We’re on the hunt for the ideal candidate that will embody UX design and be the user advocate. We believe designers make great IAs since they can think about the user experience as well as interface design while integrating the client’s strategic marketing objectives.

You will be responsible for the creation of wireframes, user flows and sitemaps. (We use Axure for wireframing.) Also, you will design user interfaces that balance the user and business requirements. Projects can include, web site design, video storyboards, and the design and storyboarding of interactive experiences. At times, will be asked to create logos, brand boards, ads, brochures, etc. You can be involved in user research, persona development and usability studies (we have a lab on site).

Our office is extremely collaborative and everyone’s opinion counts. If you are lone wolf, this is not the place for you. You will report to the creative director, but often you will be working closely with the director of technology, dev team and other IAs.

Qualifications for this role include:

• 3-6 years visual user experience design
• Strong Color Theory, Typography, Layout and Grid system design skills
• Proven experience designing customer facing interfaces
• Strong understanding of UX/IA/UI principles and best practices
• Knowledge or familiarity with user research, usability testing a plus
• Excellent visual and oral/written communication skills
• Passion for and demonstrated knowledge of user-centered design
• Excellent Information Design skills
• Attention to every detail
• Understanding timelines and working within established budgets is a must

Sandstorm Design creates powerful brand experiences with our unique blend of strategic marketing, web design and usability services. Located on Chicago’s north side, we help companies identify, craft, and clearly communicate their marketing messages in a creative, intuitive and strategic way. We’re a creative bunch with a witty sense of humor. Why it’s awesome to work here: paid day off and free lunch for your birthday, you don’t have to dress up, you get all the traditional perks of a big company (401K, healthcare benefits, etc.) without the politics, free snacks (and COFFEE) all day. Lots of growth potential, too!

To apply send your cover letter, resume, samples and salary requirements to jobs@sandstormdesign.com. Include “UX Designer” in the subject line. NO phone calls.

When Adobe announced their decision to stop Flash development for mobile devices, we certainly weren’t surprised. It’s been a year since we’ve had any requests for Flash of any kind. But if you’ve been hearing that this is the end of Flash altogether, don’t think that means it’s time to toss it if you’ve got it.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

When styling practices started moving away from tables-based layouts (way back when) there was a rush to convert anything and everything to tableless layouts with CSS. While many sites really did need to overcome some huge inefficiencies, others that were working perfectly fine in tables underwent redesigns just to be able to say they were now up-to-date. In reality, they could have waited until the need to change arose.

While mobile is growing and eventually we’ll all want to have our sites accessible from any device, that doesn’t mean we all need it immediately.

Analytics

Check your analytics. If you don’t have a very large mobile audience yet, and you’re already using Flash effectively—then keep it! There’s no reason to get rid of a perfectly wonderful experience built in Flash if your audience is accessing it just fine.

HTML5 for Mobile

If after checking your analytics you find that you do have a growing mobile audience, then HTML5 is the way to go. Along with Adobe’s Flash statement, they also said they would be contributing to HTML5 for mobile. It’s universally compatible with mobile devices (iPhone, Android and beyond). The downside is that it isn’t completely functional in all desktop browsers yet.

Beyond the web site

Let’s not forget, Flash isn’t just for web sites. It’s been used to create some amazing applications for use at tradeshows and conferences. And the great news is that these applications aren’t affected by the mobile barrier, so Flash is still a great option for creating them.

At Sandstorm, we love the beautiful interactive work that has come from Flash. The Johnny Cash Project is one of our favorites. Within our portfolio, we’re so proud of the AskBlue Medicare application for Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. And while we’ll always have a soft spot for Flash, we’re also extremely excited about the opportunities HTML5 creates. Regardless of the technology, we’re just happy to be building powerful interactive experiences.

Sandstorm takes home silver in the prestigious 13th annual Web Health Awards℠. (WOO HOO!) This competition recognizes the nation’s best digital health resources and top interactive agencies. A panel of 32 experts in digital health media served as judges and selected gold, silver, bronze, and merit winners.

