The Second Month

I'm two months in.

To be honest, I’ve been feeling a bit scattered lately. Progress on the style guide project has been slow since I’ve been busy with travel and other projects. I’ve been starting too much and not finishing nearly enough.

On a lighter note, I've really enjoyed exploring the Bay and spending time with my coworkers!


Here are some of the things I’ve worked on in the last month:

CIR Projects
  • Started designing an interactive for an upcoming Reveal story. (I wish I could say more about this.)
  • Continued development on a style guide for Reveal.
    • I'm using Pattern Lab, which is pretty nice. I'm planning on writing a post about additional style guide resources soon.
Travel
  • Took a short trip home. (Long-distance marriages are hard.)
  • Spent a week at SNDMakes & SNDDC.
Related Work
  • Prepared a lightning talk for SNDMakes.
  • Submitted session proposals for SRCCON and NEJSConf. I had hoped to submit something for ONA but wasn't organized enough. :(
    • Lo-fi Data Viz (with @aboutaaron)
      Newsrooms developers often build applications and visualizations using dynamic tools like d3.js, AJAX, canvas and others. However, these approaches to data viz and digital storytelling often don't consider users who have low-bandwidth Internet connections, budget smartphones, screen readers or hi-res displays. This session will look at existing data visualization projects and see how they could be adapted to work on low-end phones, computers with accessibility enhancements and other environments. We'll also brainstorm techniques and approaches for building wonderful and beautiful digital stories that everyone can enjoy.
    • Rethinking the Mobile Data Viz Experience
      How can we improve the user experience of data-heavy interactives on mobile devices? What are the biggest problems we encounter, and where do we see opportunities for improvement? Let's look at examples of good small-screen visualizations – perhaps using native mobile apps for inspiration – and brainstorm how to apply similar design concepts to news apps for the mobile web.
    • SVG Animation with Snap.svg
      Snap.svg is a javascript library for creating and interacting with SVG in modern browsers. It’s pretty sweet and worth sharing with people. This session will walk through some basic demos, show people how to get started, and then share some inspiring “in the wild” examples of snap.svg in action.
  • Tried to catch up on blog posts RE: NICAR, SND, retrospectives...
Extracurricular Projects
  • A former client of mine needed some updates to their website, so I spent a decent chunk of my evenings revisiting Wordpress for them.