About

This blog is to track the progress of a part-time student who is writing a dissertation for an MSc in Computing Interaction Design. I am a student at Thames Valley University in the UK, who is also a full-time Marketing Manager working for a UK bluechip company. I have worked in marketing and product development my entire career, with publishing, mobile phone and media companies. I have always loved trying to create the best possible user experiences for people who end up using my products. If they're happy it tends to pan out I'm happy  - and so is whoever I'm working for. I love the whole process of trying to understand what users need, investigating user requirements, coming up with new design ideas, researching what works best, and implementing those designs through to a finished product, and then trying to keep improving that. This degree has taught me a massive amount about the world of user experience, and after two and a half years of slogging it out in every spare evening, bank holiday and weekend I'm a bit more wiser and all the more in love with the subject. So far I have a distinction in all my course modules, with one remaining task: the dissertation. This dissertation topic will investigate the usability of Blogware (blog creation and publishing software tools) and the Weblogs or blogs they create. I have 4 months to do the research and write the dissertation, on top of a full-time job and life. This should be an interesting summer! This blog will track my progress to the end...