Jen’s Weblog

Hopefully someday soon I’ll get into JUS. I’m re-writing an article that combines both of these topics, and talks more about usability’s involvement in Commercial Off-the-Shelf Software (COTS) evaluations and implementations (SharePoint was only one).

Migrating a Corporate Intranet to SharePoint: A Case Study (August 2010)
User Centered Procurement: Evaluating the Usability of “Off-the-Shelf” Software (January 2010 - co-author)
Migrating a Corporate Intranet to SharePoint (UPA Voice, December 2009)
Evaluating the Usability of Third-party Applications (UPA Conference, June 2009)

As promised, here is what happened to me yesterday evening at my second acupuncture appointment.

I got there at 6 pm and Matt asked me how I was doing. I asked him whether the weird moodiness I’ve been experiencing lately could be a side affect of the treatment, and he assured me that yes, it was possible, since we were stirring up all kinds of things. He asked me (as he did in the first session) whether I had cravings for salty or sweet. Until that moment, I hadn’t really realized that my intense cravings for chocolate around 3 pm every day weren’t happening.

There was “less talk, more action” as he put it, and I was on the table quickly. I was able to pay more attention this time, and learned that my issues were mostly in my spleen and kidneys. And unlike the first time, where I felt maybe 5% of the needles go in,  I felt almost 95% go in. I thought of my friend Tammy, who told me she couldn’t do acupuncture anymore because she got too nervous about being stuck, and I asked him about it. It could be that I was wound up after coming from work (which seems plausible but odd, since work so far this week has been nice), or that my body was just in a different state. He also said that in the first session people don’t usually feel the needles as they go in, then they go through a period where they do feel them, then they go back to not feeling them. (I hope I get to that third phase soon!)

He also used moxa with me for the first time to rid me of “dampness”. (My extremities are always either death-like cold or clammy, nervous or not! And I was clammy at the time.) Moxa feels like a little piece of incense with a sticky backing that the practitioner puts on various points. You don’t feel anything at first, then it gets hot and/or itchy. And that’s when he moves it.  I got through around 6-7 rotations of the stuff before it burned out, which he said was normal. (Getting very few rotations means that your body really needs to work through stuff; getting too many means you probably didn’t need it in the first place.) Basically, the moxa feels hot/itchy when the point it’s on reaches a good state.

When Matt left me to relax with the needles in, I couldn’t. My legs felt fine, but my arms were going nuts inside. They were both extremely heavy. At the same time, they felt like that strange period after you realize your arm is asleep but before you get pins and needles — basically blood rushing around like mad. And I felt like there were needles in places where I knew there weren’t any! After some time I started focusing on my breath and was able to start to relax even with all this going on. And then, BOING! A needle popped out of my left ear, and was now poking me uncomfortably. I tried to move my head around so the needle wasn’t poking me anymore. After a few more minutes of trying to relax, Matt came back in. (I was so relieved!) He said the needles do occasionally jump out, nothing to worry about. And, I might feel needles where there are none if the energy needs to be unblocked there.

Then I rotated to lay on my stomach. The needles going in were actually really good on this side — I didn’t feel many of them. There was one though that he put into my back, under my right shoulder blade, and whoooo wee! I felt it until about an hour after the session was over! (He said this point had to do with insomnia. Go figure.)

When he left me to relax on my stomach, I felt like I was in this weird trance state that I find myself in sometimes while meditating or in savasana. I wasn’t asleep, but I wasn’t quite awake either. And I was even more heavy above the waist. This time, I didn’t want Matt to come back in. But after awhile he did, and after he removed all the needles, he advised me to turn over slowly. It took me about 5 minutes to rotate from my stomach to my back. And when I sat up, wow.

Now, I have certainly had too much to drink before, but I have never done a drug in my life–but I couldn’t help feeling like this must be what it feels like to be stoned. Everything was a little off. I was sort of dizzy, but not really. I had a hard time doing anything — including writing the check. Matt  told me a funny story about a seven foot tall athlete he had in there, who kept telling him, “I get drug tested you know!!”. (Matt had to reassure him several times that it was just his own body’s endorphins; no drugs were being used.) I laughed but knew what the guy meant.