Our work creating Ask Blue Medicare received a coveted Silver Award for the Web Based Resource Category. This interactive web application helps users understand Medicare health care coverage options from Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.  With closed captioning as well as the ability to increase the type size, this application was designed to educate people around 65 years old on the benefits available through Medicare.

We launched this highly interactive and accessible application in August 2010.  To offer this helpful tool to an even broader audience, the application was also launched in Spanish in April 2011.

We’re really excited about this accomplishment and look forward to developing more award-winning web applications, Drupal websites, and interactive user experiences in 2012.

I’m not here to report how a particular ad campaign went. I want LinkedIn to view this as free user research – they need to improve the user experience and usability of LinkedIn Ads.

The ad campaign setup consists of what seems to be three simple steps. But as the user moves through the experience, what initially felt simple becomes rigid and constrictive when trying to make changes, update, or delete.

The top three key items LinkedIn Ads could fix to improve usability and the user experience:

1. No delete? You’ve got to be kidding me. I’ve heard this complaint within other areas of LinkedIn before, so I wasn’t surprised to find it in LinkedIn Ads. Once created, there is no way to delete an ad campaign or ad variation. You can hide them, but not delete them. Users should always be allowed to delete anything they create (just make them confirm it’s really what they want to do).
   
2. No “Save” option. If you leave the ad campaign setup process at any time, LinkedIn saves everything you started. This is great, except they don’t tell you they’re going to do that. So if you leave before finalizing a campaign, you would assume you’re losing what you started. Upon coming back to find it’s still there—you might be surprised, and also annoyed you didn’t know it would be saved in the first place. If the functionality is there, tell the users upfront so they can plan for it.
3. Cannot add new ad variations. I love that LinkedIn gives users 15 ad variations per campaign. But after you go through the initial three steps, there’s no way to come back and simply “Add a new variation.” You have to use a workaround where you duplicate an existing variation and just make changes to that. Users should never have to use a workaround for something that should be basic functionality. In fact, they should never have to use a workaround, period.
   

Despite my rant here, I love LinkedIn, and am very pleased to see it growing so much (100 million members as of March 2011!). As they grow, usability and the user experience is definitely something they’ll want to put more focus on. For now though, these few items would make a nice improvement.

Don’t forget to follow our usability and user experience design agency  on LinkedIn!

Sandstorm Design recently launched AskBlue Medicare, a health care web application for Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.  The interactive experience educates users on Medicare health care coverage options. To offer this helpful tool to an even broader audience, the application has now launched in Spanish! Ver aquí la nueva aplicación! (See the new application here!)

We are proud to announce the launch of the new F.H. Paschen, S.N. Nielsen web site! We love working with this construction company, some say we’re almost as “Paschen”-ate as they are. Great people, great work, and a great history. We couldn’t wait for this site launch!

In addition to a new branded look and feel, the web site is filled with interactive video and functionality. We built a searchable project database that includes over 100 of their top projects. We also created an interactive experience on the homepage, new custom videos, an interactive map and a dynamically building ‘Contact Us’ form. To top it all off, custom photography highlights one of the company’s strongest points of pride – their people. We couldn’t be more passionate about launching this web site for F.H. Paschen, a company we are proud to call our client and partner.

Sandstorm Design is proud to announce the launch of our second Blue Cross Blue Shield interactive health care web application, AskBlue for Federal Employees. Federal employees have the opportunity to answer a series of questions and get a customized recommendation to help them find the right insurance plan. Along the way, learning moments are integrated throughout the experience, educating the user to make better decisions. We love working with Blue Cross Blue Shield as much as we love creating interactive tools to make people’s lives a little easier, and that’s why we’re so excited to launch this quick and easy-to-use web application to help Federal employees!

Sandstorm Design is so thrilled to announce the launch of Sinai Health System’s online annual report! This year, their annual report has taken a different shape—as a unique online experience. Presented in a linear style, viewers can flip through the mobile-friendly report page by page, like an online book. We had a fantastic time working with Sinai Health System on this inventive and creative venture. We are so excited to announce this launch!