a satellite of the much larger DC version hosted by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

Through the rain and cold and crowds, I managed to snap a few photos of the awesomely creative signs present.  Below I’ve posted some of the best pics from the day, apologies for the quality… desperately needing a new camera at the moment!

Bellevue Fun Facts

More people (130,000-plus) work in Bellevue than live in it.

The city of Bellevue is home to the Rosalie Whyel Museum of Doll Art which contains one of the largest doll collections in the world—more than a thousand dolls—displayed on two floors of a Victorian-style building.

Bellevue holds an annual Strawberry Festival to celebrate its strawberry farming history.

Bellevue was named Number 4 on MoneyCNN’s list of Top 100 Best Places to Live in America for 2010. In 2006 Bellevue was also rated one of the 25 safest cities in America.

Bellevue has had a Wi-Fi hotzone with free access in its central business district since 2007. Interesting to note, 45.79% (as of Dec 2009) of users on the network are iPhone and iPod Touch users.

Bellevue continues to have the largest percentage of foreign-born residents of any city in Washington. About 31 percent of Bellevue’s population is foreign-born, and one in every three residents speaks a language other than English at home.

One of Bellevue’s City Council members was recently attacked by a bear and survived.. minus one eye.

Top 5 Stock Photo Captions: The Mime

Mime Monday! Here are my top five stock photo captions:

• Mime stirring paint
• Sad mime with balloons
• Crazy gardener mime (inexplicably there were a couple dozen photos with this caption)
• Portrait of a maliciuos mime on a black background
• Mime with legs spread

Profiles of Bellevue

I have an enormous amount of time for people watching during my daily commute to work. For anyone who has never been to Bellevue on a weekday morning (me a couple weeks ago), there is a unique cross section of people to observe. And in honor of that, I’d like to present you with my observations of the different types of people I encounter on a daily basis… let’s call it a field guide to the Bellevuian.

Young professional
The older among them look anxiously uncomfortable, and the younger ones look uncomfortably anxious. Regardless, they are all so tucked and buttoned and in a hurry to do/go/meet/call that they are never quite at ease.  Conspicuous consumers of the latest high-tech goodies, you’ll rarely see a young professional in Bellevue without a visible iPod, smart phone, blue tooth headset, laptop, or kindle.

Microsoft geek
Though everyone who works in Bellevue has been sleeping around with Microsoft in some fashion, the ‘Microsoft geek’  is definitely the most obvious and prolific employee. Erring on the ‘casual’ side of business casual, you will often see these young white men wearing what they normally would with a dress shirt thrown in the mix. I’m talking jeans and sneakers, khaki cargo shorts, mandals with socks, and laptop messenger bags.

That bike guy
Regardless of whether he is on the bus or wandering downtown, that bike guy always wears a helmet so the world will be aware that, yes, he rides a bike. And just in case you weren’t sure, he’s gone ahead and added the reflective tape, blinky lights, and helmet mounted rear-view mirror.

Awkward Asian lady
Somehow I always end up sitting next to her on the bus. This woman is clearly not dressed for work, so I can only assume she is on her way to the city to go shopping. She has perfected the ‘dressing in the dark’ look… wearing an incredible assortment of mismatched clothes. Nice dress paired with well worn tennis shoes? Why not. An expensive jacket with a Winnie the pooh mini backpack? You bet.

Everpresent leafblower
If you ever wondered why the streets of Bellevue are so spotless, look no further than its army of immaculate gardeners. Every morning they are out there leafblowing that single fallen leaf, spraying buckets of herbicide on the last tiny, weedy survivor who sprung up in the cracks of the sidewalk the night before, and sweeping individual little pieces of trash while wearing sporty white gloves. And props to these guys for managing to do a labor-intensive job without ever bending over or touching the ground.

Top 5 Stock Photography Captions: Business Man Edition

So I have an account on this stock photography site called Thinkstock.  Needless to say, I have stumbled across more than few interesting (absurd) photos while browsing using various search terms, for instance, ‘man with knee injury’ or ‘halloween costumes’. I’ve been tempted to download some of my favorites, but unfortunately my account only legally allows me to use photos for work related purposes. So I give you the next best thing: the wonderful world of stock photography image captions. You’ll have to use your imagination with these, but that is probably for the best.

