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March is Women’s History Month!

This year’s national theme is Women Inspiring Innovation Through Imagination: Celebrating Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. This theme is meant to honor generations of women who throughout American history have used their intelligence, imagination, sense of wonder, and tenacity to make extraordinary contributions to the STEM fields.

As part of our Women’s History Month celebrations, the Women's Center and CWIT are partnering to showcase six talented women in engineering and IT fields at UMBC. The future of women’s history is being created as we speak and there is importance in sharing our lived stories now. We invite you to join us throughout the month of March to learn more about these women, their experiences, and their dreams.

Nicole Racine, CWIT Scholar
Freshmen Mechanical Engineering major

Describe what sparked your interest STEM and the journey to choosing your major.
For as long as I can remember, science has intrigued me. One of my earliest school memories is clutching two plastic cups in first grade – one filled with hot water and the other filled with cold water – and watching sugar cubes dissolve. I remember being baffled when I saw the sugar cube dissolve faster in the hot water. What sort of miracle caused this to happen?

As I grew, I continued to be fascinated with the world around me. If my dad was working in our garage, I wanted to help him. In school, I thrived in my math and science classes, and especially enjoyed hands-on labs. Choosing my high school class schedule was always difficult because I wanted to fill it with all the science, mathematics, computer science, and information technology courses available.

When first I began to think about my educational goals beyond high school I was very overwhelmed. How was I supposed to pick one major that encompassed my love for mathematics, science, and physics? After exploring various careers and talking with family members, the answer became clear: mechanical engineering. Mechanical engineering is the ideal major for me because it applies the laws of physics and mathematics to analyze problems and design solutions. It is a subject that incorporates all my intellectual interests and inspires me to study science, not only as a participant but also as a contributor.

Tell us about an internship, research experience or project that you are proud of.
In summer 2012 and winter 2013, I interned at the Army Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in the Weapons and Materials Research Directorate. I worked with a materials engineer and a mechanical engineer investigating the mechanical behavior of single-woven Kevlar® fibers at different loading rates. Based on the research, I wrote a document that was later published, summarizing the experimental procedure and results.

Who are your role models in the engineering or IT field?
I have a plethora of role models in the engineering field who have inspired me each in their own way to pursue my degree in mechanical engineering. I met many people, some internationally known, that motivated me to pursue an education in the STEM fields, but my most influential role models can be narrowed down to one person, my father. My dad is a mechanical engineer and he is the reason I love figuring out how things work and interact with each other. In elementary school, I used to go to my family’s garage with him and work on little projects that he graciously let me help with. I was awed by how talented he was with everything from woodworking to mechanics, and now, years later, I am still impressed by his talents.

Explain your experience as a woman in a STEM major, including the challenges as well as the rewards.
Growing up in a household with two engineers was truly a blessing for me. Dinner discussions about poorly designed systems, innovations in science, and available technical opportunities were a common occurrence. I used to take for granted the knowledge that constantly surrounded me, and I assumed that all my female friends felt the same about science and math as I do. But in high school, before I chose my mechanical engineering major, I became aware of the gender disparity that women face. The majority of the students in my upper level high school courses were male, and my female friends questioned my decision to major in a STEM field. I was surprised that my female friends felt uncomfortable with technology and were not aware of the opportunities available in my chosen career choice. As I advanced in my academics, I experienced the gender imbalance in technological fields firsthand. At my internship at the Army Research Laboratory, I am the only female in my branch of twelve people. If it were not for my excellent support outside of the workplace, I would have felt vulnerable and unwelcome in my chosen field of academics.

Once I realized that women are underrepresented in the technological fields, I decided to act upon it. I am involved in outreach events, where I help promote engineering and information technology fields of study to students of all ages. I love mechanical engineering and being able to share this field of academics with other students is extremely gratifying. Engineering is a challenging field of study, especially when you have to overcome gender inequality, but it is also very rewarding, and I embrace the challenge.

The Center for Women In Technology (CWIT) is dedicated to increasing the representation of women in the creation of technology in the engineering and information technology fields. CWIT efforts begin with nurturing a strong group of Scholars, grow to building community resources for other women in these majors, extend to fostering a healthy gender climate and ITE pedagogy in College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) departments, and finally expand into outreach efforts to increase interest in technical careers. A successful program for female-friendly engineering and information technology education at UMBC will help make UMBC a destination for women (and men) interested in technical careers and serve as a national model for other universities.

The world of web design is one of the most beautiful and rewarding spaces you could possibly enter into. With so many options and such a great community, your path as a web designer is uncharted and wide open. With that being said, it is entirely possible to get wrapped up in the “job” of web design or the millions of opinions surrounding our space.

To make things simple for those of you just heading out on your life’s path as a designer, I’ve created a small list of the things I wish I understood from the “get-go”. Here’s the 10 things to know before designing for the web. There are more of course, but this list should be a good starting point for you.

1. It’s a Journey.

You’re never going to know everything about web design, and that’s the beauty of what we do. Every good web designer is on a journey to find out what works best for them and the people they design for. Don’t worry if it seems overwhelming when you look at all of your options for design, just take the first step.

