Portfolio

online, print, software

These are projects I have worked on with a short story for each. For more details, visit the CV page.

Pagan Threads.org.uk - website and social media

Most recently completed: Website for a group that schedules monthly meetings of like-minded people. Helped decide on content structure for the site, implemented it with a fully customised seasonal WordPress theme, linked it to facebook, and created and added the twitter profile to give a voice to the group.

Tools: Fireworks and Dreamweaver for html, css, and graphics. WordPress for blog engine. Set up, configured, administered, developed and designed the entire site.

Mama Lan Supper Club - website, social media and business cards

I designed and developed a website for a London-based supper club, which includes a blog, a photo gallery, and a shopping cart for event tickets. The website and matching business cards have successfully created a consistent corporate identity for Mama Lan.
I am happy to report that the ecstatic owners tell me that every time they host a dinner, there are always at least one or two attendees who chose Mama Lan because of the website! UPDATE: In March of 2011, the owner of Mama Lan's Supper Club quit her job to start her own restaurant, and is looking for investors. Clearly, the Supper Club's success proved this is a profitable enterprise.

Tools: Fireworks, html, css, WordPress, moo.co.uk. Set up, configured, administered, developed and designed the entire site, as well as the business cards.

Design @ IBM - interface design for web-based and regular applications

I lead design on the new IBM SPSS Decision Management suite of applications. This is a set of configurable web-based applicatins that bring predictive analytics to business users. My task was to design a front-end that would allow non-expert users to take advantage of data analysis tools available on IBM SPSS Modeler Server.
As lead designer, I was responsible for all interactions, prototyping and graphical work. Coordinated discussions with development teams and guided the design effort of a team of senior designers who followed my lead as they had no web development experience.

Tasks: Received requirements from Product Management, prototyped solutions, and wrote specification documents for the Development and Quality Analysis departments to work from to build and test the application respectively.

Methods: Use cases, personas, mockups, working prototypes, user interface documentation.

Tools: Fireworks, html, css, MS Word

3Sixty group - advertising campaigns, online and print

My main role was to coordinate development of a web-based applications' newly specified (by me) features. Due to good synergy with the head of Sales, I ended up contributing to a very large extent to both sales documentation but mostly to print and online campaigns, both with slogans as well as original artwork. My layout, graphical and copywriting skills were often praised, and the Managing Director invariably came back proud from various events where people commented positively on our materials.

Coordinated software development for internal payroll application. Designed new interactions for internal systems and superviseed their implementation by external development team. Consolidated and documented IT infrastructure. Responsible for website content, online advertisement, artwork, site architeture and newsletter publications. Designed an implemented a contact form that increased new enquiries by 30%.

Tools: Fireworks, Illustrator

IDEAL Systems - Web-based apps, print brochures, e-cards

While working as an IT Consultant at IDEAL Systems, my manager noticed fairly quickly that aside from designing web applications with scenarios, use cases, flow diagrams, personas, and being able to not only do the graphical work but also code the whole thing into the JSPs ready for the developers to use, I could also do copywriting and print layouts. So I ended up pulling together a series of brochures with our success stories and our products. These were part of a portfolio that was handed to customers in sales meetings.

As an entertaining bonus, I designed an animated electronic card to be emailed to customers for christmas. This was under the green initiative of the company, with a goal to cut costs, raise our "green" credentials and establish a closer customer relationship.

User documentation - print and online

I wrote a set of user manuals for Supply Insights' series of applications. I also advised them on usability issues with their web-based products. This was contractual work. The manuals were distributed in PDF format, and later an online version was also made available to users.

Authored an administrator's configuration manual which was task-oriented, for configuring an application that ran on EJBs. I also configured that application for 2 clients, TIM and Vodafone. Also wrote and programmatically embedded contextual help for this "configurator" application. This was one of the projects I worked on while at IDEAL Systems.

Wrote a user manual for a web-based payroll application during my tenure at 3sixty group. This was based on close observation of current expert users, and was subsequently distributed to new hires. It is still in use to this day, and greatly simplified the lives of the managers of the payrolling division, while substantially accelerating staff training times.

Anderson Food Hygiene - website and corporate identity

Rebuilt the website for Anderson Food Hygiene to be more professional and useful for their customers. The goal was to highlight the history of the company, give full listings of the various available courses, advertise the next special offers, and give directions to the various venues where the courses were held. The information architecture was altered, the course listings standardised, updated and tabulated, and generally the content was restructured. This was done successfully and the website is still live, although it has since been altered somewhat by another contractor, as I no longer had time to do the weekly updates the owner required. The corporate identity (logo, colour scheme, etc...) and overall structure and content I put in place for her is still, I am proud to say, being used.

Xencom group - digital and print brochure

I was working as a freelancer and won a bid to design a brochure for this client in Dubai. Some of the artwork was already done but he could not complete the project. I used my layout, typography and other graphical skills to complete it for him. He was so satisfied with the result that he recommended me to clients for a subsequent project (which I cannot publish here).

Harry Potter duelling wand - HCI Project

Task: The project consisted of creating an interactive toy of our invention for the market.

Idea: I suggested we create motion-sensitive dueling wands based on Harry Potter. Different motion patterns cast different attacking or defensive spells. The shielding level was shown on the wand, and a "hit" wand timed out while it recuperated.

Approach: After a few initial sketches, usage scenarios / storyboards, and playing around with sticks, we worked on prototyping. A flash prototype was first made to gather feedback on the concept. Feedback was used to improve the design of the final toy, which we built. This was a fully functional wand (with nuts and bolts and lots of soldering) which we connected to a PCB with USB interface for energy and control purposes.

The marketable toy would have IrDA communication, much like the Wii remotes many years later, but for our demo it simply interacted with a virtual software-controlled wand.

Resources: The project's site is still online, and one can find usage scenarios and design specifications as well as our final paper (.pdf).

The user manual (2 pages):

Play with our prototype!
Bear in mind that the User Manual link does not work!! Use the images above.

10 dimensions of creative complexity

Some odd truths about creative individuals, based on Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book, Creativity. They made me laugh and go "ouch, that's true!" and "that's true too!" and want to hide, while being strangely proud. Perhaps creative types are oxymorons...

1. Creative individuals have great physical energy, but they become extremely quiet when they are at rest. This restful period can lead others to think that they are not feeling well or that they are unhappy, when the truth is they are fine.
2. Creative folks tend to be both highly intelligent and naive at the same time.
3. Creative people are disciplined and playful simultaneously. In some creative people, this can mean that they are responsible and irresponsible at the same time as well.
4. Creative minds move between a spectrum of fantasy and imagination and a firm grounding in reality. They understand the present and need to keep in touch with the past.
5. Creative individuals seem to be both introverted and extroverted, expressing both traits at once. An image to explain this might be that they are shy showoffs, if you can picture that.
6. Creative people are sincerely humble and extremely proud in a childlike way. It requires ego to have a risky, fresh idea. It takes self-doubt to hammer it out to a workable form.
7. Creative folks dont feel as tied to gender roles. They feel distinctly individual. They dont feel the barriers of authority or the rules of what they are supposed to do.
8. Creative individuals are thought to be rebellious. Yet, in order to be creative one has to understand and have internalized the traditional culture. Therefore creativity comes from deep roots in tradition. Creative people are traditional and cutting edge.
9. Creative people are deeply passionate about their work, yet can be extremely detached and objective when discussing it.
10. Creative people are highly open and sensitive, which exposes them to pain and suffering, but also allows them to feel higher values of joy and happiness.

       

© Eurydice Sophie Exintaris 1997-2010