Gemma Petrie

March 4, 2013

chiDUXX: Chicago Women of Design & UX

Interested in “empowering the women who design the web?” Consider joining the new chiDUXX meetup group. We are having our first meeting tomorrow (3/5) to get to know each other and define our goals. I’m interested in:

-Seeing fewer local conference line-ups that look like this.
-Encouraging more women to consider speaking at conferences, writing articles, and highlighting their professional achievements.
-Making mentorship connections.
-Having an excuse to get together with some cool ladies in our professional community.

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Emily Bowman - I love this. It makes me wish I lived in Chicago. Honestly, I think I might “borrow” this idea for Detroit. Do you mind?

January 1, 2013

Books I Read in 2012

Books I read in 2012*, in no particular order:

Tender Buttons by Stein

Heroines by Zambreno

Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office by Frankel

Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom by Northrup

Canal House Cooks Every Day by Hamilton & Hirsheimer

Let My People Go Surfing by Chouinard

Bossypants by Fey

The Road by McCarthy

The Tipping Point by Gladwell

Why Have Kids? by Valenti

Wanton West: Madams, Money, Murder, and the Wild Women of Montana’s Frontier by Morgan

Blackfeet Tales of Glacier National Park by Shultz

My Man Jeeves by Wodehouse

No More Dirty Looks by O’Connor & Spunt

UX Books

Ethnography: Step-by-Step by Fetterman

Designing for the Digital Age by Goodwin

A Project Guide to UX Design by Unger & Chandler

Agile Experience Design: A Digital Designer’s Guide to Agile, Lean, and Continuous by Ratcliffe & McNeill

Sketching User Experiences: The Workbook by Greenberg

Storytelling for User Experience by Quesenbery and Brooks

Seductive Interaction Design: Creating Playful, Fun, and Effective User Experiences by Anderson

Understanding Comics by McCloud

Design is a Job by Monteiro

The Elements of Content Strategy by Kissane

The Shape of Design by Chimero

Mobile First by Wroblewski

Cadence & Slang by Disabato

*Resolving to read more fiction in 2013

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January 1, 2013

Second City UX

If you live near Chicago and are involved in UX, you should checkout Second City UX. Piyush Sinha created the site to tackle the daunting task of collecting all of the disparate Chicago UX conferences, meetups, announcements, and events happening in one place. Such a great resource! If you are hosting an upcoming event or if you’d like to suggest other content, be sure to get in touch with Piyush. You can also follow updates through @SecondCityUX on twitter.

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December 30, 2012

Book Update

The Chicago UX Book Club finished out 2012 with 5 more great books. If you are local, consider joining the discussion in 2013!

Design is a Job:
A thoughtful book on what it means to make a living through design work. This book provoked a great discussion on a variety of topics including when (if ever) to work for free and things to remember when starting a freelance career.

The Elements of Content Strategy:
A fine introduction, but more of an argument in favor of considering a content strategy rather than practical information on how to go about the process.

The Shape of Design:
I wasn’t crazy about this book while I was reading it, but I was blown away by the discussion. I’d definitely recommend reading this with other people. The chapters discussing “how” vs. “why” tied in perfectly with some of my thoughts on current UX-oriented graduate programs. More on that some day soon.

Mobile First:
I’d been meaning to read this book for a long time. Wroblewski does a good job of succinctly making the case that your digital strategy needs to include mobile and provides a number of UX insights to consider during the design process.

Cadence & Slang:
We finished the year with our first author event! Nick Disabato joined us for a great discussion on his UX work, his book, and the writing process. Be sure to check out Distance, too.

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November 30, 2012

Thinking About UX Portfolios

I spruced up the site a bit. (Cleaned up some navigation issues, made a new banner, and added some additional social media widgets.) I also took down my portfolio a few months ago. I have an ongoing debate with myself over what is really useful and appropriate for a public-facing UX portfolio. If anyone is using a third-party platform that they are happy with, please let me know. I’ve started half a dozen through services like Coroflot and Behance, but trying to fit UX theory and research into design-oriented layouts never quite works. I’ve searched through various UX portfolios and the strongest examples are often those that share the least amount of information. There must be a better solution, but for now it makes more sense to me to have a face-to-face conversation with prospective clients and employers about my research and design process than to share out-of-context conceptual flows or wireframes on this website.

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