Speaking at CHIFOO on Design Lenses

Looking forward to a quick jaunt up to Portland tomorrow and back home again Thursday morning. This is my week between Netflix and Meebo and it has actually shaped up to be quite busy. But I am excited to be giving a new talk on Lenses.

Since the CHIFOO site seems to be down at the moment, here are the details of the talk:

Designing with Lenses: Lessons from Other Design Crafts.

In any field of design, designers can enhance their craft by studying the work of others. Through the careful exercise of breaking down real-world solutions into their underlying principles and patterns, previous lessons can be applied to new sets of problems we encounter. Designing for web interfaces is no different. By necessity we are constantly searching for inspiration and practical guidance in solving the problems we face as designers each day. A powerful approach is to capture these lessons into "design lenses". A design lens allows you to view the user experience through the eyes of a single design principle. Lenses were originally created for game design but are just as powerful for user experience design.

In this talk, I will introduce the idea of design lenses and discuss several lens inspired from fields of study as diverse as theater, magic, game design, storytelling, Shaker furniture, motion graphics, and comics for inspiration in designing rich, interactive interfaces. By teasing out some of the key takeaways from each of these disciplines, a fresh light can be shed on our own corner of the design universe.

Join us at 7pm at the University of Oregon's White Stag Block.

WAM Tour in San Diego - Come Join Me!

I am excited to be part of the Web App Masters Tour that kicks off in San Diego next week, then heads eastward to Minneapolis in April and then on to Philadelphia in June and finally bounces back west to Seattle in July.

Next week I will be in the illustrious company of some real luminaries: Jared Spool, Stephen P. Anderson, Hagan Rivers, Christian Crumlish, Ken Kellogg, Luke Wroblewski and Doug Bowman.

If you can make it next week (3/23-3/24) I have a special discount offer: from now until 3/18 you can get $300 off the conference by using the promo code SCOTT at the tour site.

I am Hiring Again (Yes Again!). UI Engineers for TV & Web Site Experience

As of today 3/8/10 I am actively looking for two more user interface engineers to join my team. (I filled the previous posting with 2 engineers!)

Since late last year we have expanded the number of user interface engineers working on new, upcoming TV experiences. What is especially exciting about this area is the chance to utilize the latest technologies (HTML5, CSS Animations, and other Webkit goodness). We call this the "10 ft UI team" in reference to how far away from the TV the average person sits. Compared to the 2 ft experience with our desktops. In particular I am looking for an Sr. User Interface Engineer that gets jazzed about creating a fully cinematic, rich, fast experience in a 100% JavaScript client app that will be used by millions of Netflix members in their living rooms! How can you not get excited about that?

In addition, I am also searching for a user interface engineer for our main web site experience. Over the next year our main site experience will continue to change (most likely in some significant ways). With our site moving to the cloud, expanding into the international marketplace and our experience moving to multiple devices there are a number of challenges ahead. For this role you need to really understand cross-browser issues, know how to wield JavaScript and tame CSS to field numerous member experiences in our A/B testing framework. This is a senior role (as are all of the roles on my team). You will need to understand the principles of good, simple, clean design. As we continue to refactor the underlying infrastructure you will also need to be able to get your hands dirty in the Java/JSP layer as well. This means you can't just be an "HTML hack". No, you need to have a solid set of computer science skills. The perfect profile is usually someone who has at some point worked in enterprise web applications but more recently been developing public consumer web sites with an interesting mix of UI challenges they have had to solve. However, don't let that persona keep you from pinging me. I love to be surprised.

Netflix is a great place to work. We pay well. We work hard. We play hard. And we do have work/life balance! Check out our culture as explained by our CEO, Reed Hastings:

I will post the official job description in the next day or so.

Feel free to contact me at my email: bscott (netflix)

YANNI - Yet Another Ninja Needed Immediately!

UPDATE! I have hired 2 Engineers! So this role is filled. However, I have another opportunity... read it here.

Another new opportunity at Netflix as of today (1/4/2010)!

But if you are interested please contact me at the email shown on the t-shirt. You can find more out about this position at the Netflix Jobs site.

