About Me

My name is Amanda Lasser and I'm a UX Designer. I've been in the industry for about 7 years. I have experience in everything from working at boutique design firms, large and small advertising agencies as well as corporate agencies.

I've designed for both print and web, and when I started out I always imagined myself working at a magazine designing the layouts.

Prior to transitioning to User Experience (UX) Design and joining BlueMetal, I worked at Macys.com as an Interactive Designer and was responsible for the design of various sitelets, tablet, and mobile apps for all of Macy's corporate campaigns and special events.

Before all of this, I did my undergrad at Michigan State University and received a BFA in Graphic Design. Upon graduating I moved to Chicago and worked for a year before moving to London to continue my education at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. While living in London I was able to intern at 2 different magazines which is where my love for typography began.

After London I moved to New York where I got my Master's in Communication Design from Pratt Institute and I've been living and working here ever since. While working professionally, I have always been involved with continuing education, and along the way I discovered User Experience Design and it was love at first sight!! After that I did everything in my power to learn everything I could so that I could make the transition.

And here we are today...

History of the Web

The Internet was created in the 1960's as a result of a collaboration of scientists and researchers in education and the United States government. It started out as a military defense project because the government needed a way to protect and secure all their information.

The first recorded description of the social interactions that could be enabled through networking was a series of memos written by J.C.R. Licklider of MIT in August 1962 discussing his "Galactic Network" concept. He envisioned a globally interconnected set of computers through which everyone could quickly access data and programs from any site. In spirit, the concept was very much like the Internet of today. Licklider was the first head of the computer research program at DARPA, starting in October 1962. While at DARPA he convinced his successors of the importance of this networking concept.¹

Widespread development of LANS (local area network), PCs and workstations in the 1980s allowed the Internet to flourish. Ethernet technology, which was developed by Bob Metcalfe at Xerox PARC in 1973, and is most likely the dominant network technology used today.

In March 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, a computer scientist working at the European Particle Physics Laboratory CERN, made a proposal for an information management system.

In October 1990, Tim had specified the three fundamental technologies that remain the foundation of today’s Web, and are likely to see in parts of your Web browser:

• HTML - HyperText Markup Language: The publishing format for the Web, including the ability to format documents and link to other documents and resources.
• URI - Uniform Resource Identifier: A kind of “address” that is unique to each resource on the Web.
• HTTP - Hypertext Transfer Protocol: Allows for the retrieval of linked resources from across the Web.

In April 1993, CERN announced that the World Wide Web technology would be available for anyone to use on a royalty-free basis. 

The Internet today is a widespread information infrastructure and has changed the world by becoming one of the most powerful communication tools the world has ever known. Its history is complex and involves many aspects. Its influence reaches not only to the technical fields of computer communications, but throughout society as we move toward the increasing use of online tools to accomplish electronic commerce, information acquisition, and community operations. 

The Web has fundamentally altered the way we teach and learn, buy and sell, inform and are informed, agree and disagree, share and collaborate, meet and love, and tackle problems ranging from putting food on our tables to curing cancer.²

More about Tim Berners-Lee

References:

1. http://www.internetsociety.org/internet/what-internet/history-internet/brief-history-internet#
2. http://webfoundation.org/about/sir-tim-berners-lee/
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee
4. http://webfoundation.org

Behind the Scenes

Servers

All content, including text, images and graphics, audio and video, live on a computer or series of servers, called a server.

You find that information on the server, and pull it over the Internet using the web and a browser to your computer. Your computer is often called a “client server.”

Terms and Concepts

IP addresses

Every computer has an address, called an IP number. It is a series of numbers. Your computer has an IP number.

Domain name or URL (Uniform Resource Locator)

This is the address for a particular web site. Since words are easier to remember than a series of numbers, a commission assigns words a specific IP address. So when you type in www.site.com you go to the IP address assigned to ‘site.’ This is the hosting server with files, information, or web sites. It is easy to find out what your IP address is. Use this site and see what information you can find. http://whatismyipaddress.com/ip-lookup

Most servers are powerful computers commonly stored on shelves at an Internet Service Provider (ISP), and continually connected to the Internet. Places with large numbers (hundreds or thousands) of servers are sometimes called server farms.

