Spicy Web Designer Interview with Travis Isaacs

Travis Isaacs is a web designer from Dallas, Texas in the United States. He started designing back in 2000 when he took his first HTML class and since then he has become passionate about the “user experience”. Travis graduated from the School of Telecommunications at Indiana University taking a broad range of courses. He also designs currently for the iPhone as well and has designed user interfaces specific to his clients needs.

1. How did you originally start designing websites?

I’ve always been artistic – sketching, drawing, and painting, so the idea of creating art with a computer was a natural fascination. Long story short, a friend loaned me a copy of the program called Photoshop (I think it was version 5) and I spent my senior year planted at my computer trying to figure it out. I spent months making really ugly, cliche graphics using every filter in Photoshop. I thought I was making masterpieces.

Fast forward to college – I took my first HTML class my sophomore year and the rest is history, so to speak.

2. We did you start designing websites?

Around 2000 in my first HTML class. The final for the class was to get a real client and get them to pay you money to build a real website. The site I built isn’t around anymore but trust me, it was awful.

3. On your site you refer to yourself as a “Visual and Interaction Designer”. Why do you call yourself that and what does that involve?

I use that title rather than “web designer” because I don’t want to limit myself to just web interfaces. I’ve designed interfaces and experiences for the web, mobile devices, Television apps, etc.

Interaction design is about focusing on the behavior of a product or interface – specifically how people interact with it. Broad definition right? Interaction design isn’t about how something looks necessarily, but how it acts, and reacts. I really love focusing in on the nuts and bolts in regards to how people will use a specific widget or functionality.

4. I also see how much you stress the “User Experience” aspect of design.  What do you feel makes the “User Experience” successful on a web project?

Success means that your project delights the people who use it. They achieve their goals and feel empowered, not helpless and stupid.

5. I also see that you’ve designed for the iPhone. How did you originally become involved in this area of design and what is specific to designing for the mobile user?

I worked on 2 great mobile projects while working in the User Experience group at Sabre Travel Network. One project was a standard mobile site, and the other was an iPhone specific site for Travelocity.com.

Designing for the mobile web can be really tricky, and in some ways more difficult than designing for the desktop web because there are so many platforms, screen sizes, and capabilities. Aside from the device considerations, you must factor in the context of the user. Are you building a site that they’ll use on the train ride to work or running through the airport terminal because they are trying to make their flight?

Generally speaking, you want to think light when designing for mobile. That means minimizing the amount of images you use keeping your HTTP requests down to as few as possible.

6. Where did you study (College/University/Other)?  How has this experience helped you in your career?

I graduated from the School of Telecommunications at Indiana University. At the time there were many “multimedia” classes spanning everything from audio recording, video post-production, and web design, but no formal curriculum or track so I took just about every class I could, including a few graduate level courses.

I don’t use a lot of what I learned in school today simply because the technology changes so quickly, but my time in college gave me solid foundation that I’ve built my career on. There are a lot of intangible things that you learn at school that help you become a professional later, no matter what you study.

7. What web technologies do you use on a regular basis?

XHTML, CSS, and a bit of JavaScript. I try to build everything as clean as possible, but I am no means a “Standards Nazi”. I also really love the YUI JavaScript library.

8. What is the biggest challenge you face as a web designer?

Staying current. The technology a moving a target, and things like the social web and constantly-connected mobile devices have drastically change the way people use the web. You can’t get too comfy because you’ll go stale!