Frz: Hi concrete5 community! Franz and Andy here…
Andrew: We’re back!
Frz: Indeed we are. With our recent explosive growth we’ve already started hiring to fill new roles. Today I want to introduce you all to our new Director of User Experience, Gary Cribb.
Great work requires great tools. Thousands of content creators every day enjoy the benefits of our amazing ideas in concrete5. They’ve also had to suffer through some of our more miserable mistakes for far too long. We’ve always thought a good CMS needed to be easy for anyone to use naturally. Keeping a complex system like concrete5 feeling simple as it grows over time is an ongoing challenge.
Many software as service companies today use Lean development techniques to roll out continuous incremental improvements. They can A/B test new ideas on a weekly basis. Our work with the Army is based around this approach, and now we get the opportunity to roll some of the benefits of that process back into the core.
Gary is a central part of this process. He comes to us from Oracle where he led a team following all the latest design research techniques to build some very cool new interfaces. He’s also worked in various aspects of digital marketing, and worn many hats in different startups including uStream. He’s a talented and versatile designer, and a lot of fun to be around.
It’s been said every startup needs a developer, a designer and a hustler - let’s meet our new designer now, Gary Cribb!
Andrew: Hi Gary! What was your first experience with computers and communication?
Gary: I was definitely introduced to computers at a young age. Was using computers for gaming and music. In college I was going to school doing animation and decided I was interested in interaction design using Lingo and Director. I was excited about building CD-Roms and working for bands…
Andrew: How did you get into user experience design?
Gary: I think it evolved over time as the internet definitely was growing. The need for usability started to come in. That was the point where I turned toward building websites and understanding usability. Working at Xbox is when I started really was getting more interested in usability and the client base needs.
Andrew: Tell us about your work at Oracle on Alta UI.
Gary: When I joined Oracle it was at a good time where there was a lot of need for UX. There was buy-in at that point from senior management to actually invest in UX. We ended up building a new framework and around that a design system called Alta. What that did was deliver stencils and a whole UI system to allow multiple products to integrate. A more seamless experience between the different suites.
It was quite a big job, I’m quite proud of the work we did there.
Andrew: Yeah it’s great! Tell me about your other creative interests?
Gary: I have a lot of creative outlines. I don’t have enough time to do them all unfortunately. I love to restore old cars. I work on music when I get a chance, which is always nice. I love learning about new technologies in UX and I like to spend my time doing that as well.
Andrew: What turns you on about what we’re doing here with concrete5?
Gary: I would have to say the passion between everyone here. Interviewing with you guys was definitely a very positive experience. I’d have to say just seeing and understanding the passion you guys have towards the product, what you want to create and what you’re looking to do… You guys have huge dreams and huge goals, I’m really excited to be part of that.
Frz: Now WE have huge dreams and goals Gary, “we” do...
Frz: We’re going to start slowly bringing some of Gary’s work into Github as certain interfaces in concrete5 get some new love. As Gary gets up to speed we’re going to start an iterative design process with the community sites as well. You’ll be getting periodic updates and invites to online meetings as we start what I expect to be a very thoughtful, inclusive and thorough redesign of concrete5.org.
That’s it for this week, thanks again for all your hard work with concrete5.
We really appreciate you.
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Andrew: Awesome...