Hallahan On Tech: Interactive resume, blog and portfolio by Christopher Hallahan

Hello Ohio businesses and non-profits,

I'm currently working on my master's degree at Kent State University in the emerging field of User Experience Design (Information Architecture and Knowledge Management).  I'm nearing the completion of my degree and planning to work on a Master's Project that will tie together the key methods of my studies.  I hope to begin in February 2010 and aim to complete and present the project by early July 2010.

I would love to work on the redesign of an in-house, web-based application or Web site for a local business.  The project will focus on user research, a usability study and prototypes demonstrating a final redesign for the product.

If you're interested in this area, but have not had the time or resources to explore it in the past, this would be a great opportunity.  I've outlined my key objectives for the project below, as well as key deliverables with which I would like to conclude the study.

Please contact with me if you are interested or if you have any questions.  You can also visit my own Web site for examples of my previous work.  Thank you in advance for your time!

Sincerely,

Christopher Hallahan
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
330.267.9756 (Google Voice)
Located in Kent, OH USA
www.chrishallahan.com

Final Deliverables

• Key findings from a preliminary survey, user interviews and usability testing summarized in a research report
• A competitive analysis including best practices from similar products, common labeling and navigation systems and recommendations for a redesign
• Blueprint designs that visually demonstrate the new navigation systems, information architecture and user workflow
• Wireframe designs of the improved web site or application
• Visual design Photoshop documents, standards-based XHTML templates and style sheets to be used as a starting point for the redesign, as time permits
• A slide presentation showing my research methods, main deliverables and key findings (to be presented to a committee at Kent State University and optionally, to interested parties with whom I worked on the project)
• A final compilation of the above deliverables, to be shared with the institution or business and also submitted to Kent State University as a Master's Project. 

Research Objectives

• Perform user research with the primary users of the application or Web site through a competitive analysis, requirements analysis, survey and short face-to-face interviews to determine areas of further study
• Discover user experience concerns with a usability study with the current product in a Usability lab using eye-tracking software and task-based analysis
• Develop an improved Information Architecture proposal for the product including a new labeling system, navigation scheme, workflow analysis and information layout
• Develop low-fidelity, paper prototypes for the product using the improved information architecture
• Develop high-fidelity prototypes to be used in a final round of Usability Lab testing.  Compare these results with the original testing results.

The ideal partner for this project:

• Already has a web-based application or site in need of a redesign
• Has the resources to work with me on my project and will allow me to perform voluntary, in-house research with their main audiences
• Will share the project with the academic community
• Is located in the Cleveland area or can work with me remotely
• Has an interest in Usability, Information Architecture or User Experience Design

Download this release as a PDF. 

After completing many great projects and group deliverables in my courses this last semester, I thought it would be appropriate to create a new section to include these pieces in my portfolio.   I'll continue to add to the User Experience Coursework section throughout the Spring semester as well.  This is a great way to view some of my actual UXD work or just get a better idea of this area of work.  I for sure learned a TON of valuable information this semester.  I'm looking forward to doing this work outside of class in the near future.

The items posted include:

• An Information Architecture project including a competitive analysis, blueprints and wireframes
• A user research group deliverable, using surveys and user interviews to make recommendations to an actual client
• A usability test study that examined the results of usability lab testing
• A paper prototype project that explored a new user interface

It's been a busy semester here at Kent State.  I'm working on updating my portfolio with projects, papers and web sites from this semester.  This has been a great year for improving my information architecture and usability skills, both through school and work.

I wanted to quickly mention my obsession with WordPress.  I'll be using it for a few projects over the semester.  I commend the good people over at WordPress for their hard work in this successful open source project.  After doing a search, I found this page (www.wordpress.org/donate) that includes a link to donate to WordPress through PayPal.  I'm planning on donating myself and I think it would be great if they promoted this page during the holiday season.  

Thank you WordPress, Joomla and all the other great open source projects that my colleages and myself use daily!

 I have to take a second and rave about a recently out of beta service called Dropbox.  Dropbox is a "cloud-based" file sync service and it's a life-saver for people with more than one computer.  After recently getting a new desktop, I found it difficult to swap files between machines.  It's no longer a problem with Dropbox.  Even my work computer has my files synced to it.  

As an added bonus, I have the security of my files being saved up in the cloud (just in case), and the service even keeps a feed (RSS) of the most recent changes and additions to my box.  Cool!  Now I'm just waiting (along with everyone else) to get Dropbox to monitor folders outside of the default one.  I'm using the free service (2GB) right now, but if all goes well, I'll definitely upgrade to the 50GB service and move my photos and music as well.  

This definitely blows similar services like Apple's MobileMe (painfully slow, unreliable and not cross platform) out of the water.  Plus the simple interface wins a ton of points from an IA perspective.  Check out Dropbox at www.getdropbox.com.

 Well, it's just about nearing the end of the summer.  I've been working on some new web sites over the last few months.  Two are finished, and one is going up in about a week.  

Nazareth Housing Development Corporation

The first one is for Nazareth Housing Development Corporation, a non-profit based in Akron, OH.  Nazareth approached me because they were looking more exposure for their housing rehab programs.  They wanted a current site, with news, photos and an online application.

