Team Intros, Part II: Introducing "Alegna", web designer & usability consultant

JLI — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 12:51:00 -0800

Continuing our series of team profiles with a new Q&A…

Q: So, madam, what do you do here?
“Alegna”: Ask a million questions, make things pretty, harass developers about typography, and learn something new everyday. They call me “Web “Designer.”

Worst usability examples: three bullet points, ascending importance.

• bullet points (kidding!)
• devices that don’t work when charging
• having to drill down a million levels to get a single piece of punctuation
(see my cell phone)

Facebook: will it change the world?
Hasn’t it already? Where else can you find your Egyptian pen-pal from your preteens and all your ex-boyfriends in the same place?

Give us some examples of great web design.
Here we go (like everything, they’re open to debate…)

• Best architecture/search engine: www.imdb.com (a classic)
• most interesting experimental (in the social realm):
www.jonathanharris.org
• simplest: www.rethinkadvertising.com
• best student portfolio: www.okaydave.com

Describe your fashion sense in a few words.
Depends on the day: somewhere between “lazy street sense” and “pretending to be a grown-up”

If you weren’t working here, why would you join Just Leap In?
So I can throw blocks at my friends’ heads without legal intervention (and I get to keep my friends). [Beta testers: this will make sense… soon. –ed.]

Three blogs you can’t live without?
I’m not really a blogger… but:

Favorite world city?
Seeing as “world travel” is on top of my list of life goals, (right after trying every sushi place in Vancouver and saving enough money to go somewhere cool) I can’t speak to this question just yet but will report back soon… I do have a distant affection for New York…

Favourite beverage?
Anything with Rum… Vodka… Red Wine.. Beer… but not at the same time… on the lighter side I seem to need at least a liter of Sun-Rype juice a day (no endorsements here)

“Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before.” —Edith Wharton. Discuss in your own words.

I’m going to paraphrase Aristotle here.. and say that every new idea is found in the unique combination of things already discovered… do I believe this completely? No. only about 98.7%...
Good design rarely occurs in a bubble, but is inspired by the people, objects, and experiences we encounter everyday. Meeting someone new on the street, a shiny bicycle, a rusty bicycle, a disturbing story on the news…or just the way the light shines through your blinds in the morning
Moral of story: doing something completely new is courageous… but improving on the past is probably a more practical way to change the world. I don’t think I said anything new there.

Just Leap In: Team Intros, Part II: Introducing "Alegna", web designer & usability consultant

Team Intros, Part II: Introducing "Alegna", web designer & usability consultant