Alice G Herbison

Tech stack

• TypeScript (JavaScript ES6)
• React
• Redux
• Electron
• Storybook
• Yarn
• CSS modules
• Vidyo API

Key achievements

• Designed entire front-end architecture for new iteration of Vscene, a video conferencing platform for schools, colleges and universities, for both web and desktop (Electron) applications.
• Established CSS approach and compartmentalisation.
• Built all application components into Storybook.
• Designed theming implementation for initial light and dark themes using layered variables and ensured it is adaptable for containing more themes as needed.
• Built accessible, responsive, mobile-first in-call layout for video calls.
• Promotion to front-end developer before end of probationary period as a junior.

Responsibilities

• Maintaining current features and developing new ones for the Vscene platform.
• Mentoring junior front-end developers.
• Giving input into technical product decisions.

Sole developer for building Telequre - a video conferencing web application - from scratch in React with Redux. Worked closely with the user experience design team to implement desktop-only designs into a mobile-first, completely scalable interface.

Key achievements

• Proposed and led interactive prototyping methods for new online medical research platform, building and maintaining three separate prototype instances running Hugo to illustrate and iterate desired functionality / requirements for each client. Increased ease of remote feedback and testing by providing valuable proof-of-concepts for ideas.
• Conducted user research and acted on findings to redesign online course finder for City of Glasgow College, streamlining search process and filter options to those most valuable to prospective students.
• Championed user research inclusion in projects with small budgets, working within tight timeframes to produce ideas from as much research as possible.
• Used behavioural economic and psychological principles to encourage greater initial investment per ISA account opening for Scottish Friendly which increased average order value by £10 per customer.
• Established a framework for integrating and acting on research findings depending on stage of agile project.

Led the user research, user journeys, site planning, information architecture and template layouts for Street Soccer Scotland, Drinkaware, Robertson, National Galleries of Scotland, City of Glasgow College, and Powderbeds website redesigns, and a power-generator monitoring iPhone application for Aggreko. Clients for smaller pieces of user experience work included RBS, Scottish Friendly, Nando's, Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society and My World of Work (Skills Development Scotland).

Responsibilities

• Worked with key stakeholders to define client requirements.
• Conducted and analysed primary user research and interviews.
• Defined information architecture and site structures.
• Planned content strategy and CMS / content types (Drupal).
• Planned and ran in-person and remote usability tests.
• Translated interface and user requirements into technical acceptance criteria for use by developers.
• Produced wireframed site layouts.
• Built and iterated testable prototypes in code using Hugo.

Internship with the Digital Communications team working on new university website on the TERMINALFOUR content management system. Content delivery and management in an agile development process.

Responsibilities

• Conducted research interviews for persona validation.
• Designed graduate recruitment marketing materials & copy.
• Project-managed promotional videos.
• Created visuals and storyboards to explain brand evolution & current positioning.

Key modules

• User-centred Interaction Design
• Web Technologies (HTML/CSS/PHP)
• Research Design & Analysis
• Software Engineering Principles
• Object-Oriented Modelling, Design & Programming (Java)

Dissertation

Followed a user-centred design process to design and implement the front-end user interface for the iPhone application DentAnx in Phonegap (HTML/CSS/JS) to help people with dental anxiety track the emotional strength of their anxiety and log pain levels throughout dental treatment as a method of psychological intervention. The work has been published in scholarly journals and has since been fully implemented for iOS and Android. Received a first class mark and overall distinction for degree.

Key modules

• Cognitive Psychology & Emotional Disorders
• Perception
• Quantitative and Qualitative Statistics
• World Cinema
• Documentary Film-Making
• Multimedia
• Web Technologies
• Internet Programming
• Human Computer Interaction

Dissertation

Received a First for Perceiving depth with one eye: The effects of reducing cues to picture surface visibility on the qualitative impression of stereopsis in two-dimensional images.

https://cinema.netlify.com

A small project to explore RESTful APIs by building a site to search and pull in cinema listings from a public API. Uses Gulp, ES6 (transpiled with Babel), Sass and environment variables to store the API key. Hosted on Netlify - view repo.

Rebuilt personal website using Hugo - learn about site principles.