Several notes about this position:

• Will focus on the acquisition/non member side of the web site.
• Exciting new opportunity as we move to our first international offering.
  
• Not a User Experience Designer role, but a Web User Interface Engineering Ninja. Expert level in DHTML and general Computer Science skills required.
  
• Not a remote position and not relocating internationally (but will relocate the right candidate within the US).
• Part of the User Interface Engineering Team and as such reports to me.

(BTW, the shirt above was created and produced by Zazzle. Check them out at Zazzle.com)

Netflix needs another Javascript Ninja

Ok, so this role does not report to me but reports into our excellent Customer Service Engineering organization. The engineering effort is for an internal application suite and not for the main web site. The role actually touches a lot more technologies than the main web site does and is a worthy feat for any ninja to take on. This is really a great opportunity!

Last year I was fortunate to snag Greg Murray (former Sun Ajax Evangelist/Architect) who has been happily working in this role. I now have a new challenge for Greg and need another ninja like him to take his current role. If you know Greg then you will understand the caliber of person I am looking for :-)

Here is the description that the hiring manager sent me.

Here are some of the qualifications we would like for becoming a Netflix customer service UI ninja,

• Is passionate about designing and engineering great interfaces
• Has solid experience designing & building enterprise web applications in a Web 2.0 manner
• Has strong proficiency in server-side UI technologies (Java, Struts / GWT / Tapestry / JSP / JSF )
• Has a solid background in simple software architecture and design as well as can communicate their solutions to the rest of the engineering team
• Has experience working with distributed web services
• Experienced with scaling / performance tuning of highly interactive web applications (understands both client and server ramifications)

Your job profile will probably include a good deal of experience with building user interfaces for advanced, non-consumer oriented sites.

You will be part of the Customer Services Engineering Team. You will be responsible for the presentation layers of all current and new customer service tools. Since much of the work is green field you will have the opportunity to help design the user experience as well as build the web applications. In addition, the Netflix UI framework that the site runs on is shared with these applications. As such you will help flesh out this framework as we go forward.

So what technologies would you be using?

• HTML 5
• CSSS including BluePrint CSS
• JavaScript (custom components mixed with some libraries like jQuery)
• Java
• JSON

Nice to have experience with:

• experience with a Perforce or related version control system (Git / SVN / CVS)
• proficient in Photoshop
• proficient in Eclipse / IntelliJ

Know anyone? Are you that person? If so contact me at bscott _AT_ netflix _DOT_ com and I will connect you with the hiring manager.

Upcoming Talk at Rich Web Experience

Speaking tomorrow at the Rich Web Experience in Orlando, Fl. I fly out tonight at midnight. Arrive at 10am, speak at 4pm. I promise to get some sleep on the plane so that I will be fresh for the talk! Fly out on Thurs evening. So if you see me there and I look a little spaced out -- you know why :-)

Talking on Designing for Interesting Moments. Hope to see you there.

Rich Web Experience coming in December

Excited to be speaking at the Rich Web Experience Dec 1-4 in Orlando, Florida.

If you sign up before Nov. 2nd you can save $200. Hope to see you there!

I am Hiring! Looking for a Ninja Web UI Engineer - Oct. 7th 2009.

New opportunity as of today (10/7/2009).

UPDATE: All Positions are currently filled!

I will add the official job posting later this week. But if you are interested please contact me at the email shown on the t-shirt.

NOTE: This is not a UX Design role. This is a UI Engineering role. Looking for very sharp DHTML engineers (you can bend Javascript, CSS & HTML to do your bidding) with a strong background in OOP (Some Java experience or other OOP is desired).

Update: Details can be found at the official posting on the Netflix jobs site.

Job opportunity at Togetherville for UI Web Dev

I am an Advisor for the startup Togetherville.com.

Togetherville is an early-stage, funded startup that is centered around ways for kids and parents to engage online. If you are excited about getting a ground-floor startup experience and are a sharp UI engineer then please contact Rajveer Singh Tut (raj _AT_ togetherville DOT com).

Here is the job posting.

