Mark A Powell.com

Business purpose: Communicate activities of the Office of Workplace Inclusion; Provide publishing platform for Employee Resource Groups
Audience: Internal employees
Services provided: Information Architecture; Visual design; XHTML Coding; Usability Testing; Accessibility Considerations; Publishing Model

For the Office of Workplace Inclusion I worked closely with the administrator of the site to create a site that can be used for communication both by the office and the Employee Resource Groups. This provided a unique challenge in that the site needed to provide a consistent platform visually and navigationally. In order to accomplish this I used a tab-based navigation for the majority of the site and a left nav for the ERG sites. This way the tabs remained visible and provide an indicator of location, and allowed the ERGs to have a longer navigation scheme.

Because one of the ERGs is a group for disabled employees I worked to create an accessible site. I used high-contrast navigation colors with large target areas. I also employed a text-size switcher that increases type-face size by 50%. Lastly, I employed semantic mark-up with all text-based navigation.

Business purpose: Communicate value and services of the Talent Management department
Audience: Internal employees
Services provided: Visual design

This mock-up was created for the Talent Management group within Medtronic for their intranet site. The design was based on the central element of a tree growing. The tree symbolized the growth of the employee through the organization and their career. Reflecting this theme I created a site using a subtle nature inspired palette. I also used glass buttons and an open content area to keep the site looking clean and professional.

So they just completed the final episode of Big Brother on CBS tonight and while I don’t agree with the winner I am intrigued by the process. I know it’s just like Survivor and many other “non-scripted drama” shows which I normally avoid. But its my wife’s summer fling and I love her, so I watch it too.

One of the things that interested me most is the tie in with game theory and how it crossed many of the ideas addressed there. For instance, it was both a cooperative and a non-cooperative game. It was cooperative in that alliances formed and non-cooperative in that each person was competing to win the final prize. The requisite twist was that the other house-guests voted between the final two to determine the winner. So while you formed relationships and voted to evict other contestants, you needed to make sure they would vote for you if you were left.

While watching, the part that I really got into was the timing behind the decision to turn on your alliance. In every contest that time comes, but when does one strike? The disadvantage of turning too quickly is alienating yourself and being eliminated. But if you stay loyal too long, you’re gone. The least fortunate was Dustin on his elimination. At the time he volunteered to sit next to the eventual winner with the confidence of his alliance. What actually happened was his eviction based on the realization they might not have the chance again and that faced against him in the final vote Dustin was likely to win.

Towards the end of the game it also bit lovers Eric and Jessica. While they considered themselves safe in their alliance they were both eliminated in one night back-to-back. The unfortunate part of their elimination was that they had the chance to vote out the eventual winners but held onto their alliance, bringing about their final demise.

All-in-all an OK distraction for the summer. And an interesting excuse to bring greater depth to a seemingly shallow show.