I am pretty sure that making mockups for fun classifies me without question as a nerd, but I’ve come to grips with that. I took an existing website, www.lds.org, and created the mockups that you see below. They clearly illustrate the difference between basic and enhanced mockups.

Basic mockups

The purpose of basic mockups is similar to a sketch on a whiteboard, or a piece of scrap paper. You want to get something visual as quickly as possible so that it is easier to talk about it. Sometimes you need to explain your idea to someone else, and you know that a simple visual aid will help immensely. Other times, you want to explore the functionality of a site or application, and want to keep people focused solely on the function, not on the form. By using a fantastic tool such as Balsamiq Mockups that looks hand-drawn, you are able to keep people focused on what matters most. I have found these to be effective even in conducting some basic usability testing to see if people are able to use your application the way you intend. Iterating at such an early stage saves you significant time and money down the road.

Enhanced mockups

The purpose of enhanced mockups is to show that you have a solid idea that is well on its way to becoming reality. This is still not the final version, so as you are discussing it with people, their focus is not on the skin, but rather on the content and functionality. This is a great way to iterate with your graphic designer as you explore the layout and basic look and feel of your site. I have seen that people look at an enhanced mockup and fill in the final polish with their minds, so it allows them to avoid fixating on a small detail that you have done differently than they were expecting. At the same time, they are able to recognize that you are close to implementing something and they can get excited about the end product.

Basic Home

Enhanced Home

Basic Menu

Enhanced Menu

Basic Tools

Enhanced Tools

Neighborhood House Presentation

As part of a community-university partnership, I was part of a group that did an evaluation of the Neighborhood House in preparation for accreditation review by NAEYC, the National Association for the Education of Young Children. We were asked to present to the teachers as well as the parents about our efforts, and these are some slides from the presentation I created.

Color palette

University of Utah Economics Course

This slide deck was the introduction and beginning of the curriculum for an economics course at the University of Utah. I was asked for help, and decided to invest more time into recreating this deck because it would set the stage for the rest of the course. By pulling most of the text off the slides and into the notes, the presenter still has all the information, but the audience is not trying to read and listen at the same time.

Microeconomics Before

Microeconomics After 1

Microeconomics After 2

Microeconomics After 3

Microeconomics After 4

Microeconomics After 5

Opportunity Cost Before

Opportunity Cost After 1

Opportunity Cost After 2

University of Utah Economics Course

This slide deck was part of a series that comprised the curriculum for an economics course at the University of Utah. I was asked to improve them, and the following is an example of where I just did some clean up.

Capital Before

Capital After 1

Capital After 2

Capital After 3

Benefits Before

Benefits After

Costs Before

Costs After

In my day job, I am a Product Owner and UX Designer for a non-profit educational software company, Waterford Institute. In 2010, we tackled an ambitious release of our core educational product. I led a complete redesign of the teacher management interface. Our previous interface had been built over the course of many years, with new features being tacked on wherever possible. We started from the ground up, analyzing the primary jobs that educators needed to perform, and then designing an application to make those jobs quick and simple.

Included here are some screens from the previous version and mockups of the redesigned interface.

Login Before

Login After

Home Before

Home After

Student Before

Student After

Reports Before

Reports After

A friend of mine wanted to create a website for corporate finance professionals. His idea is revolutionary, and he wanted help creating a design that he could use in pitching his ideas. Included here are some of the screens that I created as part of two options for his evaluation.

Option 1 Login

Option 1 Home

Option 1 Data

Option 1 Charts

Option 2 Login

Option 2 Home

Option 2 Data

Option 2 Charts

Home education is something that we have been thinking about doing for a while, but after a lackluster kindergarten year, we decided it was time. Following many hours researching different curricula, approaches, and methods, we are using the Charlotte Mason method. She prescribes more of a philosophy about how children should learn, and it fit us and our family well. We found a great website, Ambleside Online, that has taken the ideas of Charlotte Mason and devised a curriculum that we have found to be extremely helpful.

To kick off our first year, on 4 Jun 2011, we attended the annual Utah Home Education Association convention in Salt Lake City, UT. There were a number of great breakout classes to choose from, and we felt like it was well worth our time in attending.

I captured the different sessions in sketchnotes and thought I would share them here:

All these years of waiting, and I have finally arrived online! This will be my first stab at a website as I gain some more mad skills and figure out how all of this works.

Expect this to change regularly, hopefully for the better. Stay tuned!