Are you interested in using your web dev skills to change the world? Togetherville is building our founding tech team. This is your big chance to get into a very early startup and help build its foundation. We want someone who is tired of the same ol’ same ol’ and wants to take their skills and capabilities to the next level as a technology leader and company builder.

You will begin your Togetherville experience working alongside the stellar engineers at Pivotal Labs (www.pivotallabs.com). This will help you build your skills (and show them off) as we rapidly build out an amazing new way for kids and parents to engage online.
If you are somebody who has:

• The skills/potential to build an amazing interactive social web environment
• Strong experience with the LAMP stack
• Comfort with Javascript/DHTML/CSS/AJAX
• Strong collaborative skills and ability to work in multiple roles both locally and with offshore development teams
• Experience with/ interest in Agile Software Development
• Passion, Strong values, Likability, Intellect and Skill

Then, WE WANT TO TALK TO YOU!

Togetherville (http://Togetherville.com) is an early-stage, funded startup that is sitting at the crossroads of learning, technology and society. Starting with our highly-respected and successful Funders and Advisors, we are building a team that is excited about getting a ground-floor startup experience and is capable of consistently meeting and exceeding the high expectations of success we have set for ourselves.

We are extremely passionate about what we’re doing and just as passionately looking for focused and fun people to join our team. We are not hung up how many years of experience you have. We’d rather start with your potential and what you can do and then go from there! If you think this job description was written with you in mind, contact us. We’ll tell you more about Togetherville, the job opening and the change we are making in the world!

Cooking, UX, Team Building and Job Opportunities

Over the last year I have fallen in love with cooking. I think what I enjoy most is taking some simple ingredients and from that creating a delightful experience. That is why I fell in love with user experience design & engineering so many years ago. Just a few instructions (well usually a lot more than a few -- but you get the idea) and you can create a delightful experience for others.

I was reminded of this today when I celebrated a new member joining my team (user interface engineering at Netflix). As I set up for some massive grilling action I got a lot of joy in talking about what went into each one of the items that I was going to grill. Then just laying out the food on the grill with all of the beautiful colors and watching it cook into mouth-watering delight was exciting. But the biggest thrill is when my team members got so much enjoyment from the food (or at least that is what they tell their boss ;-)

It also got me thinking about team building. Earlier in the year when I mentioned to a candidate that I was about to take my team to Angel Island he asked "for team building?" And I immediately said "NO". In fact my reaction was really strong. I have never really cared for official "team building" exercises or outings. I have never thought that engineering or design teams were built on the shallowness of forced activities. Instead I have always felt that team building is accomplished not as a goal but as a product of being in an environment generously peppered with hard problems, smart colleagues, respect & trust and yes a sense of humor. Outings like today are just icing on the cake.

And of course I am fortunate to have an amazing team and work for an awesome company.

By the way while I am not recruiting for my team at the moment Netflix has some great openings in Product Management, UX Design and engineering!

In particular, I want to call attention to a job that has been hard to fill but is a great opportunity -- Senior Software Engineer in the Software Infrastructure team. I have always been partial to these roles. And have worked in and led infrastructure teams. It takes a special breed of engineer who can grasp what the organization needs (understanding the real customer is our members) yet be able to craft flexible solutions that can multiply the efforts of the rest of the organization. If you are this person or know of someone let me know and I will pass along to the hiring manager.

You can reach me at "B" _dot_ "scott" _@_ yahoo DOT com.

Netflix is Hiring Test Engineers

We are looking for Test Engineers with solid software engineering skills. Interested?

Kevin McEntee, VP of Engineering, described to me what kind of talent we are looking for:

Netflix is hiring Software Developers for our Test Engineering team. The most difficult challenge in team building comes from staffing Test Engineering teams. I have seen many engineering organizations in Silicon Valley fail at this challenge because the development teams and engineering leaders don’t truly value what Test Engineering can bring to an innovative company. On my team at Netflix, the opposite is true. Test Engineering is a critical component of our technology innovation. Our model is to hire Software Developers to innovate and build our Test Engineering solutions.

Check out our job board where you can see some of our current openings.

