10.14.2006

10 Questions with Jeremy Johnson.

The guy behind jeremyjohnsononline and the famous pixelimpact! He’s really into the whole information architecture and usability stuff.

[1] Paul: Care to give our readers a short introduction about yourself?
Jeremy Johnson: Sure, I’ve been in the Design business for around 7 years - working on a range of different projects from video editing to user experience. I’m currently working for geniant here in Dallas, TX as a Information Architect, but I also play a User Experience and Interaction Designer role.

[2] Paul: You have quite a number of websites, care to give us a brief intro to each of them?
Jeremy Johnson: Since the web is also a hobby of mine, I spend some (most?) of my free time blogging and designing just for fun. I’m currently running:

www.pixelimpact.com - where I blog about creative photography on the web (part of the 9rules network)
www.jeremyjohnsononline.com - my professional blog where I write about user experience and design
www.metrolifestyle.com - my photoblog - I also have a passion for photography (part of the 9rules network)
www.23hd.com - my personal blog where i’ll go off-topic on whatever is on my mind
www.digitalbauhaus.com - my visual portfolio (somewhat updated.)

[3] Paul: First… from your jeremyjohnsononline.com blog, we see you are really into User Experience and Information Architecture, does it really matter? Do you think User Experience can sometimes be more important than the actual application itself?
Jeremy Johnson: User Experience is the whole solution and encompasses IA, Design, etc… When you focus on User Experience you are making sure the full process is usable and useful as well as engaging. In the past we’ve seen a disconnect between the different areas that make up User Experience, as an example a site may of been designed well visually, but had poor interactions. We want to make sure the full experience is enjoyable.

[4] Paul: We really like your previous article on Web UI. It gives us a sneak preview of what we can expect from web application and websites to come. Do you think there’s a UI template which work best for web application? Why yes? Why not?
Jeremy Johnson: I don’t really see a template, but there are best practices - like the Yahoo UI library for example. Web applications will become more like desktop applications as browsers and other technologies progress, but there is still room for innovation in interaction design, which I believe will be a good topic for the next few years.

[5] Paul: pixelimpact; is another blog we love, but too bad it’s not posted too often. Hhttp://beta.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifow did you manage to get to know of all these photos?
Jeremy Johnson: You just called me out! :-) I know I’ve been slow to update pixelimpact, but running four blogs, working full time, and having a two year old around the house is time consuming. I’m trying to speed up posting, but it also has to do with what’s going on online. I have a huge amount of feeds I read, and I also keep up on photographic trends and news - this is where I come across most of the posts for pixelimpact.

[6] Paul: You have quite a lot of photos on the Italian CarFest in Grapevine;, TX, a lot of fast cars too. So what’s your ride? Lamborghni?
Jeremy Johnson: I wish! No I drive a very economical car, I have a long commute to work (need to save on gas these days). I love taking photos of cars, especially the details the designers put into them. The curves, door handles, air intakes, etc. The smaller the detail the better.

[7] Paul: Any exciting new projects we can expect from you in the coming weeks?
Jeremy Johnson: At geniant I work on a range of projects, most of them I can’t talk about per NDA’s or they are internal systems. One new thing everyone should be seeing in the next couple of weeks is a re-branded geniant. We’ve been working on a new identity and should be revealing it shortly. Personally I have a couple of new ideas in the works. If I can expand my blog network to six blogs in the next year I’ll be happy.

[8] Paul: Tell us 3 things we never know about you.
Jeremy Johnson: One… I currently live in Dallas, TX - but I’m originally from Indiana. Two… I’m a huge fan of video games and can’t wait for the Wii. Three… I’m a die hard mac user, but you already probably already knew that ;-)

[9] Paul: Anything you want to announce or shout to our readers.
Jeremy Johnson: I’d like to send a shout out to my co-worker and fellow Designer Jared (you need to interview him next, he’s a much better writer then me!)

[10] Paul: Any favorite websites you recommend us visit.
Jeremy Johnson: The “interenets” are huge! But how about a plug for my co-workers here at geniant:

http://www.jaredigital.com/
http://www.garrettdimon.com/
http://markup.thekraemers.com/
http://www.theynow.com/
http://www.handcoding.com/
http://www.luisgarcia.com/
http://www.suitedcowboys.com/
http://www.morethan2cents.com/