Client Server

This is your computer, or any computer accessing the Internet.

Cookies

Cookies are identification tags which tell the server where you are, so it knows where to send the information you want. In order to participate in chats, forums, purchase online or engage in other interactivity, you have to tell the server where you are - cookies do this.

You should know, when you make a comment in an online chat, you provide your IP address to the host server. So even though you may not sign your real name to a comment, for example, if the people managing the host server wanted to track down a particular comment to a particular IP address, they could. Thus, your “anonymous” comment is far from anonymous.

Overview

Different areas of Design

• Graphic Design
• Interface Design
• Interactive Design
• Authoring, or programming
• User Interface Design
• User Experience Design

What makes a good UX Designer

Front End

• Layout and design
• HTML - base template
• CSS - styling
• JAVASCRIPT & JQUERY - functionality

Back End

• PHP Programming or server side scripting of the content management system

Web Design - what makes it successful?

We all spend a lot of our time online looking at websites. What are some of your favorites? What makes a site successful?

What makes a good designer?

Being a good communicator, but more importantly practicing "thoughtful listening". This will help you to fully understand the scope of the project and the motives and goals of your client or collaborators. This is an important first step in beginning to successfully translate ideas into successful design. 

Know your Target Market

Target marketing allows you to focus your marketing dollars and brand message on a specific market that is more likely to buy from you than other markets. This is a much more affordable, efficient, and effective way to reach potential clients and generate business.

Know your Target Audience

Who are they? How do different audiences affect the design of your site? 

Things to Identify 

Demographics

What are they called? What is their gender, age, geographic location, household size and income, the industry and location of where they work, education, places they congregate and their political beliefs.

Behaviors

Look into attitudes, lifestyles, values and interests or hobbies. What sites do they visit, what social media do they use, what magazines do they read?

Competitors

Check out competitor sites to understand the look and feel of the information architecture. What are your competitors doing that your site isn't? In what ways can you improve your site?

DO YOU ENJOY LEARNING?

Good, because this is required. Never stop, and if you look at the skills employers want you to know, it just keeps increasing.

Create A Blog

In this blog, you should keep all your notes, planning materials, sketches, photos, screenshots, interviews and photos from your work. 

(Note: the following instructions may vary somewhat as the Blogger software is updated.)

LOGIN TO YOUR GOOGLE ACCOUNT

If you don't have one you will need to create it. 
You will get an email from Blogger to verify your email address and to activate your blog account.
Click the link in the email; you will be able activate your account.

1. Go to Blogger.com website
2. Then go to your Dashboard in your own blog account
3. Click “Create Your Blog Now"
4. Give it a title; this will be your URL. Please use your first name and last initial as your blog title, e.g. amanda-l.blogspot.com

Tips

1. Click “New Post” when you want to create a new blog entry. 
2. Go to “View Blog” when you want to see your past entries.
3. Go to “Posts” when you want to edit your past entries.
4. Go to “Settings” when you want to change the basic settings for publishing and formats.
5. Go to “Layout” when you want to change the template, color and fonts.
6. Choose a template

Make a post:

1. When you post a new blog entry, click in dashboard.
2. Start by giving your post a title.
3. When you're done, click the "Preview" link to make sure it's ready to go.
4. Once you're satisfied with your post, click the "Publish" button. This will publish your new post.
5. When you want to upload an image, click the button with photo (add image) and select the image from your files. 

Make a Page:
Make a page that will hold all of your work. Each part of the project will be a new post. 

1. Create a new page
2. Give it a title 
3. Add your content 
4. Save/publish

Choose your Design

1. Go to Template - Choose one you like.
2. Go to Customize - Here is where you can experiment with type, color and design.

Have fun experimenting and setting up your blog!