Summary:
After initially graduating with a Computer Science degree, Linda spent several years as
a web administrator, database designer, and programmer with two software companies. She
then returned to school to complete a Human-Computer Interaction degree and joined
Cognetics upon completion of her degree. Linda is an experienced web-surfer and is
familiar with programming principles, though she no longer actively codes.
Linda works with clients to clearly establish a product’s vision. With the vision
in place, she works with users as appropriate to analyze their needs and requirements. She
then uses that data to produce a draft of a user-interface and manages an iterative design
process, combining expert review with usability testing as needed. She starts the design
process in Visio, but she prefers to construct low-fidelity HTML prototypes as soon as
possible for both review and testing. Once the design is stable, Linda typically delivers
annotated specs for the full interface and the user interface style guide used to
construct the prototype. She varies these deliverables depending on the needs of the
specific project.
Goals:
- Produce an "a-ha!" interface that seems both innovative and
self-evident at the same time. Once presented, it is the obvious way to approach the
workflow.
- Serve as a user advocate, helping clients to align business needs and user needs.
- Perform iterative design and testing within the parameters of schedule and budget.
- Work with clients until they are confident in the user interface produced for a product.
Constraints:
- Linda is one of the few women who are red-green colorblind.
- Access to users for user analysis is not always feasible, so Linda must sometimes gather
user data in more creative ways (tech support logs, surveys, remote interviews, etc.).
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