The Wilson Project Blog of UX/Front-End Developer Ivan Wilson Finding a way to frame and hang this quote somewhere in my office space…
Stop drooling over your tools. Start thinking about what you’re building with them and how that’s affecting the world you’re helping create.
— Aral Balkan (@aral) May 10, 2014
Three months between posts. Sorry for the long delay. Been rebuilding…
Earlier in the year, I went to the IxDA Interaction 13 conference in Toronto, Canada. I have two more conferences for this year.
Next week, An Event Apart DC in Alexandria, VA (another serving…).
Then, in late October, CSS Dev Conference near Denver, Colorado.
As of this entry, finishing contruction/testing of the WordPress theme. Will be writing blog entries related to the whole history/process of Project Charles. Debuting on Monday, August 5.
August is going to be a busy month…
The role of a front-end developer is to build interfaces that give the user access to information with the least amount of interference.
@iwilsonjr (6:29 PM · Jan 28, 2013) – https://twitter.com/iwilsonjr/status/296037418145042433
First notes from my Moleskin notebook (Project Charles – Volume 1), 5/10/2009 entry
First sketch of new information model (same date)
New information model (current view, comparing with previous model) – Basis for “The Information Layer” essay
After two years this month, I have decided to end Project Charles in April. This will also mark the 10th anniversary of The Wilson Project.
@iwilsonjr (4:59 PM · Mar 14, 2011) – https://twitter.com/iwilsonjr/status/47401561944637440
Depending on the ever changing schedule, Project Charles will be ending this year, if not sooner. After a long two years, I should be happy.
I'm exhausted.
I've carried this thing around, weathering all the stuff that gets thrown at me in the course of human life. This project became the internal motor of change, reflection, and experimentation. And a number of people have really benefitted from the results.
The basis of Project Charles was redesigning The Wilson Project with the state of the art techniques in front-end development. No, we are not talking about the dazzling canvas experiments and all the fireworks. It was about learning all this new stuff to be able, like an experienced chef, to use this wider pallette to improve their work. Well, I'm still doing that. But Project Charles brought about an urgency to the process.
Well, that urgency has come full circle. It's at a point where this project needs to end in order to go further on with other things. And since The Wilson Project Site is a working blog (and soon-to-be) portfolio site, I needed to end this thing to start doing new projects. And basically, I just need this monkey off my back. So why am I writing this blog entry?
Because I feel that the need to apologize [to myself].
This project was started with the idea of using XSLT via Symphony CMS. It's a very interesting application that I am sure will grow and improve. The cast of characters over there are currently working on the third version as I am writing this.
Now, I'm in a time crunch. I cannot, at this time, learn XSLT and learn a new CMS without some focused time and effort. Unfortunately, considering the numerous hiatus periods in this project, that will never happen. So I took the hard choice and decided to move the project back to WordPress to speed up completion. I'm relieved at be removed of this burden. But I also feel sad, as I made some sort of bad compromised to complete this project. I know I shouldn't, but I'll live. I may feel bad for not completing the project in the way that I wanted fully but I have to move on.
The other reason for Project Charles was conceptual. The "residue" of studying and observing the work around me of interaction design and front-end development. Yes, I have a few ideas that I've squirrel away.
It's called The Information Layer.
Ideally, Charles would have been the best demo, especially with Symphony/XSLT. But with the external changes of the last two years, there is a real need to share something now and not wait further down the road for an actual demo model.
So, I'm shipping now. Everything can wait.
I need my life back.
Sorry for the month delay in blog entries but it’s been a non-stop rollercoaster of travel and events.
Here is the shortlist of what happened in after the last blog entry and a few important things happening this month:
This event happened at Fathom Creative, down the road from CDG Interactive. It was well attended and the sponsor even got an internet stream for online viewing and questions. Matt was really relaxed, calm guest who talked about how WordPress was started (at the heart, WordPress started as a image gallery) and answered plenty of questions about it, running a business, some things in the works/future as well as what could be better. I asked about how it was doing in the mobile world and got the surprising answer (700% in two years! – with apps in almost every mobile platform).
Decided to arrive early to this conference (third time for me) to relax in Boulder and get to a workshop for the first time. However, I fell ill Tuesday morning and spent the following 24-48 hours in bed. Missed the workshop but attended the full conference. I even got to attend an after-party on the first night (it was definitely an experience, especially the music and its location inside the Boulder Theatre). This conference was well attended and did not disappoint, concluding with the keynote speech from Bruce Sterling (design critic as well as sci-fi writer).
All the keynotes as well as the individual lightning lectures were all interesting in one way or another. However, the tone, in my perspective as a developer, was different in that were was more of a focus internally than the last two years. Whereas I was more in sync in the last two (especially with mobile coming up big during this duration), this was more internal than anything else.
One of new additions to this conference was a day for design-related activities. In my case, it was geocaching, where I spend a few hours in the streets of Boulder playing hide-and-go-seek for hidden treasures. (Thankfully, I was well by then!)
I will be doing a CDG blog entry on my geocaching adventure later on this month.
Oh, BTW…it snowed 3-5” and went from single digits (Tuesday) to 60s (Sunday) in one week.
You thought DC had crazy weather!
I packed bags again the following weekend, for a trip to NYC for The Met’s presentation of John Adams’ 1987 opera Nixon in China. I last heard this opera on CD a decade ago in college but the performance did not disappoint. Well sung by all the performers and John Adams (who conducted his own work) got a standing ovation.
What was interesting about the opera, apart from the music, was the whole scenery. As a person who grew up during the last glimmer of the Cold War, some of the scenes were familiar from all the news broadcasts during this time (you know, when you only had TV and print). The opening scene of the Nixons stepping out of the plane matched the videotape footage to a point where it was eerie. Of course, the big irony, particularly those in the audience, is how much has changed in the almost 30 years that meeting. As a point, during a scene in the second act, Pat Nixon was presented with a jade elephant. The official near her remarked "We can make hundreds of them cheaply!", which was followed with laughter (with a tinge of irony) from the audience.
The second act ended with the agitprop play (the music the basis for a Adams’ stand-alone work The Chairman Dance), which really reminds someone of my age about the old Socialist/Communist displays in the 80’s, or more recently, in North Korea. Of course, the big irony is that so much of that change would start two years later.
Leaving memory lane, I spent a quiet following day listening to three Shostakovich quartet (11th, 12th, and 15th) and Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue, Op. 133 at Bargemusic with the St.Petersburg Quartet. Back home on Monday (President’s Day).
And that was my month of February.
Will be returning to NYC for two concerts:
Hopefully, things will slightly quieter further in the year.
Later (multiple crossing of digits…)
Currently attending the Future of Web Apps conference here in London, UK. The first time that I have gone outside the Americas in my life. Got off to a bad start by missing the first day due to the Tube strike (thanks for a memorable start, guys…) and mobile phone problems.
Hopefully, things will get better. Even as a write this, planning to do a few new things and the next two days will still hold some importance with regard to the work that I will be doing for the rest of the year.
And then, two free days in the city…yes!
Later.