Unifying Agile and User Experience with Live Style Guides

On January 25, 2012 I will be giving a talk with a few other colleagues about live style guides in rails applications. Case Commons and Pivotal Labs members will be showing off their live style guide they created for Casebook. I will be showing off the live style guide we created for Efficiency 2.0.

The talk will be held at Pivotal Labs NYC. Their offices are just south of Union Square. Below is the snippet from the Meet-up event description:

One of the many emergent Agile UX tools enabling teams to more effectively design while building is the Live Style Guide.

It’s a great example of applying Agile thinking to UX practice. Here, instead of documenting UI patterns in a traditional static document, the style guide is built using the actual production technology, making it a living and continuously evolving bridge between design and development.

During this session, members of Case Commons, Pivotal Labs, and Efficiency 2.0 will demo implementations of this technique, discuss practical considerations, and compare and contrast their various approaches. We’ll follow their presentation with a panel-style Q&A.

We hope you can join us!

Agenda: 6:30 to 7:00pm - Space opens, meet & greet. 7:00 to 8:30pm - Presentation, discussion.

I would tell everyone to go - but the event is already full!

Reed Wall Composition

It has been quite some time since I have posted some really original art on my blog. I made this for Shannon Reed’s apartment, and it is quite amazing.

This artwork comprises of over 30 different layers of photography and illustration. It is printed at 28 inches by 28 inches on satin paper. The piece is composed of vector line art, photos of abstract landscapes, wood textures, ink in water photographs, then reflected on itself.

OWS Badge

The Occupy Wall Street movement is very close to home. Literally, they protest 3 blocks away from where I live in Manhattan. After a conversation with a friend, I started doing some designs for a potential logo or sticker. More of a fun thought experiment more than anything.

Tents have become the signature shape for many of the protests around the world. Not because of choice, but out of necessity. The protesters live in tents. Well the triangle is a simple shape, and also the shape for change (delta). So I started with that as a good starting point.

Next was what font to use. Easy choice - I love Futura. Anytime I get to work with Futura, I jump on the chance. Futura is based off of the circle, which is a lovely complement to the triangle.

To broadcast the existence of an OWS protest campsite, one could imaging hooking up a kite, with little triangles taped to the rope. A very subtle, yet effective statement that change is in the air.

Sticker Concept

This photoshopped preview does not look that good. The real sticker should be die-cut.

Raw Conceptualization of Logotype

Alternate Logotype Concept

Sag Harbor Movie Theater

Old fluorescent sign, old car, and another crooked photo. A photo that contains two of my passions and one really bad habit.