Online Portfolio Shortcut

Posted by on May 13, 2012

Web Applications and Sites

University of South Carolina

I was brought in to help transition SC.edu from legacy technology and an outdated design to a responsive HTML5/CSS3 site built in a modern CMS. To accomplish this, I worked with the marketing and communication team, with various academic areas and technical partners to develop information architecture, web templates and visual design.

HuddleHR

HuddleHR is a startup that develops web and mobile products to help small businesses effectively manage their human capital. HuddleHR won 1st prize in the University of South Carolina’s Entrepreneurial Challenge – The Proving Ground.

Harmony

Harmony is Colonial Life’s award winning enterprise enrollment system.  It has online components written in .Net and offline components in WPF and Silverlight. As user experience team leader, I was responsible for the UX and creative strategy,  information architecture, visual design and front-end web development.

My Colonial Life

My Colonial Life is the umbrella Policy Holder site for Colonial Life. HTML5, CSS3, JQuery, SOA, CMS

CSC Work (Password Protected)

HTML5 sites

  • Stilllife in America (2011) – Interactive Experience using Javascript & SVG
  • Broker Revenue (2011) – A marketing site designed to help build broker sales. HTML5, CSS3, JQuery with responsive layout.

Non-Profit Sites

Writing Sample & Strategy Document (Password Protected)

  • Colonial Life Creative Brief (2006) – This document should serve both as a writing sample and to indicate my thinking about brands and brand strategy.
  • My Colonial Life Business Case (2010) – This document shows a successful business case that has spawned a multi-year corporate project to redevelop all of colonial Life’s extranets.

Wireframes (Password Protected)

  • Wireframes (random sampling-more available upon request)

 

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The logic of estimating

Posted by on October 6, 2011

I need a cost estimate on your projectAt work, we estimate all of our projects and the process never seems to work that well.  We break things up into features and then to requirements and then sort them into iterations and then break them apart further into tasks and then try to estimate the tasks.  It all takes a long time and I don’t think the estimates are much better than making a gut call. I’d say its a 4 to 6 month project.

As I have been thinking of the problem I had a realization. Estimating is a problem.

Assumptions:

  • If a range of time is given for a project, the project will not be completed until the far end of that range has been reached.  E.g. If I say the project will take 4 to 6 months, then the project will most likely take 6 months.
  • When asked to estimate, it is human nature to give higher estimates than the actual time it will take to complete. This is particularly true if there are issues with missing your estimates. E.g. If a task takes one day, we  estimate its completion at two days.
Problem:
  • x = the actual time it will take to complete a project
  • y = the time to estimate a project
  • z = the estimated time to complete a project
  • x < z
How much longer will it take to complete the project if it is estimated?
  • x = 5 months
  • y = 1 month
  • z = 7 months
If it is not estimated, the time it will take to complete is x or 5 months.  If the project is estimated, it will take the time to estimate + the estimated time (y + z). It will take 8 months to complete the estimated project.  The estimated project will take 3 months longer to complete than the unestimated project.

 

This can’t always be the case, right. Right.  Some people underestimate. I have worked with people where I ask for estimates and double them. Perhaps I am part of the problem. If you can do without estimates, do without estimate. More often than not, we need structure to help with planning, coordinating and resourcing our projects which means we need some estimates.

 

My suggestions are these:
  • Only estimate if it is necessary.
  • Stakeholders should encourage transparency by not punishing missed estimates, but
     rather by helping teams become more accurate.
  • Teams should minimize the time it takes to estimate by estimating requirements or features rather than tasks. Keep the estimates simple and high-level.

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Interior Decorators and Plumbers

Posted by on October 5, 2011

The other day, a co-work (developer) explained to a high school student (visiting our office to learn about IT careers) that User Experience is basically like being an interior decorator. I told her that I often describe what she does as being like a plumber in the building that I am responsible for architecting. When will programmers finally understand?

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My save the date

Posted by on July 11, 2011

This is the save the date that I designed for you wedding. It was inspired by something I was working on.

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My Wedding Invites

Posted by on July 11, 2011

Here are the invites I designed for my wedding. The shape was inspired by an invite I found on the web that I have since lost track of.

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Colonial Life Policy Holder Site

Posted by on February 4, 2011

Colonial Life’s Policyholder site had not been updated significantly since 1998 and it was greatly in need of a visual redesign, new functionality, better user experience and a technology upgrade. The new site incorporates Sitecore’s CMS, HTML5/CSS3, SOA services and a lot of .NET. It’s easy to maintain due to the technology platform we developed, it contains workflows so business areas can author their own content, but its our customers who benefit the most. The site is easy to use: you can access your policies or claims with just a few clicks. If the customer still has trouble, we created context sensitive FAQs and tips. The new look is friendly and happy, changing how our customers feel when they interact with the company.

  • Managed the team responsible for the site
  • Creative Director for the project
  • Created the initial site architecture and wireframes

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