Wikia

During my time as Interaction Designer for Wikia, a popular wiki hosting platform, our team implemented a new aesthetic design for the website and added functionality such as: Theme Designer, Top Ten Lists, Page Layout Builder, and Labs. These changes went a long way towards updating a user experience that had languished for a number of years. Along the way my goal was to consistently design tools that ensured Wikia offered the best collaboration experience possible. With a diverse set of users, all with vastly different technical abilities, the key to all our successful product releases was to create simple and focused interfaces.

With a large and passionate user base I was able to take advantage of empirical data based on user testing such as paper prototyping, early html/Flash prototyping, and A/B tests prior to a product launch. Because design is a subjective discipline and each mock-up can elicit a different opinion regarding it’s effectiveness these tests became an invaluable tool for observing and measuring the effectiveness of a design at multiple points during the development process. With the combination of user testing and a solid creative process, my work at Wikia significantly improved their aesthetics and simplified their content contribution and consumption tools.

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