After scheduling my third session for Saturday morning, I stumbled in a haze to my parked car and had to sit there for 15 minutes or so before I felt like I could drive. I chatted with my friend Chris (who wanted me to come out dancing), left a message for Paula (who apparently has detected a shift in my energy–I’m curious to find out more about this), and chatted with Pam about the experience.

When I got home, I felt like doing nothing but laying down and resting. So, I pretty much did. I was sad to not go dance, as I really wanted to. But I knew I couldn’t.

I also started thinking about all the things Matt has told me over the two sessions that acupuncture might help me with:

• Hypoglycemia
• Insomnia
• Raynaud’s (a mild form of which may be responsible for my extremity issues)
• Stress
• Hyper vigilance
• Inability to slow down
• Acute pain due to injuries
• Bruxism (teeth grinding)
• And more I can’t think of right now.

And I started wondering–if all these things go away–or, if I am not the person with all these issues, who will I be? What will I be like if I’m not shaky and hungry all the time, I sleep well, I’m calm, and my body’s not in pain? Not knowing the answer to this is a little scary. And, I can’t wait to find out.

I just have to say that I think it’s amazing what Cathy and Sandy at Cut, Color and Company do. They are not just “hair stylists” or colorists — I think they have a real gift and are true artists at what they do.

About a month ago I went in for a cut, bringing Cathy a photo of a girl I saw at a dance event — I liked her hair, and wanted to work toward that style. Cathy put the photo up against her wall of the hairsprays and gels that were on her cart, and studied it intensely every few minutes as she worked on my hair — chiseling the style from my outgrown mane like a sculptor pulls form out of a block of ice or slab of wood.  On Saturday I went back with the same photo, and she worked more and more toward the direction of the photo, repeating the same process as before.

Then I went on to chat with Sandy for color. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I love reds and purples, but feel like I shouldn’t really go overboard, given that I do have a day job (though, given some of the outfits at my company, I might be overly concerned about nothing). I like different browns, but want to be a little less boring. Cathy gave me some ideas based on the new cut, and after talking with Sandy, she totally went to town. A chestnutty brown, a red, a purple…and midway through she ran back and mixed up a darker brown because she thought it would work — and she was clearly having fun playing. I was happy to let her, because I knew that when Sandy gets creative, it’s all good.

Bottom line, these gals are fantastic artists — I love what they do. And if you happen to venture up to Lowell for your next cut or color, I can tell you, the price for all this (my recent adventure took 3 hours) will make your jaw drop as well.

Ever since my post about various yoga products, where I made a cursory mention to preventing dance shoe funk, I’ve been getting questions about my defunkification routine. Although I mentioned it in the comments there, I’m pulling it out for all you curious folks.

The shoe lady mentioned this at Liberty Swing: “baking soda and put them in the freezer.” Here’s my interpretation of what that meant:

1. When you get home from dancing, put your shoes on a paper towel and sprinkle them lightly with baking soda. Rub it in a bit so you cover the full base.
2. Put the shoes (on the paper towel) on a shelf in the freezer.
3. The next day (about 8 hours or so), let them thaw out for a bit by removing them from the freezer and putting them out somewhere.
4. When they’re warm again, shake / wipe off the excess baking powder over the sink, and put them away.

This process seems to work well with my new silver shoes. They don’t smell and the base hasn’t turned funky black.

Caveats (or, things to be careful of):

• Don’t let the baking soda freeze too much to the straps (i.e. focus on keeping it on the base). In some places my shoes have lost their silver luster and are white (not from caked on baking soda I think, but because the baking soda “ate” off the coloring).
• When you rub the baking soda in and rub it off, do it lightly. I think the rubbing has caused some of the glue to come off, so where the material meets, it comes up a bit.

I recently commented on an IxDA group post on LinkedIn and got a very positive response, so I figured I’d re-post my thoughts here for those who may not be members of that group (or site).

