Jenn Lukas — Front-End Developer

Everything à la Al

Y’all remember the Wendy’s SuperBar? Was this a Northeast thing?
I think I used to eat my weight in pudding.
This commercial eats its weight in stereotypes.
Pound sign awesome.

Long live sneeze guards.

Posted on March 3, 2010 at 02:34 PM in (3) Comments

Jack of All Trades…Master of Development?

I started this blog post on January 12th, but could never get through it. I found myself going back and forth and agreeing and disagreeing with myself with every point, making it pretty difficult to write a coherent entry. After some lively discussion through the Happy Cog twitter account today, I’ve decided to give it another go, this time in question and list format.

The tweet (which followed a great many related tweets and blog posts) read:

“Interesting read: “5 Good Reasons Why Designers Should Code” http://cot.ag/aBMpdt Agree/Disagree? Should lines be drawn across mediums?”

If designers should code, should coders design?

How closely are these two practices intertwined? Let’s examine the other direction. As a developer:

• Are you proficient in Photoshop?
• How about Illustrator?
• Fireworks/ImageReady/Acorn/Painter/etc?
• Familiar with Grid Systems?
• Do you keep up with the latest design trends?
• Do you understand typography, horizontal/vertical rhythm, what about scale?
• Do you understand color theory?
• Are you comfortable in a design critique? Do you know how to critique your own work? What about someone else’s work?
• Would a designer want to play Layer Tennis with you?

Are these the skills that make you a designer? I have a degree in web design, I studied typography in school, I even, at one time, loved Quark. But at the same time I was loving my Database Structures and Coldfusion classes. Seven years ago: I knew a little bit about a lot. I was constantly receiving constructive criticism in school and at a design internship that I was spreading myself too thin. I was told that I had to choose a speciality. I chose Front-end development. My focus on design took a back seat, and while I certainly know the Adobe shortcuts to hide/show rulers and grids, I would not call myself a designer.

So how do you define being a designer? The questions above? Having that special something? Something else? Is being a designer different then knowing how to design? And what, if any of these, should a developer be expected to have?

Read More…

Posted on February 18, 2010 at 02:29 PM in The Nerd • (2) Comments

I’d blog more but I’m too busy blogging

I haven’t forgotten about you, you crazy internets!

<3’s

Let’s time travel back to 2006! Shall we?

Posted on February 9, 2010 at 01:43 PM in The Nerd • (0) Comments

Night Blogging

“They’re the best thing to happen to partying since the mirror ball.”

Agreed. Partying is synonymous with blogging. At night.

Party Rats Thank you, Cowboy Tom.

Posted on January 25, 2010 at 02:49 PM in Common Radness • The Nerd • (3) Comments

Should Crisis Change Your Website?

Last week tragedy hit Haiti. Calls to help were rampant over the internet – from donations that could be made through texting, to profits of products being donated directly to organizations responding to the earthquake. Unfortunately, reminders of the opposite of this good intent were also seen on the front pages of news sites, warning me to be careful of fraudulent organizations as well as allegations of tax issues surrounding a certain musician-led charity.

With so much doubt getting in the way of trying to help, it makes your choices a bit more difficult. I knew my preference was to donate to a smaller organization – in hopes that the money I donated would reach the cause sooner – and I knew I didn’t want to get scammed. I decided to rely on some recommendations from my sister (who has the smarts in the Public Health world), a charity review guide, and the one thing I felt comfortable in judging: my reaction to the organizations website and how that organization’s website reacted to the situation. (Screenshots and observations are from Jan 13, 2010)

I started by visiting Charity Navigator, a charity evaluator to read reviews on the organizations I was looking into. I was leaning toward Partners In Health, as they already had a strong presence in Haiti, but wanted to see what else was out there. Charity Navigator had a list of featured charities, so I decided to visit some of them.

“Hmm. I don’t know about this” #1

Every 2 pages or so, Charity Navigator prompted me with a lightbox framed message asking me to donate to their site.

1. Is it strange that a charity evaluation website is asking for donations in this manner and this frequency?
2. If you were running this website, would you “turn off” these requests when a major disaster strikes? When any disaster strikes?
3. Would you prompt users to donate to a charity related to the cause?

I found the lightbox approach to be invasive, especially since it happened so often while I was trying to reach my goal of seeking out an external charity. Speaking of weird lightbox timing:

Read More…

Posted on January 18, 2010 at 10:27 PM in The Nerd • (1) Comments