Shannon Trutna

At HumanCentric, I specialize in building flash prototypes with Actionscript for product demonstrations and usability studies. I also have experience producing graphical assets and writing detailed UI documentation for various types of digital devices. I am also proficient with animation and web design.

I started taking Journalism classes in college because I loved short stories. When I would find something I wanted to write about, I would spend hours and hours interviewing people and taking photos. I would do whatever it took for me to completely understand the message my subject wanted me to know. My favorite part was choosing the best pieces of content of what I had gathered and then throwing them together into a short audio or video narrative. This would turn out to be a stronger story than I had expected almost every time, which always made me happy.

When I discovered Flash, it just made sense. Not only could I continue to gather and produce content, but now I could build custom applications to showcase it. Now I am always trying to think of new navigation methods and transition ideas. I spend way too long looking at menus on a cool new device when I am in the store. I am always rewinding the dvr to watch the special effects over and over again. I always count how many steps it takes for me to save a contact in my phone, and remember how I felt about it. I find myself subconsciously timing how long it takes web pages to load, and then count the number of pictures it was actually loading. I even rearrange my furniture on a regular basis so I can get where I want to go in the shortest distance possible.

These are the sorts of interactions that I think about when I sit down to work on a new project. I love working at HumanCentric because I get the chance to be involved from concept to implementation, and I can't really think of anywhere else I'd be able to do that. I might get inspired by the latest trend, but I don't ever forget that content is king. And I still, and probably always will, live by the reverse pyramid.

I wish there was a keyboard shortcut for...

• escaping from bad traffic
• emptying my trash can, and then have it automatically carry itself to the curb
• deleting bad pictures from other people's cameras
• muting my neighbor's drum set
• copying landscaping ideas I see in magazines and then pasting them into my yard
• pausing life, even just for a day

Education

• B.A. in Advertising from the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication with concentrations in Mathematics and Art