I’m a usability experience professional who is a generalist (i.e. I do a little bit of everything from user research to interaction design to information architecture to usability testing). And I’ve been thinking about portfolio design for awhile now. To me there are four aspects to having a portfolio: 1) content 2) presentation 3) delivery 4) maintenance.

1. Content
I often see job descriptions go by, and people say “must have strong portfolio” and the like. I’ve taken poor portfolios to job interviews (in a scramble) and gotten the job, and taken what I thought was a great portfolio only to be turned away. Different people want to see different things, so obviously knowing your audience and being able to show them what they want is key. One of the ways I figured out what to include in mine is by talking with hiring managers (often friends) to see what they look for, and by looking through interesting job descriptions as they come by for any meaningful nugget about what kind of content the recruiter or hiring manager is interested in. (I save these in a Google doc to refer to later, as a sanity check.)

2. Presentation
Presentation is another aspect. For my portfolio (because of the audience consideration), I’m working toward modularity. So if someone says “I want to see how you arrived at the final design from the first back-of-the-napkin concept,” I can show them the section that addresses that. If they say, “I want to see how you came up with the information architecture for this,” or, “I want to see an example of a top notch design specification,” I can pull out an example of a project that focused on these. I find that writing up a page or two (max!) that describes the project’s goals, what you did, and the impact you had can be useful — who remembers after years have gone by!? Best to do it right after the project so you can keep track of those useful details and refer back to them when you’ve forgotten.

3. Delivery
Delivery is something I personally struggle with. I’ve collected links over the years for people’s online portfolios, but I never feel comfortable doing mine in this way. (I’ve worked primarily on internal sites / tools or software that is sold to the public, not web sites I can point to easily.) I worry about confidentiality and so I have historically always brought a hard copy portfolio to interviews. Has it cost me some opportunities by not being able to have people browse my portfolio online ahead of time? Probably. But I’d rather have that than get sued by a former employer for publishing something I shouldn’t have. And, to me, any employer I’d want to work for would understand and respect that.

4. Maintenance
Then, how do you keep the portfolio fresh and up to date? If it’s hard copy, it gets large quick. When / what do you purge? My thought is, when I have examples of things that were mentioned in that Google doc, and a good variety of work from all different prior jobs (not just my current one), then I need to look at the quality of the sample, and see if it’s something I can improve on. If I’m missing some aspect, maybe my next project will help me fill in the gap, or I can do something on the side to cover it.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts. My goal for the year is to finish up a draft of a new portfolio at least. I keep slogging through stuff, but other things always get in the way — especially when there’s no (known) urgency for me to be job hunting!

Kevin and I had a discussion on the way home from work today, which I thought might make for an interesting blog post.

See,  I had a great night’s sleep last night (some of you know how rare that is for me), and woke up feeling good as well. Maybe riding the wave of the Saturday acupuncture appointment still, who knows. Then I got to work.

Mid-morning I was hit with someone’s crankiness, which I think I did a pretty good job of recognizing and letting bounce off me. Mid-afternoon, I was in a meeting that pretty much had three topics: one completely unnecessary / unchangeable / irrelevant, and two circular, “no-answer” kind of discussions that also felt counterproductive. Late afternoon, I was miffed because of someone’s lack of attention to detail (causing more work for me).

Kevin and I discussed, on the drive home, whether such”negative” events (as perceived by the experiencer) accumulate over the day, and whether equanimity can be maintained by balancing them out with positive events (in effect canceling them out). These negative events don’t have to be caused by anything external, but could be anything that upsets your inner calm (e.g. waking up after a poor night’s sleep, just feeling general unease throughout the day, etc.).  We talked about the obvious: letting these events “roll off your back” (easier said than done), and living in the moment. But if more of the moments you live in suck (of course this is subjective and dependent on mood; and “suck” is a strong word for what I experienced) than are happy, what affect does this have on your well being and overall health? And, what can you do to counteract the negative events to keep that see-saw in a balanced state?

The good news is I’m starting to look at this more from an analytical point of view rather than beating myself up for feeling annoyed (which just adds to the negativity)! But, I’m not quite sure what techniques to apply to get that force field working–that impenetrable wall against which others’ negativity, or my own, can’t get in and stick!