Upcoming Talk: Designing for Interesting Moments @ IxDA 7/22

I am busy this weekend restructuring a talk I have given in the past that parallels my book. I will be restructuring the way I present the information as well as bring in new material. When I was at the Big D Design conference in Dallas in May I was really impressed by Stephen P. Anderson's presentation on the Art and Science of Seductive Interactions. Not only was the material helpful, but Stephen's take-aways and presentation organization were excellent as well.

Anyway I am looking forward to a fresh take on this topic. The talk will be titled Designing for Interesting Moments. I will be giving this same talk on 8/24 at the Microsoft campus in Redmond as well as at a Ruby Meetup group (event details in a followup blog posting).

If you can make it meet me at the Google Campus on Wednesday night, 7/22 at 7:30pm. Note: It will be in Seville which is in building 40, not building 43 as advertised!

By the way, I have embedded Stephen's talk (again not mine!) here for your enjoyment:

The Art & Science of Seductive Interactions

View more documents from Stephen Anderson.

[Stephen P. Anderson's talk: The Art & Science of Seductive Interfaces]

Big D Talk - 5/30/2009

Thanks to all that attended my talk in Dallas. What struck me the most is the vibrant community of designers, innovators and startup incubation that is growing locally in Big D. From my visit to CoHabitat in uptown Dallas to the Big D Conference itself I found the same conversation threads that I hear every day in Silicon Valley. Maybe it's the immediacy of information available now that brings us all closer. Or maybe the economy is driving lots of people into consulting and scrappy self-funded or low-funded startups. But it is refreshing to see it in action.

For those wanting the Big D version of the talk (slight variation on previous versions) you can get it from billwscott.com/share/presentations/2009/bigd/DWI.pdf


An earlier version is available on Slideshare.

Designing Web Interfaces Book - O'Reilly Webcast

View more Microsoft Word documents from Bill Scott.

Speaking at Big D Design Conference this Weekend

Happy to be traveling to Dallas to speak at the Big D Design Conference. Lots of interesting speakers. In particular looking forward to hearing Norm Cox's keynote as well as hear from several former colleagues: Micah Laaker, Jim Carlsen-Landy, Stephen P. Anderson and Adam Polansky.

I will be speaking on Designing with Patterns at the 1pm slot on May 30th -- a shorter version of my 3 hour workshop I gave at WebVisions 2009.

On the personal side I get to visit 2 of my sons, daughter-in-law, grandkids as well as mom and brother.

Hiring! Sr. Web Flash UI Engineer - Interactive TV Position

* UPDATE: POSITION FILLED. Thanks everyone for your help! *

I am looking for a top-notch ActionScript developer to join my Web UI Engineering team. The special emphasis is building interactive experiences for the television. In particular experience with developing FlashLite for embedded devices along with a solid engineering background is needed.

Here is my job posting:

POSITION

Netflix is bringing its movie service directly into millions of homes with Netflix Ready Devices, partnering with companies such as LG, Samsung, Microsoft, Tivo, and Vizio. The TV-based User Experience team is responsible for building the reference Netflix experience which is launching on a variety of new devices this year. In addition, the team is responsible for prototyping and testing new user experiences, advancing the state of the art for all Netflix Ready Devices for years to come. Over the last ten years, Netflix has developed the world's best personalization and movie finding technology - this team's challenge is to bring it to the TV and create a fantastic experience used every day by our growing subscriber base of over 10 million customers.

In this role you will directly build and engineer the TV-based user experience applying your talent with FlashLite and ActionScript. The engineering effort includes prototyping concepts with the design team, building reference platforms and implementations for our device partners and primarily creating production ready user experiences for millions of customers. As such you will need to have solid engineering skills with a strong background in simple design, agile methodologies and object-oriented development as well as an understanding of what makes a great user experience.

In addition you need to have excellent communication skills and the ability to work closely with design, product management and engineering to provide rich interfaces that are highly performant in a constrained environment.

