I am ever-searching for the clarity that comes from a solid understanding of information architecture, cognitive behavior and beautiful design.
Formally trained as a graphics designer at the University of North Carolina’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, I’ve spent my time since designing and building websites for higher eduction, non-profit and corporate organizations. My most significant experience has been in the land of higher ed, but I’ve recently moved two doors down to work for a science museum.
My research interests include: biologically inspired design, human-computer interaction, user experience and information architecture. I’m a member of the Information Architecture Institute, the Triangle Usability Professionals Association and my local Refreshing Cities chapter, Refresh the Triangle. I keep a very updated LinkedIn and ClaimID.
Latest news in my professional life…
March 12, 2009
Interviewed by Shooting the Bull podcasters, Barry and Kevin over at WXDU. Download the MP3 file of this interview.
March 4, 2009
My drawing of an inbox was used in Spring Cleaning… for your inbox!, a blog post on delicious.com.
March 1, 2009
Interviewed by Christopher Perrien on WXDU’s Durham Noise Network. Download the MP3 file of this interview.
March 1, 2009
Began the third experiment – The Eyes of March – of Experimonth 2009.
February 23, 2009
Paul Kirwin blogged about The Smartwool Experiment on his blog, Channel Signal, in a post entitled Silence and the Consequences.
February 5, 2009
My post on What happened with the Smartwool Experiment. was reblogged by swivel.com, dzone.com and Dan Lockton’s Design with Intent.
February 4, 2009
My Experimonth project, Twenty-eight Tables, was featured in The Independent, a weekly newspaper in the Triangle.
February 3, 2009
Ignite Social Media featured The Smartwool Experiment in the blog post The Smartwool Experiment: A Story About the Corporate Response to Social Media.
February 1, 2009
After several months hiatus, Another HCI Blog was resuscitated and picked up again by Alltop – user-interface.alltop.com.
February 1, 2009
Began the second experiment – Twenty-eight Tables – of Experimonth 2009.
January 18, 2009
Presented Doing Really Neat (and Free) Things with Google Alerts at Science Online ‘09.
January 14-16, 2009
Attended a Nanoscale Informal Science Education(NISE) Network regional workshop in Philadelphia, PA.
January 1, 2009
Began the first experiment – A Month in the Raw – of Experimonth 2009.
December 13, 2008
Created a new personal blog, The Pitch I Chew.
November 2, 2008
Created The Smartwool Experiment, an adult science experiment/blog charting the wear and tear of four pairs of Smartwool socks.
Fallish 2008
Gave a series of “What is Web 2.0 and Why Should I Care?” presentations and workshops to various Museum-related groups (Feedback from my boss during one of those presentations.)
November 2, 2008
Work mentioned in Museum 2.0: Two Years Later.
October 26, 2008
Work mentioned in Find Tweet-Sized Knowledge in the Museum Twittersphere.
October 16-22, 2008
Attended my first Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC) conference in Philadelphia, PA. Met some wonderful folks and was particularly inspired by Nina Simon of Museum 2.0 and David Merrill of Taco Lab.
October 6-8, 2008
Attended IDEA 2008 in Chicago, IL. Was particularly inspired by Dave Gray’s talk about books, Alberto Cañas and his talk about concept mapping and Andrew Hinton’s talk about our responsibility as information architects to change the world.
September 30, 2008
Work mentioned in Meet Amy Fox of MuseumTweets: Best Practices for Micro Blogging in Museums.
September 9, 2008
Attended Websites Without Walls, a Forum One Communications seminar in Washington, DC. Was particularly inspired by Andy Carvin of NPR and Clay Johnson of capitolwords.org.
August 1, 2008
Attended a Nanoscale Information Science Education (NISE) Network workshop in St. Paul, Minnesota at the Science Museum of Minnesota. Met some great folks and attended a rousing hootenany by the Mississippi river.
July 8, 2008
Started the tumblog Useum: User-generated Museums.
July 7, 2008
Joined the Museum of Life + Science as their Director of Web Experience.
January 7, 2008
Joined hesketh.com as an information architect.
November 8, 2007
Attended World Usability Day and participated in my first Interactionary.
