Greg Thomas

I am 33 years old and currently finding lots of fulfillment as a stay at home dad to my 13 month old son, Isaac, during the day and as full-time graduate student studying for my Masters in Human-Computer Interaction (DePaul University) at night.

My typical day starts at 7am and doesn’t end until 2am the next day. I am proud to say that in the last 13 months I have completed half of my required credits while being the primary care giver to our son. To say I have been busy would be a tremendous understatement.

My most recent “real job” was as an Associate Product Manager for Legacy.com. My team was responsible for the profitability of usability of Legacy Memorial Websites. I am proud that we accomplished moving Memorial Websites from a free “beta” product to a paid service in just over 6 months.

Unfortunately my position – along with many others at the company – was downsized. I harbor no ill will about the decision. A sagging economy for a company that services customers in an already tough industry – the newspaper business – had to make hard choices about where they will be focusing their revenue driving efforts. The product development department bore the brunt of the layoffs.

So, in a 3 month span, my wife and I fought and clawed our way through the following “life events”:

• Our first child was born (January 09)
• I lost my job (February 09)
• I went back to school (March 09)

Don’t feel bad for me! Through every storm there is a shiny new day! I consider my layoff lucky. My experience as a product manager led me to a field I am passionate about - Interaction Design - and can be profitable while doing. My "calling" became apparent to me when I realized how much I enjoy sitting down with a piece of paper (or a white board) and mapping out a user flow chart.

My design interests are varied. But my design interests are varied at this stage of my career are wide ranging and ever expanding.

Sketching, brainstorming, critique, persuasive design, prototyping and usability testing are all fun things I did as a product manager. Now I am lucky enough to be learning how the rules became the rules.

The formalized knowledge has led me to the underlying purpose of why I enjoy this line of work. The reason I love Interaction Design so much is that it allows me to help people.

Knowing that a menu should have 7 items plus or minus 2 (Miller ’56) isn’t what good Ix or Ux is, or for that matter, should be about. My opinion is that findings such as Miller's should be viewed as a by-product of interaction designers to help others.

By building interfaces that focus on the users needs, we are working to helping users accomplish tasks in the easiest and most efficient manner possible. Along the way we should prove things like Miller's 7 plus or 2 rule AND we should generate some profit.

I love everything about Interaction and User Experience Design. It is all about seeing the big picture and realizing what that means for the user and figuring out how, as an designer, I can help them. My journey over the past few months has been tough, but it has been worth it.