REQUIREMENTS

• Excellent knowledge of FlashLite, ActionScript 2.0 and 3.0
• Strong modular design and object-oriented programming skills
• Rapid prototyping skills
• Solid understanding of web architecture (Flash, Actionscript, DHTML, CSS, Javascript)
• Solid product development experience
• BA/BS in Computer Science or related technical field desirable

DESIRED

• Experience developing for embedded systems and/or TV set-top boxes
• Experience in developing for multiple devices, application types, and browsers
• Experience with C++ and/or Java

Interested?

[Link removed]

Sr. Web UI Engineer for Netflix Site - Still Open!

NOTE: This position is filled!

I am of course happy to announce that Kent Brewster will be joining my team working directly with Michael Hart on our developer API & Community team!


But just to make it clear I am still looking for a Netflix - Sr. Web UI Engineer to join the web site team.


From my earlier post:

As the new year has rolled around we realize that there are so many things happening and in the works that it makes sense to add a Sr. Web UI Engineer to our Web site team. Ever wanted to work at Netfix? Do you have awesome frontend engineering skills? Love to implement great user experiences? Then this is the role for you!

You can read all about it on the Netflix Jobs site or apply for the position on the LinkedIn posting. Or if you want contact me directly at b dot scott which is at yahoo dot com.

Hiring! Creative Director UX @ Netflix

We are looking for a Creative Director for our UX team! Are you the right person? Do you know someone who is? This is an amazing opportunity to lead an incredible team of designers and work in one of the best places to work.

Here is part of the description:

Netflix seeks a creative leader with bold ideas and the ability to deliver them – both on our website and on the TV user interface.

In order to lead our design team you will need strong training and background in interactive and graphic design. Consumer-based Internet experience is required, and, ideally, you have some TV UI experience as well. A passion for movies is also helpful.

You are interested in a company that feels and behaves like a big, successful startup -- that considers its $1 Billion DVD-by-mail business to be a warm-up act for delivering movies instantly to the TV.

Your job will be to continually improve the overall site experience. You will have a laser-like focus on making it easy for Netflix members to find and watch movies or tv episodes they will love.

For full details (and a cheat sheet for the interview) see the full job posting on the Netflix job site. You can also apply there.

Interview: What Developers Wish Designers Understood

Lou Rosenfeld interviewed me on the topic "Bringing Design to Life: What Every Designer Should Know About Interface Engineering". This is a really interesting subject and gets to the heart of how to get engineering and design teams to work together better.

The interview gives you some of the points I will cover in my upcoming webinar on the same topic (Feb. 26th, 10AM PST/1PM EST).

Also there is a short video presentation (about 7 minutes) that provides a sneak peek into the webinar presentation.

Use code RMWBNR for a 20% discount off your ticket purchase.

Netflix Sr. Web UI Engineering Position - Open Feb. 2 2009

NOTE: This position is filled!


Netflix - Sr. Web UI Engineer

As the new year has rolled around we realize that there are so many things happening and in the works that it makes sense to add a Sr. Web UI Engineer to our main Web site team. Ever wanted to work at Netfix? Do you have awesome frontend engineering skills? Love to implement great user experiences? Then this is the role for you!

You can read all about it on the Netflix Jobs site or apply for the position on the LinkedIn posting. Or if you want contact me directly at b dot scott which is at yahoo dot com.

Netflix Public API Available

I am proud to say that Netflix has just released its public APIs.

The API allows access to data for the catalog of 100,000 movie and TV episode titles. This includes DVD titles as as well as instant watch titles. Applications can request access to a member's account (via OAuth) for working with their queue as well as other movie related account information.

Best of all it's free. We allow commercial use (e.g., a developer can create an iPhone app and sell it for a buck -- that's ok).

I gave a lightning talk about this at the Ajax Experience yesterday in Boston. It both quickly covers the API as well as our first Netflix Hack Day where we exercised the APIs in a 24 hour coding frenzy. I will upload this to slideshare when I get a decent internet connection (why can't these new beautiful hotels have decent internet connectivity?)

Hacking Netflix - Netflix APIs

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: ajaxexperience ajax08)

Developers can get access by signing up at http://developer.netflix.com.

BTW, there is also a great step-by-step tutorial from Joseph Smarr (he is the platform architect for Plaxo)

Happy Hacking!