What's My Title Today?

So I'm not sure why this took me so long to figure out since it's actually quite simple... I have a flex application that is pulling all its data from an xml file. I wanted to add links to certain pieces of text. I finally figured out a way to make it work... if this is the best way or not, I do not know, but it works! (This is why I'm not a programmer... haha). Use a combination of xml file with node wrapped in the ![CDATA[ tag, Text component, and the htmlText property. Example: MXML snip: <mx:HTTPService id="contentService" url="assets/xml/content.xml" resultFormat="e4x" result="contentResultHandler(event)" fault="contentFaultHandler(event)"/ > ActionScript: iText = new Text(); iText.htmlText = xmlListColl.getItemAt(n).writeup; XML snip: <section> <title>my writeup </title > <writeup> <![CDATA[Here is a <font style="color:'#0000FF';"> <a href="'http://ww...

Over the past month or so I have been working with an IA and some developers to create a proof of concept desktop widget. After the IA did some research and we decided on some wireframes, I did the visual and interaction design, sent the developers my mock ups and assets and let them go. The point of the exercise was to mainly get a sales tool, but also to discover the limitations between platforms. The three that have been created so far have been a Google Gadget, a Yahoo Widget, and an Adobe Air application. According to the developer working on the Google Gadget it is a nightmare. It came out looking the least like my mock ups that's for sure. The Yahoo one looks pretty nice, but it doesn't do any of the cool transitions and stuff I asked for. The Air, well, I guess I'm an Adobe lover anyway, but it came out the best by far. I think that maybe what we were trying to create may have been a bit beyond Google and even Yahoo’s capabilities. I wish I could show you, but yeah....

The last few days I have been working on designing a widget for my company along with an information acritect. It's going pretty well. My inital design looked like an iPhone, and then we moded it form there until we came up with a simple yet cool design (something like 10 mock ups later, lol). My buttons look like iPhone buttons, which I love (I wish I actually had an iPhone, but they're too expensive to own in Canada). On the over state I increased the brightness by 30, suble but nice, and on the down they look depressed. Here's a sample for fun. :) The awesome tutorial to do the buttons I found here - http://blog.jotlet.net/2007/07/05/iphone-style-icon-tutorial/ . To do the over and down effects I came up with all you need to do is the following: The "down style" layer is just a copy of the color layer with an inner shadow: I also nudged the icon down 1px and right 1px. The "over style" is just an adjustment brightness/contrast layer with the brightne...

Does it count that I don’t want to be put in the "IT" box? That I think design is about everything from a cell phone interface to the way your local grocery store is laid out? Does it matter that some day I want to use my skills to change the devices I use daily that drive me nuts – like my oven? "Some of what good interaction designers do is make the world better by removing those little irritants in life, some of which we don't know exist until they are gone." - Dan Saffer from his book Designing for Interaction

This blog is named such because depending on the day I have a different job to do. Yesterday I was a visual designer. Today I am a technical writer. Next week I expect I will be an interaction designer. When it all comes down to it, I may be a generalist, but if there were such thing as a generalist that focused on the end user I suppose that would be me. Problem solver and user empathizer extraordinaire. With an educational background in web design and development, and years of experience coding, I decided to leave the code behind (without any tears) and pursue what I actually cared about; the experience. UI professionals may all agree that we are underappreciated but necessary and often overlooked until the last second of any project. I want to help change that, in my own company, and in the industry as a whole. Just yet another IT professional blog to crowd the already overcrowded web space. But hey, who’s listening?