Leon Barnard — Interaction Designer
About Me
Experience
I have been a professional Interaction Designer since 2004. I have B.S. and M.S. degrees in Industrial Engineering with concentrations in Human Factors and Human-Computer Interaction, respectively.
My Design Philosophy
I think that software can be complex without being complicated.
I try to design for productivity. My assumption is that the users of a product don't really want to spend time using it. They just want to get their job done so they can go home. I think about that when I design. It helps me ask the right questions about the users and take out things that just get in the way. I think a design is finished (to paraphrase Antoine de Saint-Exupery) not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
I think that a user interface should be comfortable. You look at it and you get it. What does that mean? It means that it possesses the following three characteristics:
- It's clear - just by looking at it you can figure out what most or all of the buttons (or links or controls or whatever) do.
- It's consistent - it looks like something you've used before and/or the rest of the product. It doesn't reinvent the wheel.
- It's simple - it's not overwhelming. If there are advanced functions available they are buried just below the surface so that you know they're there but don't need to cognitively deal with them.
I see my job as that of a problem-solver. I'm not out to create something with Zing that will stop people in their tracks. In fact, I am happy if most people don't notice my work, because that means that it behaves as expected. I think that it's hard to make something simple, and I enjoy the challenge of trying to achieve the simplest design that is also the most effective.
References
"Leon is a gifted interface designer. Leon worked on several of the projects I managed where he demonstrated his ability to bridge business and product teams with engineering capabilities while infusing human factors best practices. Leon has an approachable demeanor which is critical to a role where constant feedback and iteration is required. He is open minded and willing to compromise to help move teams forward."
- Product Manager at Sun Microsystems
"He has a natural ability to analyze problems and solve them, while his experience has given him a very understandable and methodical approach to user experience. He could explain a complex workflow to your grandmother and she would understand it perfectly.
"His approach is always transparent and predictable. His ability to tackle problems outside of his current technical knowledge is amazing - more than a few times he acquired enough technical knowledge of a difficult domain to be considered expert, resulting in designs that were simple, elegant, and spot-on."
- Senior UI Architect at Sun Microsystems
"Leon has a rare combination of skills - he is creative, meticulous, proactive and a great communicator. I was very impressed by Leon's work at Ataccama - I hired Leon as the first user experience person in the engineering team, and he was almost immediately able to blend in, create designs for both new functionality as well as redesign of existing, and more importantly, get a buy-in from the development team.
"He was also enthusiatic in helping with any other stuff - as the only english native speaker in the company, he was often asked to review english, record video tutorials, etc. and he was always eager to help, regardless of how boring that certain thing seemed. I hope we will cross paths again in the future, and I would, without any sign of doubt, recommend Leon to anyone."
- Development Manager at Ataccama Corporation