Chopsticker

Robert Barlow-Busch’s thoughts about user experience and product design, all rolled up into one reasonably tidy and occasionally tasty blog.

Month: July, 2007

July 31, 2007

Job opportunity for design-minded web developer

Work with me, people. Literally!

This position has been filled. Thanks to everyone who was interested and keep an eye peeled for future opportunities.

I’m excited about this position that’s just opened up here at Terapath. We’re looking for a web developer who’s savvy with all the latest buzz (Web 2.0, AJAX, etc.) and techniques for building rich internet applications. Why am I excited? Because I’ll be working closely with whomever lands in this position — and we’ll have some good times together, I’m sure. (Note: must love sushi. <grin />) We subscribe to the “fail early, fail often” and “serious play” philosophies here, meaning we like to iterate quickly and burn through design concepts. In order to do this properly, we need someone who can whip together working prototypes of our favorite ideas, then help usher the very best to market.

I’m happy to answer questions, but if you’re serious about applying, please get in touch with Jeff Fedor here at Terapath.

Web Application Developer (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada)

About Terapath

A startup in Waterloo, Terapath has assembled a talented and experienced team to commercialize an exciting innovation. In fact, virtually all of us left comfortable positions at successful companies to participate in what we’re building here. Intrigued? Read on. If you’ve got what it takes for this position, we’d love to tell you more.

– Continue reading this post>

Leave a comment
July 10, 2007

The jujutsu of introducing usability to an organization (video)

I was very pleased when Mark Maxted from Blue Coat agreed to speak at last month’s 7-Minute Soapbox in Waterloo. Of all the engineers I’ve worked with in the past 15 years, Mark is perhaps the most well-versed and committed advocate of usability and user-centered design. In this talk, he draws upon 24 years experience across several companies to share some advice on introducing usability and UCD to an organization.

The highlight for me was Mark’s metaphor for the topic: by applying techniques of “organizational jujutsu,” we can redirect an organization’s energy to increase our leverage when introducing campaigns for usability. Mark identifies four pressure points of an organization that will influence our choice of tactics.

  • Technical: Is the back-end architecture sufficiently decoupled from the front-end UI to allow for rapid prototyping?
  • Process: Are current processes, especially those regarding product requirements, well defined and do mechanisms exist for changing them?
  • Culture: Does the organization value interdisciplinary teamwork and encourage people to admit “we don’t know what we don’t know”?
  • Product/market: Is this an early market in which product features are the driving force, or a more mature market in which you’re competing on a whole solution?

– Continue reading this post>

Leave a comment
July 10, 2007

Hourly: Time tracking and invoicing on the Macintosh (video)

If you’re in a profession where “billable hours” comes up frequently in conversation, you’re likely familiar with various methods and tools for tracking time. Very few of them are pleasant, at least based on my 10 years experience in consulting. In fact, even though I left the billable-hour game 6 months ago, I’m occasionally hit with waves of panic on Friday evenings: “Timesheets! Crap! I didn’t do my timesheets! Oh, right… phew, not anymore.”

At last month’s 7-Minute Soapbox in Waterloo, Peter Benes introduced us to Hourly, a new Mac OS X desktop application for tracking time and invoicing clients. Peter is a graphic designer (his studio is Atomic Wax) who, as you’ll hear in the video, hates the administrative work that’s required in running a business — particularly time tracking and invoicing. So he enlisted the help of some friends to design an application that would simplify the process and free up more time for creative work.

The result, Hourly, has apparently done just that for Peter. Macworld recently featured Hourly on its website, so hopefully others will experience similar outcomes.

– Continue reading this post>

Leave a comment
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.