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U-M SI Grad Student Projects
1997-1999
I graduated in May 1999 with a Master's degree in Human-Computer Interaction from the University of Michigan School of Information. The school's coursework was a lot of work, but also interesting, challenging, and great fun. I'm interested in interface design, software/system usability and evaluation, and information architecture and management.
Originally, this section highlighted some of the more interesting coursework and projects I worked on in graduate school, so it functioned as an online portfolio. Now that I'm once again a contributing member of society, I'm using this forum to showcase just a few of the more fun things I've done, some during school, some since graduation.
User
Interface Design, Winter 1999
What
fun! My two project partners and I conceptualized, designed, and conducted
user testing on our prototype for a unified media player. We call it the
"U-M Player." (Get it?) This was our class project for SI 609,
User Interface Design with Prof. Nathaniel Borenstein. I think you'll
find our concepts and design process pretty fascinating. In some ways,
the concept is like a cross between Napster, Real Player, and Tivo. We've
completely reconceived how people will consume media in a broadband,
networked home!
- U-M Player Project, including lots of cool screen shots of the (non-functional) prototype!
Electronic
Commerce, Fall 1998
This
class was very interesting and timely -- it seems every issue of every
major news and computer magazine has at least one article on electroic
commerce. But what, exactly, does that oft-spoken but poorly understood
phrase mean? As we learned in this class, electronic commerce is more
than just putting a bookstore on the Web. Here are the results of two
of the more interesting assignments.
- Evalution of the Peet's Coffee and Tea web site. For this assignment, we were to evaluate the electronic commerce strategy of any company based upon their web site. Afterwards, the professor had other students review our evaluations. I'm glad to say mine was the second most highly rated by my classmates. (An evaluation of the REI site was first.)
- Feasibility Study of ElectroMarket, Inc. The company's name was changed to "protect the innocent," but the evaluation of their business plan and target market is real. I've put together a summary online of the project and our findings. It's a series of 6 brief web pages, the last of which is a list of related web links.
Anthony's
Java Shoppe
Java,
the programming language developed by Sun
Microsystems, is a fun language to program in. I took a year of it
in grad school but have only programmed in it a few times since for fun.
I'm not that good at it quite yet, but I'm working on it. Here are a few
highlights. (Note: You should use Internet Explorer 4.0+
for all of these applets. Because of incomplete Java support in Netscape,
only some of these applets may work with 4.0+ versions of Netscape.)
- Interactive Ball Demonstration: I did this one just for fun. (Although it took a few days-- the math alone drove me crazy!) This one has some interactivity -- you can change the background color, the ball's color, and the ball's speed. Click anywhere in the applet to see what the ball does... (Post-graduation; F '99)
- The Age of Samurai is meant to be a Risk-like strategy game. My partner, Steve Kafka, and I got the general interface to work all right, but we haven't been able to figure out the game engine yet. Still, many of the buttons do work. (W '98)
- Palindrome Checker: This applet will check to see if the text you entered is a palindrome or not. Don't know what a palindrome is? Well, check it out then! (F '99)
- Hello Fred
is a throwaway little "toy." I created it in about 20 min.
to demonstrate to a Java classmate the basic principles of Java Beans.
- Random Proverb Generator, a random number of proverbs from Romania, Turkey, and Ireland (W '98)
- Andershand Observer Personals Applet: is a class project my partner and I conceived. Literally everyone in the class helped code it! The version being displayed here, however, was the demo I programmed early in the project. (F '99)
- HandaWeb Ticker Chat. Unfortunately, this one isn't working right now because of server hosting problems. It allows small groups of people to communicate using a user-customizeable scrolling text window. It's a fun applet! (W '99)
World
Bank Internship, Summer 1998
During
the summer of 1998, I interned at the World Bank's information technology
division, called the Information Solutions Group. ISG has 700+ people
and desperately needed a centralized, productivity-enhancing, and easy-to-use
intranet site. I was brought to ISG to help develop that site. Unfortunately,
for a variety of reasons the intranet site didn't launch until December
1998. However, we developed a very solid foundation and worked out a lot
of the technical and organizational difficulties during my tenure there.
- Mouse pad for the 1998 Annual Meetings of the World Bank Group and IMF. This was one of the little projects I worked on while at the Bank.
Interactive
Graphic Design, Fall 1997
In
the Fall of 1997, I took Prof. Loretta Staples' class called "Introduction
to Interactive Graphic Design," we did some interesting class projects.
- "Rave"-style Macintosh OS Finder. The big individual project in the middle of the semester was to design an alternative Macintosh Finder. We learned Macromedia Director in class for this and the ATM project below. Here are a couple screenshots to give you an idea of how it turned out.
- "Crazy Bank" ATM. Also done in Director, my two project partners and I decided to design a concept for an easy-to-use, quick-access touchscreen ATM interface. Each screen may be a little on the complex side, but it was great fun working on this project. For this, we took the role of consultants for a fictional bank called Crazy Bank.
Curriculum
Vitae
You're
welcome to take a look at my curriculum vitae
online, as well.