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Supporting early childhood literacy in Illinois became easier with the launch of a new client site which will help coordinate and support over 100 young reader site locations in Illinois.

View Deliverable: State-Level Non-Profit Program WordPress Implementation

This WordPress implementation uses a customized Organic Nonprofit Theme license to conform with branding expectations.

Users can support the program with donations via PayPal.

using the sketch book, easel pad, Axure RP Pro, Photoshop, WordPress

The user-centered design for a state-level non-profit organization described here improved organization technical capacity, content management capabilities, and produced a new organization website consisting of 158 pages and 283 posts (as of Aug. 1, 2011).

View Deliverable: Client WordPress Site

With primary activities that include advocacy, education, and professional collaboration oriented toward improving pediatric health care, this user center design process consisted of exploration, generation, refinement, and implementation phases.

[Exploration Phase] Requirements gathering was the primary goal of the exploration phase, which also included:

• Stakeholder interviews
• Participant observation
• Content audit
• Content mapping
• Content strategy meetings
• Context research/competitive analysis
• Scope clarification
• Identifying success metrics
• Identify functional requirements

[Generation Phase] Generating and visualizing ideas characterized the generation phase, which also included:

• Content mapping
• Content evaluation
• Preliminary information architecture design
• Preliminary interaction design

[Refinement Phase] Iterative design and evaluation with stakeholders involved:

• Information architecture design
• Interaction design
• Expert evaluation
• Low and medium fidelity prototyping
• User testing

[Implementation Phase]

Putting the system in place and customizing the installation included:

• Technical execution
• Scripting and coding for customization
• User testing
• Expanding functionality through plug-ins
• Iteration of exploration, generation, refinement, and implementation phases
• Training and documentation

Preliminary Meeting: May 2009
Final Documentation Submitted: July 2011

During the development cycle, I worked on-site in capacities that included web communications and content management consultant and project technologies consultant. A number of deliverables were produced in addition to those described above. I supported client implementation of web-based solutions for e-commerce, project management, event management, and membership management.

As a result, many aspects of interactions with membership have moved to the web interface. With expanded accessibility and convenience, the infrastructure developed in association with my consultancy has supported membership growth and logistical possibilities for the future.

References for this project can be provided upon request.

Project note:

“The Elements of User Experience” by Jesse James Garrett served as my primary UX project management guide for this user-centered design process. Garrett’s ‘elements’ conceptualize the user-centered design process (see below) in a way that puts the designer/design team in the position to design for the user at every step of a project, while laying out a thoughtful, organize, and professional preservation.

This foundational contribution to user-centered design literature continues to offer important insights in all of my projects, and has emerged as required reading upon the dawn of each new exploration phase.

using Visio, Balsamiq, Camtasia Studio, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Basecamp

As a producer of instructional videos of public health professionals and pediatric healthcare providers, I worked with stakeholders to produce a series of instructional videos supporting the use of Basecamp, the web based project management system by 37 signals. Instructional video users went on to use Basecamp as a collaboration lynchpin for implementation of statewide quality improvement programs.

View Deliverable: Basecamp Writeboard Instructional Video

Process flow diagrams (see images above) were created in collaboration with stakeholders used to to communicate requirements on the way to shaping a successful series of instructional videos.

using Balsamiq, InDesign, and EightShapes Unify

Funder requirements and professional certification board guidelines informed a requirements gathering process that produced a series of process flow deliverables for a web-based Continuing Medical Education/Part IV Maintenance of Certification system. Such a system enables pediatric health care providers to maintain their professional licensing by participating in web-based education and certification processes.

Collaborating with the project management team, I produced preliminary mockups using Balsamiq, before iterating storyboards and system flow diagrams using InDesign and EightShapes unify that increasingly represented the complex palette of requirements for this system.

This will be the first of its kind in providing physicians with an online MOC solution, and is currently under development by eLearning production company and learning management system provider, Digitec Interactive.

using Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, and Audacity

Timeline animation and graphic design for screen and print were subjects of DePaul coursework with instructor, Stuart Grais.

View Deliverable:Television Show Introduction: “Greatness”

View Deliverable: Banner Advertisement 1 (horizontal)

View Deliverable: Banner Advertisement 2 (vertical)

View Deliverable: DVD Menu: Let The Right One In*

View Deliverable: Cut Out Animation: “Cacophony“

Visual design is one part of the Human-Computer Interaction subject area triad (in addition to behavioral sciences and information technology). These courses provided the academic foundation for visual design in the HCI program:

• Foundations of Digital Design
• Digital Page Formatting
• Multimedia

The examples of multimedia work that you see here were created as part of my graduate school course work in the Human-Computer Interaction program in the DePaul University College of Computing and Digital Media.

*denotes project completed with a partner

using WordPress

Content management does not have to be difficult or expensive. In my opinion, the price is right (free), support is outstanding (if you can read, you can make it happen), and the ways in which system functionality seem limitless. Between open-source and enterprise theming options, generating with an attractive and appropriate appearance is always possible.

View Deliverable: State-Level Non-Profit Association WordPress Implementation

View Deliverable: State-Level Non-Profit Program WordPress Implementation

I install customize WordPress sites using enterprise and open-source solutions.  I am experienced with over 100 plug-ins have have customized both open-source and enterprise themes. This personal website (heslip.com) is a WordPress using the Minimatica theme.

using the sketchbook, Axure RP Pro, Photoshop, and Flash

Cardsorting and brainstorming were the starting points for this light-hearted mobile phone application development process that saw several iterations of development through incrementally higher fidelity prototypes. A team-based assignment for the course “Prototyping and Implementation,” Mojo.me was created as an apartment-finding application intended to assist apartment finders actively searching for rental spaces in the city. With a companion web application, Mojo enabled users to plan their apartment search and interact with their plans as they moved through the city.

The examples provided above are views into different stages of the prototyping process.

A large high-fidelity .swf prototype created for this project is available upon request.

I have taught courses extending across academic disciplines, including anthropology, economics, political science, and history, and and extended my in-class manner to other modes of education. As a facilitator of public discussions, an academic support specialist, and a mentor and advocate for youth I have been privileged to engage a great diversity of people in discourses of intellectual pursuit in non-traditional environments.  To this end, I proceed with great interest in engaging learners in other environments and see a world of potential for learners through developments in the areas of e-learning, content strategy, and information architecture.

Entering DePaul University’s Human-Computer Interaction Program in the College of Computing and Digital Media, I participated as a rigorous e-learner and pursued instruction in media literacy education and user-centered design. This opportunity enabled me to begin to understand the learner in a cognitive sense, building upon how I understand classroom-based education and complementing my pursuit of emergent and effective instructional design and implementation.

For more information, or to request examples of course syllabi, please contact me directly at s.heslip[at]gmail.com