The Wilson Project Blog of UX/Front-End Developer Ivan Wilson A response I gave to Roger Johansson (@rogerjohansson) on Twitter (please read through the whole thread):
From my view, it seems that front-end development has split into two camps: one web-focused, one app-focused.
@iwilsonjr (6:20 PM · Jul 8, 2017) – https://twitter.com/iwilsonjr/status/883812973730570244
Last year, prior to going to Jonathan Snook ‘s inaugural SMACSS workshop in Ottawa, Canada, I was thinking. There was something that I was on my mind for the past year. Then, [place lightning description here], I got inspiration from looking at some of my old linear algebra books from college.
What did I do next? I announced it on Twitter:
Eureka! After months of chaos, finally able to think clearly. Now, it’s finally time to blow up my code. #linearalgebra #optics
@iwilsonjr (12:10 AM · Feb 26, 2012) – https://twitter.com/iwilsonjr/status/173636146688040960
I spent whatever free time, post-workshop, working on this in my [first] Moleskine notebook. The early sketches look more like algebra proofs that the visual model that exists today.
However, these sketches and some rules that I wrote down became the basis of the project’s First Draft.
And as they say the rest is history.
Though currently on hiatus, I am planning a few more sketches and notes in the current year.
Hopefully, this project will still be around for year two.
Happy Anniversary, Project Ottawa!
In February 2009, I went to my first IxDA [Interaction Design Association] Interaction conference in Vancouver, Canada.
A few months later, I created a sketch, made in May 2009 that was translated to the following graphic.
This model, which I call The Information Layer, has been the guiding force in my own work. It has helped me build some of the most successful sites in my career.
To others, it may have been just a theoretical model, but it was built from observations. The observations I had about front-end work and interaction design ideas concerning mobile and data. And it has proven invaluable as a guide in trying to predict how things would turn out in the last couple of years.
But the most important stage was reached this year when the first direct application was started – web application modeling or Project Ottawa. The project itself took The Information Layer and started the path that will eventually lead to a practical application.
However, there is a flaw.
For any model to work, you occasionally go back and test its parts to see what works and what doesn’t. That’s basically how Project Ottawa has been built and it is currently at its second draft (July 2012). But there was one thing that was bothering me – content. I had a better grasp of some of the other layers, but the lowest level of the model (Information Layer) was never really fleshed out. It was more of a “hand-waving” nod to content. There was really no fully defined description of this layer. In the end, it was treated just like the other layers in the model, out of consistency.
But it couldn’t. And those flaws where shown in August and September.
It started with a Karen McGrane lecture at the An Event Apart conference in August. She pointed out a model from the White House digital directive where they had a content model better than my own. After the initial shock, I decided that their model was better and made a revision to The Information Layer to be broken down into three parts – API, Metadata, and Content. In the end, this solves some of the weaknesses in the current Information Layer model.
The other part was some of the feedback from a presentation I gave at Mobile UXCamp DC 2012 in September of Project Ottawa. One of the most important criticisms was that there was little in terms of how changes in content could affect not only a single view/template but also the whole system/application. Likewise, what would happen in the reverse direction – if a change in an application affects content (i.e. responsive design).
So, after a hiatus of two months, I am back at work on Project Ottawa. But this same change meant that the focus on Ottawa will be on building the area that has been its weakness so far – content. With some thought during the hiatus, I have a possible solution that I will introduce next year (1/2/2013) called Content Mapping. At this point, I have only a few sketches (scans from Ottawa skectch/notebook) but I am creating a more refined demo.
But this also means the following:
And so, the work begins again and Project Ottawa will be going on past its first anniversary in March.
Later.
Now available at https://thewilsonproject.com/ottawa/.
Will be making further revisions/additions in the coming weeks.
a method of building a visual model of an web application UI/front-end layer
During the past four months, I have been presenting previews of sketches and notes from my notebook via Flickr.
Preview Sketches:
Project Ottawa [or the Ottawa model/diagrams] started in late February, prior to my trip to Ottawa for Jonathan Snook’s SMACSS Workshop. It was there that I did the first initial sketches post-workshop and a few weeks later, created the first draft.
After some review and criticism from a fellow co-worker, I decided to work on the second draft. This took more twice as much time as the first, with testing and constant revisions. However, at this point, I am writing the final pages and presenting the Second Draft as a microsite in early/mid July.
In short, the model is based on a) recent work on modularizing CSS (via Nicole Sullivan, Jonathan Snook and etc), b) analog to linear algebra, most specifically linear transforms, and c) my ideas on the UI layer, based on a concept called The Information Layer.
With these three items, I designed a visual “code” with symbols representing blocks of programming code and content. By examining mostly my own work, I developed the rules and basics to use the symbols to represent not the parts of the web application system, but also describing interactions withing the system.
The original purpose of this was archival, record keeping for myself. However, I began to realize that there was nothing out there that visually describes the work that FEDs [front-end developers] were doing. We have code and and can talk about CSS, HTML, etc. But, maybe for the first time, there was something that allowed the work to be visualized and be more tangible.
Currently, this is the second draft. Even though models are always being revised and changed, I kept the term “draft” because I wanted to present the working model in a state that was good enough for demonstrations. However, this draft appears, so far, to be close to being stable. Naturally, there is more work in the near future.
As I mentioned before, the final document will be presented as a microsite around early/mid July.
Before that, I created a single page preview, giving a brief overview of the model and its use in “mapping” a single page, AJAX driven site. This is based on the sketches/drawing from the last Flickr preview and the same example will be used as a case study in the final document/microsite.
I want to apologize for all the bad coding decisions that I have made during the last couple of years. A number of decisions were made with ignorance as the impact they may have made in terms of performance. Some of those decisions may have been made without consideration for the user.
If I seem out of sort during the last couple of week, it was simply because the changes I need to make will require changing not just code but a mental process. Like anything, this will take more than a fortnight to change. It is a process of renewal and making mistakes and just throwing stuff into the trash bin.
What I need is some understanding and some patience while this process works itself out.
Sincerely,
Ivan Wilson
Front-End/UI Developer
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
