Webtrends
I was hired as a user interface developer at Webtrends in part because of my knowledge of and excitement for responsive web design. With my skills in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript plus an underlying understanding of user experience learned through my client work, I was able to be a bridge between the UI and UX teams. Over the two-plus years I was with Webtrends, our teams shifted and grew to where a dedicated bridge wasn’t necessary and I moved deeper into JavaScript development.
The two main projects I helped develop are Webtrends Streams and Webtrends Explore.
Streams is a set of data visualizations built using WebSockets including a “lab” that allows the user to do basic data exploration and select which parameters to use in a pre-built visualization. Streams is designed to be usable primarily for large displays, but can also be manipulated on a range of other screen sizes. Since these visualizations are to help customers show off their data, I worked to make them accessible on tablets as well.
Explore is an ad-hoc data analysis tool that allows the user to segment and dig into data on the fly. We built it on Rails as a single page app with a custom JavaScript architecture/framework based on Backbone.js that we created specifically for our needs within Webtrends. This framework, which also included Require.js and Underscore.js, allowed us to spin up new product apps extremely fast and begin development.
As both of these examples are part of Webtrends’ suite of paid-for solutions, I can’t link to the actual products. However, the training videos explain and show their capabilities.
Streams:
http://youtu.be/_2AhTzYCfXQ
http://youtu.be/Baer61R00Uk
Explore:
http://youtu.be/nLDLTsxX8l8
http://youtu.be/m_HUOSCCE1Q
http://youtu.be/C8hI8H3PLP8
Streams also won the Digital Analytics Association New Tech award.
