About peterpixel

Background

I was born in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1985. When I turned 19 in 2005, I had saved up enough money to afford a one-way flight to Amsterdam. I had about 700 EUR in savings, which seemed like a fortune back then. Disillusioned by the fact that Europe was not the paradise I assumed it to be, I quickly decided that I needed start studying. Back then I was still a stranger to multimedia and the wonderful internet: I have only been online for as long as I had been in Europe. Nonetheless I, was intrigued by this new medium and decided to enrol at the University of Applied Sciences in Rotterdam for the Bachelors program Communication and Multimedia Design. I graduated Cum Laude in 2009 and started my Masters at the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences in September 2009, following the Interface Design Course.

Work experience

LBi Lost Boys

Based in Amsterdam, LBi Lost Boys is the one of The Netherlands oldest and biggest full service agencies. For a period of 4 months I interned as user experience designer, working on various internal and external projects.

Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences

At my former University I worked as student assistant, giving lectures, workshops and reviewing assignments by undergraduate students of the Interaction Design course. Furthermore, I joined a research team to develop a Toolkit for Human Centred Design. The toolkit has since been widely used in corporations and universities. It was also presented at the CHI Netherlands Conference in 2009, Amsterdam.

aka-aki networks GmbH

During my Bachelor graduation phase I worked at aka-aki networks GmbH in Berlin, where I wrote my Bachelor Thesis concerning location based matchmaking. It was graded with a 9/10. In addition to doing my thesis, I worked on various projects, taking the role of User Experience Designer, designing for the iPhone, BlackBerry and J2ME platforms.

Deutsche Telekom Research Laboratories

After starting my Masters in Potsdam, I took a semester off to pursue a more academic direction. This lead me to the Deutsche Telekom Design Research Labs, where I work research assistant on a project concerning the sharing of resources in neighbourhoods with a strong element Participatory Design Research.

Other achievements

I have been keeping up this blog for almost 3 years, blogging consistently about usability matters, large and small. One of the by products of this blog has been a very successful ebook: Introduction to Good Usability, having been featured on Smashing Magazine and translated into Spanish. I also recieved the prestigious HSP Scholarship for excellent Dutch Students performing research or studying abroad. This scholarship is offered to about 100 Dutch students each year.

Skills

I am familiar with a large set of research tools and methodologies, thanks to my role as researcher at Knowledge Network in Rotterdam and work at the Deutsche Telekom. Through my role as student assistant I gained experience as educator in Interaction Design tools. My internship at Lost Boys gave me insight on how to do Interaction Design as part of a larger process within a large company. My graduation thesis gave me insights on the more social side of Human Computer Interaction but also translating Social Science findings into user interfaces.

Contact

E-mail: peterpixel@gmail.com