I’d love to know what others think about this, and what they do to keep equanimity in the face of life’s inevitable annoyances.

This morning I went for my very first acupuncture session with Matt at Inner Strength Yoga. I had been very excited about it ever since I booked the session about a week ago, and was still excited (with tinges of nervousness) when I walked in. Matt was great though. He talked to me for awhile about my various physical and mental health “issues”, then got me up on the table for a real session.

I didn’t feel most of the needles as they went in, unless they were in a particularly “uptight” part, such as the side of my foot or the back of my neck. A few things that amazed me were that he was able to put my shirt down over the needle that stuck out near my ribs (because they don’t stick straight up), and when he suick one right in the top of my skull!

The feeling was amazing though. Before he was even finished putting all the needles in, I started feeling ridiculously heavy. Though I didn’t sleep when he left the room, I did feel like I had just taken muscle relaxants (which of course I always joke that I need).

We spent less time on my back, but I did get to experience cupping as well. (Kevin looked at my back strangely for hours after, since all the little circles turned various shades of red and purple — I didn’t notice a thing.)

I really wish I had found this sooner and am already looking forward to my next appointment!

Of course, like Randy, Matt wasn’t thrilled to learn that my day after the session was jam packed full of other things. A few hours later (after a quick lunch at Red Lentil)  I went to a 3 hour basics yoga workshop with Brian Lam at the Cambridge Baron Baptiste studio. I was worried that the time would crawl by, but it went very quickly. This workshop was another amazing experience (two in one day, isn’t that awesome)!

Brian took us through pretty much a full 90 minute class, but broke down each of the poses in a way that no one’s ever done for me before. I learned the proper alignment for the sun salutations (which I had been starting to explore on my own), and even was able to do shoulder stand! There were only about ~25 people in the workshop too, which made it easy to ask questions like, “why does this hurt when I do that?”and not feel like a total loon. I am very much looking forward to implementing what I learned in Gregor’s class tomorrow morning.

What strikes me though about this yoga workshop is that it reminds me of dancing. Anyone can learn how to lead or follow a left side pass in a class or two, but the *refinement* of that simple pattern feels like it’s endless. And so with yoga technique as well. I’m working on refining my technique in both, and hopefully moving into new experiences as I do so. These two hobbies of mine have a lot more in common than I originally thought, and I look forward to learning what more each of them have to teach me!

For my birthday dinner, Kevin took me to Daedalus. We had heard about this restaurant some time ago–I think it was through a Boston.com article about roof-top dining restaurants. We had been meaning to go for awhile, but just never felt like the hassle of driving in after work.

But today, I was home all day so for me it wasn’t so bad! Of course the drive in sucked during rush hour, but Kevin’s parking karma held up and we got a really sweet parking spot on the street about 1/2 block down. After a short 10 minute wait, we were at our table.

They brought us pita bread with red pepper hummus, which was quite tasty. Their cocktail menu left something to be desired, and after feeling boring for not drinking anything, I ordered a cosmo (which I later sent back for being too citris-y  and got a G&T instead). I loved that the waiter called me “miss” every time! It was nice sitting outside and only when the ambulance or fire truck went by was it noisy.

I had the blackened (spicy) haddock with black beans, chorizo, and mango salsa. It was REALLY good. But the atmosphere left something to be desired. I was pretty surprised at how (more than casual) everyone was. In other words, really really sloppily dressed. Even the waitstaff didn’t seem all that put together or neat. (Our waiter was though.) I started thinking about dining in other countries and how much better dressed people seem to be elsewhere. I’m all for being comfortable, but *some* effort would be nice (i.e. when you go out to dinner, leave the ripped jeans, tinny white washed shorts, and Red Sox caps at home)!

Anyway, after that we walked to LA Burdick’s where I had a cappuccino and mocha chocolate cake and Kevin had a chocolate frappe and orange hazelnut cake.  To die for, of course. (And possibly quite literally so, had Kevin actually drank the huge class of basically melted iced chocolate they poured him!)

It was a quick jaunt home to write this post, so that was good. But, I’m not sure I’d go there again….