2. No One has the Perfect Answer.

Here at Treehouse, we’ve interviewed hundreds of the web’s best designers and they all have one thing in common: They’re figuring things out one day at a time. You’re likely to hear people suggest what frameworks, CSS styles or CMS to use, but the only true answer is to find the ones that work for you. No one has the perfect formula, process, or strategy. There is no perfect answer, just the one that’s perfect for you.

3. Context Matters.

Too many designers start arranging pixels before they have an understanding of who and what they are designing for. Take the time to understand the client or audience for what you need to design so that you can create the right solution. Design is about fixing problems and delighting people. To do this, you’ll need to have context first.

4. Less is More.

One of the tempting things for clients and designers alike, is to fill their pages with as much information as they can. The internet is a very fast-paced place and visitors need to find what they came for in three to eight seconds. When trying to create an effective design, less is always more.

5. Making Something Simple is Hard.

Making something simple doesn’t always mean you have less content. Subtracting the unnecessary is only one way to create a simple design. The truth is, that making something simple is really hard work. You have to define a hierarchy of what is important when and where, and find ways to hide, embody or subtract elements until they are necessary. This is one of the most important disciplines to learn as a designer.

6. Typography Matters.

Oliver Reichenstein, a very profound and important figure in web design, wrote an article in 2006 that stated the web is 95% typography. It was a revolutionary article at the time because a few years ago the web had few options for typography and it was an image-dominated world. Now that Responsive Design is here, there’s a new emphasis on creating great looking content through the use of good typography. Understand what your audience’s purpose is, like reading, learning, or getting technical advice, and learn to use the proper typography. It will change your life as a web designer.

7. Know your Color Palette.

Color theory can be really difficult to master as a beginning designer. One of the best ways to hack design is to find and determine your color palette ahead of time. Many times a color palette can be determined by a brand’s logo, an image, or by finding a color swatch from Küler or Color Lovers. No matter where you find the inspiration for your palette, having a nice set of colors from the beginning leads to a consistent and effective design. (A good tool for experimenting with color is Eyedrop.me).

8. Content is King.

A big buzz-phrase on the web is “content is king”. Now that web design has undergone a major shift to mobile, that phrase is also, “design with content first” or a content-out, mobile-first approach. This has always been the case for the web no matter what period we could discuss. The truth about the web is that its very foundation is information. How you design information for desktop or mobile matters greatly when attempting to create the best design possible. Content will always be king, because it’s the foundation of the web.

9. You're the Designer.

This is one of the hardest concepts to grasp when breaking out into the world of web design. We’ve heard the adage that “the customer is always right”, but you’ll need to remember that they hired you to be the expert. Clients will always have opinions and they will most likely get feedback on your designs from family and friends, but it’s important that you remember that you’re the designer. You’ll most likely have to educate your clients into hearing your point of view, but if you allow them to create what they think will work, you’re doing them a disservice. Listen to all of their critiques, but only use the ones that get them the best design. After all, it’s what they hired you for. You might have to remind them of that on occasion.

10. Keep Learning.

As I stated before, it’s impossible to learn everything and that is the beauty of what we do. The biggest mistake I’ve seen over the last two years is that designers get a job or work for clients without staying up-to-date on the latest web techniques. This isn’t to say you have to learn all of the fads, it just means that we all have to learn how to apply the latest standards of web design throughout all of the great changes implemented in the different browsers. Make sure you’re always learning more. In the long run, it makes your work more exciting and engaging anyway.

I hope these ten tips will help you on your journey to become the best designer you can be. I honestly wish someone had told me these when I started. Happy Designing!

The post 10 Things to Know Before Designing for the Web appeared first on Treehouse Blog.

Abba is a self-hosted a/b testing framework built to help improve conversion rates on your site.

Tuning signup and payment forms can have huge effects on your business, and it’s a good idea to supplement design and copy changes with data on how differences actually effect conversion.

We built this tool for internal use at Stripe, and today we’re open-sourcing it for everyone. The key design goal of Abba is to have a great JavaScript API (unlike some of the other a/b testing services out there). For example:

<script src="//localhost:4050/v1/abba.js"></script>
    
    <script>
      Abba('test name')
        .control('test a', function(){
          // Show test a
          $("#test-a").show();
          $("#test-b").hide();
        })
        .variant('test b', function(){
          // Show test b
          $("#test-b").show();
          $("#test-a").hide();
         })
        .start();
    </script>
    
    <script>
      $('button.complete').click(function(){
        // Successful conversion, mark the test as complete
        Abba('test name').complete();
      });
    </script>
    

Here we’re setting up a control called test a, and a variant called test b. Sometimes the callback associated with the control will be invoked, and sometimes the variant’s callback will be run. Stats are sent back to the analytics server, hosted by you, where they are displayed in an admin interface.

You can see conversion rates per day for a configurable time period and even slice data by browser type. The different variants can be weighted such that some appear more times than others. Lastly we calculate a z-score for the displayed conversion rates, indicating the statistical probability that a test’s results are accurate.

See the GitHub project for the source and more information.