I present to you Top 5 Stock Photography Captions using the search term: Business Man

5 – Business man sleeping on pile of shredded paper

4 – Business man bowling in hallway

3 – Business man wizard

2 – Economic crisis forced shocked business man to commit suicide with rope

1 – Business man pouring fuel into open briefcase

I work here!

So, I just finished my first week at my new job working as a designer at Waggener Edstrom in downtown Bellevue. That’s a picture of the reception desk up above!

It has been an experience… completely different from anything I’ve ever done before. So far, I’ve sat in on a Skype meeting with the Portland crew, sourced images for MSN newsletters, created an infographic for a ‘soft-sell’ to a major pharmaceutical company, learned about billable hours and job codes, and learned a hell of a lot about how the bus system works. I definitely had one of those ‘you are paying me to do this?’ moments yesterday.

I’ve been wanting to take some pictures of the office, but my desk isn’t much to look at at the moment, and I don’t want to be a creepster at work. Right now I sit by myself near the center of the building (no windows unfortunately) but I’ve been told that they are hiring another designer who will share my space in another week or two. There have also been rumblings about an office remodel beginning in December that will involve a lot of knocking down of walls and a general ‘outdoor’ theme. Cross fingers they want to keep me on after my contract is up at the end of the year!

Aqua, oh my!

I just finished painting my old table and mismatched chair set! I’m going with a dark red and aqua theme in the kitchen. Still looking for that fourth chair though…

Here’s the before pic:

Also, I love waking up to sunshine in the morning!!

Interact Seattle – UX Design in Gaming

Last night was the monthly meeting of Interact Seattle, a designer/developer group, and since I now live really close to where they meet (yay!) I decided to join them.

The topic for the night was User Experience (UX) design in gaming as presented by Karisma Williams, who is currently working on the Xbox Kinect project (more about that later!). The presentation focused a lot on the design of game menus and what are called Heads Up Displays (HUDs), which include any visible counters, maps, life bars, etc on the screen. Though menus and HUDs make up only a part of the UX of a game, they have a huge impact on the user’s satisfaction with the product.

As far as Karisma was concerned, the gaming industry is far behind where they need to be in regards to UX design. In the past, things like menus and HUDs where tacked on last minute and used as quick and easy solutions for hurdles encountered in the game’s design. For example, in a first person shooter game, the amount of ammo you have left is generally displayed as a HUD overlaying the game, but a more elegant and realistic solution would be to display the ammo on the visible gun the character is holding.

Menus can also be a user’s first impression of a game. In order to get to actual game play, someone must successfully navigate through an opening menu. Generally this isn’t a very hard problem to solve… create a few boxes or bubbles on the screen and allow the user to navigate via the buttons on the controller. However, as the way we interact with technology evolves, this problem becomes more difficult. Take Xbox Kinect as an example. With Kinect, there is not a controller or buttons… the only way the user interacts with the game is through motion. So how do you control a menu without controls?

I’m finding that there is a similar problem arising with the UX design in touch screen devices. If you take away the mouse as a navigational tool, you also take away the ability to use things like a hover state or a right click. For example, when you are on a website and you hover over what looks like a button, it will change color and you have instant feedback letting you know that it is, in fact, a clickable element. With new modes of interaction, we must find new ways to give users feedback.

When creating menus for Kinect games, a common theme emerged: keep it simple. Many of the game menus they created utilize a hover state; think using The Force in Star Wars. The end goal was to create strong UX design that got the users into the game itself quickly and with minimal frustration. Until the technology is able to capture finer muscle movements with greater fidelity, it’s back to basics.

It is also important to keep in mind with a new mode of interaction comes an entirely new learning curve for the user. If a new user is thrown in front of a Kinect game, let say they are going to race in a car, how do they approach the situation? If you don’t have any buttons to press, how do you get started? Would you know to mimic turning the key in the ignition to start your car? Designing for this kind of interaction requires a certain level of understanding of human psychology. We must understand how people learn in order to effectively teach them how to play an entirely new type of game.

My takeaways from the presentation:

1. Only show the user what they need to see when they need to see it
2. User Research (UR) is key; do it early and often
3. I really want a Kinect 🙂