As many of my friends know, I’ve gotten back into my yoga practice over the last 6 months or so. I’m excited about this and wanted to share some of my experiences.

Now, what people may now know about me is that I’m a sweaty girl. My hands and feet are always either freezing or sweaty, whether I’m doing an activity or not (special apologies to my WCS dance leaders). So, when I do yoga (even if it’s not hot yoga), I sweat like mad. This of course makes it difficult for me to hold poses.

Both at home and when I go to Gregor’s class at Baron Baptiste’s Cambridge studios on Sundays,  I had been using a sticky mat with a regular large towel over it. This works fine and is obviously economical, since I already have towels and they are easy to wash.  But, I wanted to try out some products that might help with the issue that were a little more exciting. (BTW, we love you Gregor!!!)

So, for my birthday (which happens to be today), Kevin got me several things from my Amazon wish list, including a thirsty yoga towel from Gaiam and yoga paws.

The Thirsty Yoga Towel

I used this last weekend when I went to class in Cambridge. Here are my thoughts about it:

Pros:

• Easier to carry around than a large towel because it was more compact.
• It’s purple (my favorite color)!
• It feels awesome. Soft yet just a bit sticky.
• It didn’t bunch up under me the way the regular towel sometimes did as I moved through the poses.
• It didn’t seem at all gross when I was done, even though this is a heated yoga class and I was particularly sweaty.
• I did feel more stable (i.e. not slipping) in my hands and feet than with the regular towel.
• I looked cool because I had a nice towel. (I know, not the point of yoga, but hey, it’s the truth.)
• This towel is much cheaper than the ones they sell at the studio.

Cons:

• When I get home, I usually toss the towel and all my nasty clothes into the washer. I wasn’t sure what to do, then read that the label was hand wash. Usually I’ll do that in the washer on delicate, but I was afraid to. So, I washed this in the sink. It was amazing to see just how much water it absorbed (the sink didn’t seem to want to fill)! I swished it around for a bit, then squeezed it out (easily) and hung it out on the deck. Despite it getting re-wetted from the sprinklers that kicked on later in the day (doh!) this wasn’t bad, but is a con just because it’s a little extra effort. (But then again, I now baking soda my dance shoes and put them in the freezer after each use — with great success — so this may also be worth it!)

The Yoga Paws

I got to open these this morning, as Kevin knew I was going to do yoga. I put on the feet, and pretty much instantly thought they were cool. The hands, well, I was less certain about. They felt a little bulky. But, I was determined to try them out while doing Journey into Power – one of my favorite DVDs for home practice. Here are my thoughts about the yoga paws:

Pros:

• They really did help a lot. I just used a sticky mat and these paws, and felt a lot more stable in all of the poses!
• They were particularly helpful in tree pose (where my feet often try to slide down my leg) and in wheel pose (was able to get a GREAT stretch into my back).
• I was able to do the sequences with much more stability and certainty, because I was less worried about slipping.
• After I took these off, my feet felt fabulous. (There’s a little strap that goes between your big toe and the rest of them, and it felt as if I’d been wearing a toe separator for 45 minutes.)

Cons:

• I feel like I was sweating more than usual. I’m not totally sure this is really a con, since 1) I’m fighting a cold 2) I was doing yoga later than usual 3)  it may be because I was working the poses deeper than I could without them!
• The only time these got in my way was when stepping back into down dog from something like crescent lunge. (I was stuck!)
• I kept thinking about writing this blog during the last half of the practice.
• I’m not sure I’d wear these outside of the house. People might look at me funny. (Oh wait….)

So there you have it. I think both of these products are totally worth it.

This article in the Boston Globe points out issues with *new* signs around Boston.

It reminded me of This is Broken, a site from which UPA Boston printed several confusing signs (with Mark’s permission of course) and put them on a poster for World Usability Day.

After going back to the latter site, I think I should submit the cruise control lever from my 2007 VW Rabbit. I’ve been using it more lately, and let me tell you, there’s nothing like mistaking your cruise control for your turn signals. (But wait, I’m a driver in MA, I shouldn’t be using turn signals!!! Maybe that’s my problem.)