For this I chose the open-source WordPress software.  I had some previous experience with the CMS before, but the interface and ease-of-use blew my mind.  Now Nazareth staff members can add news and events themselves; cutting out the middle man.  The world of add-ons for WordPress is unbelievable and installation couldn't be easier.  I'll definitely be using WordPress for basic dynamic sites in the future.  You can see the final product, www.nazarethhousing.org, here.  See more information about this site on my web site.

Dow Jones Summer Diversity Institute

I was also asked by a professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication to build the site for this year's Dow Jones Summer Diversity Institute, held for a week on the Kent campus.  High school students of diverse backgrounds attend the program to learn about all aspects of journalism, including reporting, videography and photography.  My goal was to showcase their work on the web, integrating their photography and stories.  I spent a while coming up with a summer-like pattern for the top banner, which I think worked well in the end.  I used XHTML strict coding with standard AJAX and CSS.  The site is up now at new.jmc.kent.edu/djwksp/.  View more information about it on my web site.

That's it for now.  Coming soon--the brand new Kent State University Undergraduate Student Government web site!  You can see the current site (not designed by me) for now.

This semester in my Spring '09 Web Design and Programming I course, we were split into groups and had to design web sites for an organization of business of our choice.  Since many of my group members were current or former ResNet employees, we chose The Tech Spot (Kent State's new computer service center) as the web site we would design.  You can see more information, screenshots and the live site in my web site gallery.  Please note that this is a beta site and its content may not be accurate.

I acted as sort of the group leader/information architect in this project, which was a great experience.  Our talented programmers did the CGI/Form work and the VCD member of our group designed most of the templates.  It was great to look at a new site from an IA perspective and work with a talented group of programmers and designers to create a good user experience.  I am especially proud of the CSS-driven drop down menus, inspired by the Sons of Suckerfish CSS menu.

I'm proud to say the site uses fully compliant XHTML and CSS.  The original design was done in Photoshop.  Our group collaborated on content by using Dreamweaver CS4 and a WebDAV server so that we could check in and check out files without stepping on each other's toes.  The site also contains functions from the JQuery library and the CGI programs are written in Perl.  

As with any University site, we have to get marketing and departmental approval before the site can go live.  Unfortunately, less of our design may be used because it is going into the University's content management system.  Whether or not this site gets used, I think it's a great demonstration of my team's abilities and accomplishments.

I've been thinking a lot lately about security for the iPhone.  It's such an important part of my daily routine that it would be difficult to replace if it were lost or stolen.  Here are some tricks and utilities I've come across lately to give me greater peace of mind:

1. Create a wallpaper in Photoshop with your contact information placed on a layer.  I found this great Template (PSD) that has this already set up for you.  You can, of course, insert any wallpaper you'd like.  Thank you to whoever created this template.
2. Use the four-digit passcode.  You can find this under General --> Passcode Lock.  I've had this turned on for a while and set it to lock after 2 minutes.  There is also an option to completely wipe your iPhone after 10 invalid passcodes are entered.
3. Download Undercover for iPhone.  I've had this excellent program running on all of my Macs for years.  It will basically track your iPhone using the built-in GPS if it is stolen.  The downside--the program has to be opened for this to work and it cannot run in the background.  The folks at Orbicule say they are working with other application developers to improve this product.
4. Make a backup of your phone through iTunes at least every 2 weeks.  In case you do lose your phone, you can easily restore all of your information to another iPhone extremely easily.

There are lots of rumors out there that the iPhone 3.0 software (coming this summer) will include much better security, including remote wipe and built in GPS tracking via Mobile Me.  I'm looking forward to it, but this should hold me over until then.

Though I'm surprised this hasn't happened sooner, USA Today reports that the popular DVR manufacturer TiVo will soon begin reporting anonymous viewing data.  The data will "offer stations, advertisers and program producers year-round, second-by-second information about the shows and commercials watched by people who have one of the company's DVRs."  Though this is a great use of the technology (Nielson has to use custom viewing meters in sampled households in order to track activity), I am certain it will be a wake up call to advertisers when they find hard data that their ads are simply being skipped most of the time.  This will result in decreased ad revenues for the networks, and begin a push for a radically different advertising structure (think lower-third ads during TV shows and more ad space directly in the TiVo software).  With some analysts expecting DVRs to penetrate around 37% of houses by 2012, I wouldn't be surprised if our DVR "free ride" doesn't last much longer.

Read the Article

Joomla has launched a new Community Showcase where developers can display web sites they have created.  I submitted my site under the Arts/Portfolio & Self Promo section.  This is a fantastic way to share great designs and will certainly open up the Joomla Community to greater exposure.  I'm particularly intrigued by the Education section.  Hopefully I can create some higher education sites in the future that are as well-constructed as those currently displayed there.

The inevitable "variable" pricing has gone into effect on iTunes today.  This basically satisfies the music industries' pleas for more control over pricing of the most popular songs.  Chart-toppers will go for $1.29, songs of medium popularity for the former $.99 and catalogue songs go for $.69.  Steve Jobs has said that most of the songs will go for the latter.  It's really unfortunate that the recording industry couldn't be satisfied with the seemingly working "one price fits all."  However, I'll let Apple slide on this one since the contract negotiations forced this structure upon the iTunes Store.  One positive benefit we did get out of this negotiation is DRM-free music (encoded at 256kbps).  Still...with everyone, including myself, taking second thoughts about how they are spending their money these days, I'm afraid over-priced digital music may be one of the first things to cut out.  After coming all this way in digital sales...let's hope that we don't see a spike in music piracy after all of this.