October 13-17, 2007
Attended HighEdWebDev 2007 in Rochester, NY and was awarded “Best of Track” for presenting Designing Compelling User Experiences (in Higher Ed). Left for home particularly inspired by Lori Packer, Daniel Frommelt and Derek Tonn.
October 15, 2007
Became a member of the Information Architecture Institute.
October 11, 2007
Presented Designing Compelling User Experiences (in Higher Ed) to the Duke University Web Communicators Group.
October 8, 2007
Joined Refresh the Triangle.
October4-5, 2007
Attended IDEA 2007 at Parson’s New School of Design in New York City. Was particularly inspired by Brad Paley, Sylvia Harris and Mike Kuniavsky.
October 3, 2007
Attended IDEA Pre-Conference Information Architecture Workshop in New York City, presented by MAYA. Left 100% inspired.
September 21, 2007
Attended TriUPA Mentor/Mentee lunch at Saffron in Cary.
September 9-13, 2007
Attended XML/XSLT training by Crane Softwrights in San Francisco, CA.
August 29, 2007
Offered position as Web Interaction Designer with Channel Advisor, Inc.
August 12, 2007
Sent in registration for a GRE math refresher class at the local community college, Durham Tech.
August 4, 2007
Attended BarCampRDU at Red Hat HQ. Was particularly inspired by the folks at disruptorMonkey and (no surprise, here) ibiblio.org.
July 23, 2007
HighEdWebDev2007 conference presentation proposal for Designing Compelling User Experiences (in Higher Education) has been accepted!
July 5, 2007
Registered for BarCampRDU.
June 18, 2007
Interviewed in the Triangle Usability Professionals 2nd Quarter 2007 NewsletterPDF of the interview. (navigate to page 6 for my interview). For archival purposes, I have created a
June 12, 2007
Decided to consider a part-time work/part-time school scenario in 2008 (instead of full-time school in 2010) after encouragement from a new friend, Lea Salas.
June 3, 2007
Attended DCampSouth in Raleigh, NC and was particularly inspired by Thomas Vander Wal’s presentation on folksonomy and infoclouds, a discussion about online image vs. online identity and a few new tricks for debugging websites and CSS code for IE. Also joined the Triangle Usability Professionals Associations (TriUPA).
May 30, 2007
Submitted Designing Compelling User Experiences (in Higher Education) presentation proposal for the HighEdWebDev2007 conference in Rochester, NY.
May 22, 2007
Attended Presenting Data and Information: A One Day Course Taught by Edward Tufte in Arlington, VA
April 14, 2007
Attended Full Frame Documentary Film Festival’s screening of Helvetica, left inspired and proud I chose to major in graphics design.
April 13, 2007
Launch of Another HCI Blog, a place to record my thoughts about and experiences with HCI, IxD and UX. You can subscribe to the Another HCI Blog RSS feed via feedburner.
March 23, 2007
Launch of HCI Notes, a tumblr.com scrapblog where I record quotes, links, graphics and videos about HCI, IXD and UX. You can subscribe to the HCI Notes RSS feed via feedburner.
February 28, 2007
Offered position as User Experience Designer at Red Hat, Inc.
February 22, 2007
Met Cory Doctorow at a small talk about blogging and boingboing.net for the Duke Web Communicators group.
February 20, 2007
Inspired by Fred Kilgour memorial and keynote lecture by Red Hat executive, Michael Tiemann entitled Sharing Knowledge, Multiplying Value: The Non-Linear Nature of Open Source Software
December 20, 2006
Came to the conclusion that researching users was to be my next career move, wrote on my duke website, “Sometimes with mandate, other times with curiosity and always with a sincere passion, I have spent the last decade researching the habits of web users and trends in interface design and information architecture. I consider it my responsibility as a professional — and as a willing participant in the World Wide Web — to not only create exemplary websites, but to contribute meaningfully to the collective intelligence of the internets.”
November 30, 2006
Attended Merlin Mann’s seminar Time burglars, attention sinks & bear traps or, “Why does my email make me cry?” and enjoyed a very greasy lunch with him at Bullocks BBQ.
October 22-25, 2006
Attended HighEdWebDev 2006: Collective Intelligence conference in Rochester, NY and was particularly inspired by Rose Pruyne and Daniel Frommelt.