About Me
Learn more about my background
Hi, I’m James
This is where I tell you all about myself, within reason. No oversharing.
Why I do what I do
Spirited UX Design
In a way, my UX design experience goes back to childhood when I designed amusement park haunted houses. Okay, not ones that were ever built. But I was fascinated with the thought—with the design—that went into haunted house attractions. I would draw up blueprints and diagram pathways and plan out each scene, which is why I later learned mechanical drafting and investigated architecture. And I asked myself questions: How do people enter and how does that set the mood? Will there be an overall narrative and how would you put that across? What about transitions to lead visitors from section to section? How do you build and sustain visitor interest from beginning to end? Overall, what will the visitor experience be?
Mentally putting myself into someone else’s shoes—the first step toward design empathy—would be crucial for designing other user experiences, such as the UX of a website. In imagining the layout and navigation of hypothetical amusement park attractions, I thought through a design process that later informed my ideas for intuitive user interfaces.
Musical Coding
In my youth I fell under the spell of music and spent my college years studying it, earning two degrees focused on historical musicology. I was fascinated by the symbolic language of music theory (usually dreaded as a necessary evil to fulfill a degree requirement) and its role in the process of composition, intrigued by the way harmony builds and relieves musical tension, and how harmony in tandem with musical form leads listeners through a piece of music.
Little did I know that learning one symbolic language would prepare me for another—coding. Each has its own logic: music includes chord progressions and rhythmic patterns and orchestration; coding takes in programming and scripting and formatting; and music and coding each combine their elements to create a complete experience.
Musical-Mathematical Photography
Photography has fascinated me from childhood and has been a serious avocation since I got my first SLR in high school. Before too long I realized that successful photographs often are the result of well-considered visual ratios (such as the rule of thirds and the golden ratio), balancing subjects against each other within a visual frame. And from architectural drafting I gained an understanding of perspective that has served me well.
Mathematics is an intrinsic component of both music and photography—not only in terms of musical or visual form, but also where understanding musical rhythm and camera shutter speeds are concerned. It is not surprising that photographers such as Ansel Adams, Paul Caponigro, and Oliver Gagliani had backgrounds in music, math being a hinge between the two arts. And (also not surprising) math is incorporated into the scripting and programming required by a modern website.
The UX of Writing
As a teenager I would write short stories ripping off the style of my then-idol Rod Serling. I learned the cardinal rule of successful writing: Don’t be boring. Imagine your audience. Find ways to relate to them. Be direct. Be clear. Be memorable. And, when appropriate, employ humor.
This is necessary for all kinds of writing, not just narrative works. It is as necessary in technical writing as it is in crafting a story or an essay meant to grip or persuade—perhaps more so, as technical writing can become tedious so easily. Imagine you are being introduced to a technology for the first time: how would you want someone to explain it to you?
Let’s communicate
I love discussing my areas of expertise. Maybe I can help you? Feel free to reach out to me. And please visit my spaces on LinkedIn and Pinterest.
What I do
Over the years I have acquired different hats.
UX/UI Design
I design user interfaces for websites, focusing on usability and accessibility to provide the best user experience.
Writing
I am experienced with expository and technical writing for different audiences on various topics.
Photography
I capture images of things that capture me.
Sam Kome
Technology Partnerships Manager at Service Robotics & Technologies
“James brings the whole suite of skills and abilities needed to envision, design, plan, develop, and implement websites. Capable, calm, and quick with a quip, he works with folks to get to their functional needs whether a widget, page, or entire site. He’s experienced with, and has administered numerous platforms and client tools from version control to web servers to authoring.
“I greatly enjoyed working with James and do so again.”