Myke Preuss

Lately I’ve been doing contract Interface Development work for Blast Radius. It’s been very rewarding working with so many talented people and with a company that has processes in place that ensure the success of each project. Simple things like version control, continuous integration servers, daily scrum meetings, weekly iteration plans, weekly code reviews, and knowledgeable people with fresh takes on problems when you’re stuck.

Specifically I was doing coding: HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript (mostly using jQuery). This included both responsive sites as well as specifically formatted and coded mobile versions of promotional sites. I also contributed to solving User Experience and User Interaction problems.

I can’t post or talk too much about the work I’ve done for Blast Radius other than I’d be happy to speak more in depth in person, say - over a coffee?

Summary of Involvement:

• Interface Development
• Mobile Development
• Responsive Development
• HTML5
• CSS3
• jQuery
• Interaction and User Experience consultation

While working at TAXI I worked on a lot of TELUS’ interactive properties. TELUS sells technology so it creates unique opportunities to use the digital space in fun and original ways.

One specific project I’m proud of was building an Aggregator for an annual national community involvement event. TELUS Day of Giving encourages all TELUS staff (and affiliates) to go into their communities and give back. The goal was to highlight how many people were taking part and how much good they were doing. We came up with the idea to use the hashtag #TDOG (TELUS Day of Giving) and instructed the volunteers to tag their Tweets, Instagram photos, and Flickr pictures with the hashtag.

I built an app using WordPress that pulled in the User generated content sourced using the hashtag #TDOG, stored them in a database (so we could manage and filter when needed) and displayed them chronologically within TELUS’ Facebook page. Each piece of content could be “liked” through Facebook - which would then post the content to the Users Facebook wall, thus spreading the word about what was going on. I also created a custom Google Map showing every event taking place that day to help User find where they could go to take part. We also added a Facebook Commenting module to allow people unable to take part to engage in the conversation.

There were many challenges but after thinking through the concept, User interaction, and design the production went smoothly. On the day of the event TELUS placed a full page ad on the back of The Globe and Mail as well as featured it on their websites and through IAB’s which ensured community engagement.

The final result was extremely successful resulting in over 3500 unique pieces of content being shared, an increase in thousands of likes on TELUS’s Facebook page, and lots of Facebook comments.

Check out the TELUS Day of Giving Aggregator:

Here are a few other things I made for TELUS while working at TAXI:

TELUS Digital Calendar
Miscellaneous TELUS Work

I had the pleasure of working with Wasserman + Partners recently, building a calculator app for Vancity Bank. It was a simple little project that I felt extremely comfortable with since I’d just finished making my EZRANGER app.

I especially enjoy building things that will be used by people and thought it was pretty cool to make something for the bank I use. I used jQuery UI for the custom sliders and it was a snap. The calculator is currently being integrated into Vancity’s site. I’ll add some pictures once it’s live.

Summary of Involvement:

• Technical Consultation
• Interface Development
• HTML5
• CSS3
• jQuery & jQuery UI

This was one of the last projects I worked on while I was at TAXI. TELUS wanted their digital calendar updated to something more modern and looked to us to let them know what that was. We suggested building it in more modern code (the previous one was an AIR app) so that we could observe how Users interacted with it and build on features after learning where to focus our efforts. The end product is a nice simple interface that allows the User to view the calendar, learn a bit about what TELUS is doing in the community, share and like on Facebook, download a desktop wallpaper, and see the weather. The next steps will become clear now that TELUS/TAXI can view the analytics and make informed decisions based on solid data.

My role in the project was digital strategy, digital ideation, technical leadership, UX design, and client presentation meetings.