OY! 

The CMU Masters in Human-Computer Interaction Newsletter

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Team: Stephanie Butler (me), Luis Gonzalez, Namrata Kannan, Julia Silva

Role:  Editor, Content Strategist, Manager

Skills:  Content Redesign, Writing, Editing, Interaction Design, Product Management

Description

Each year a team of students in the MHCI program volunteers to put out OY!, the program's newsletter. I run the newsletter for the class of 2013. Working with other students in the program, I write, edit, and choose the photos for the newsletter. This year, we embarked on a broad redesign of the newsletter's content and its visual design. 

Redesign

This year, the newsletter faced a new challenge: Because the class was active in its Facebook group, many of the events traditionally chronicled in the newsletter were instantaneously captured via social media. Therefore, I developed a new strategy for the content of the newsletter. Rather than write about parties, outings, and lab events, we have focused on practical information about finding jobs and internships and on MHCI-ers' long-term projects. Future issues will focus on special topics in HCI and on jobs in the field.

Luis Gonzalez, the visual designer working on OY!, worked with me to develop a new look and feel to match the content changes in the newsletter. We focused on creating a fun but sophisticated feel for the publication that would make good use of large photos to enhance content. We also wanted to make the newsletter consistent with the "brand" of the class of 2013 as represented by the HCII t-shirt designed by a team from the class. Therefore, we incorporated the revised Vitruvian Man that features on the t-shirt into the OY! banner and his heart is echoed in the design language of the articles.

Read an issue of OY!