TL;DR:
I worked as a UX designer, and sometimes front-end developer for many web and mobile application projects for public and private sector clients in the South Bend community and beyond.
Background
I met Alex Sejdinaj and Alex Liggins (Alex&Galex, as I would come to know) at a local subway, preparing to beg for a job if I had to. They had supposedly been working on a startup teaching kids, or something, and I heard through a mutual friend that connected us that they were looking for a full-time designer in South Bend. I hadn't spent much time in the city (apart from bar-hopping at the popular undergrad spots), and to be honest, didn't have a huge interest, but beggars can't be choosers right?
So I took the meeting, in the midst of finals week and a bunch of other job applications, and we said our cheerful "Nice to meet you"'s. I then proceeded to give my rehearsed speech about wanting to start a career as a designer, which I could basically recite in my sleep at that point, and then asked them more about their company.
Alex said, simply: "Our philosophy: build cool shit."
Alright, now I'm listening.
It turns out that the school was only part of the equation. Alex&Galex (and their third co-founder Chris) had a wholly separate business, building real, usable and innovative applications for companies and government organizations across the South Bend community. They wanted to expand, and they wanted a designer ready to be a full-fledged member of their team, and wear the many hats that the startup world requires, to help them do that.
I was ready, for what would turn into an incredible year-long journey that not only began my design career, but also provided tremendous lasting relationships, and a sense of fulfillment making a difference in a city that I grew to love.
BidByte
This project started with a request from South Bend's Center for the Homeless (CFH - Link). They host an annual fundraising event called "Dancing with our Stars", and were discouraged by the options they found to host the type of donation / auction platform they needed for the event. Everything was either too expensive, or insufficient for their needs, so we decided to see if we could fix that.
I led the UX effort for the application, the primary challenge for which being the ability to seamlessly combine the three donation streams that CFH needed: a voting system for the audience to vote on their favorite dancers, and both silent and live auctions taking place for the same event.
Some of this functionality was meant to happen "in the room", while some was meant to be accessible before, or even if the users didn't have a ticket for the physical event but still wanted to participate. This presented an interesting UX challenge, especially given the user demographic tended to be older.
The other challenge was creating administrator functionality for the app, such that the event hosts could facilitate their own events and donations in the future without our direct support.
This scalability consideration led to the evolution of the application to have its own unique brand and identity: "BidByte". Once BidByte had gone through the first event with the CFH, Code Works officially launched it as its own company and platform to be used by other organizations with similar needs.
Note: Since my time at Code Works, the product has been renamed "GiveGrove".
MACOG
MACOG (Michiana Area Council of Governments) came to Code Works requesting a full redesign of their expansive website, which was last updated in 1998. The goal of this project was to create an entirely new aesthetic for the website, as well as an organized user interface and experience to navigate the site's vast amounts of content.
I designed an overall taxonomy, followed by a full redesign of their website, and worked with a team of developers to build the final product. The site also included a lightweight CMS developed by Code Works as a unique alternative to other clunky systems for their clients to manage their content on their own.
EyeCare
An ophthalmologist in Austin, Texas, approached the Code Works for assistance with a major issue she had at her practice. With many elderly and disabled patients, this doctor's practice was having issues with certain patients making it to follow-up appointments and check-ins. We were faced with designing an easy to use application that allowed patients to check in from their homes with the use of a mobile device.
I designed the overall interface for this application to allow users to send photo updates to their doctor, as well as functionality for doctors to track the pictures that were sent over time, and provide their recommendations for continued care as well as in-person follow-up appointments.
Knowing the group of users are doing so because they can't get into the office, a priority was making the experience as simple as possible. Along with this effort, I designed a series of animations that would be presented to the user when they first download the app.
Other Work
Besides the UX work described, I also worked partially as a Front-End Developer and brand designer. Code Works is a small startup size operation, so the opportunity to wear many hats in that fashion while early in my career was incredible for my growth and development of skills across the spectrum of design.
Bonus: SBCS Website
South Bend Code School teaches students the fundamentals of web development & design, software craftsmanship, & entrepreneurship.
With the website, we wanted to showcase SBCS' mission, as well as showing testimonials and examples of former students and their work, in addition to a platform where users could learn about and sign up for Code School's various educational programs.
I primarily designed the navigation and skeleton of the site, while another team of designers designed most of the aesthetic of the site, using the brand standards I had helped to craft earlier in my time at SBCS. If you'd like to learn more, please use the links below to view my work more directly related to SBCS as well as their current website page (it's been redesigned since my time there).
Interested in working together? Get in touch!
Current Location
Chicago, IL
Email
nicholasmswift {at} gmail.com
© Nik Swift 2020
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