Knowledge is a rare thing -- you gain by giving it away.
—Ivan Sutherland
An old man, going a lone highway, came at evening, cold and gray, To a chasm, vast and deep and wide, through which was flowing a sullen tide. The old man crossed in the twilight dim; the sullen stream had no fears for him; But he turned when safe on the other side and built a bridge to span the tide.
"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim near, "You are wasting strength with building here; Your journey will end with the ending day; you never again must pass this way; You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide - why build you the bridge at the eventide?"
The builder lifted his old gray head: "Good friend, in the path I have come," he said, "There followeth after me today a youth whose feet must pass this way. This chasm that has been naught to me to that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be. He, too, must cross in the twilight dim; good friend, I am building the bridge for him."
-Will Allen Dromgoole
The Site. Worqx.com... well, it might have been "Works.com" or "WebWorks.com" or some such name had they been available. As it is, this site is meant to act as a means to present my work(s). Worqx.com also offers information about development, an overview of color theory, and links to a variety of external resources regarding design and development.
Worqx.com is my personal Web site and began in early 1998 as a place to experiment with HTML. I had a few design & development opportunities offered to me in early 1997-98 due to my design background and a personal fascination with the Web medium. This site gave me a place to experiment with various layouts and trends before I used the practices on a client's site. Needing content for the site, I opted to post some of my thesis investigation regarding color theory.
My Background. My own training and background is in architecture. I attended the University of Minnesota; the College of Architecture & Landscape Architecture in the mid- 90's, and presented my architecture thesis: Through Rose Colored Glasses, in the spring of 1998.
In 1997, I began working as a Web designer on a free-lance basis to supplement income, and then later as an employee at the U of MN. I found that there are many similarities in the design process and an architect, and the training I was receiving was almost directly applicable. Both processes involve working with a client, identifying their needs, and finding and providing a technologically sound and visually pleasing solution. A favorite quote of mine reads:
An architect is someone capable of seeing the main problems of a design, capable of examining with serenity the various possible solutions, and who finally has a thorough grasp of the technical means necessary to accomplish the project
- Pier Luigi Nervi
I continued on the Web design career path for a few years as a consultant with a local staff augmentation firm. Currently, I work as a senior UI designer in the Human Factors area of a large medical device company, and much of my day-to-day work is focused on usability & accessibility.
My Tools. Not having had any formal training in computer science or software development, I learned to code HTML with Notepad—then moved to the WYSIWYG editor: MS Frontpage. I find that I code mostly by hand these days using Homesite or Textpad, occasionally using TopStyle for CSS, and I use MS Frontpage or Adobe/Macromedia's Dreamweaver when including tabular data. PhotoShop and Illustrator are my creative tools of choice.
This latest revision of worqx.com was designed to comply with W3C recommendations and be both usable and accessible; using valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional and CSS for presentation layout and design. (For more specifics about how this site uses CSS, view the HTML & CSS page.)
Gratuity & Regards. Along the road, many people from various newsgroups and other online communities helped me to master many of the web technologies & work through some of the constantly changing browser differences. This site has acquired a rather large following over the years, and in the spirit of those that previously supported my efforts, I've continued to maintain this site. I hope the information you find here will help with your own quest!
—Janet
