About Me
This is the website of Jason Hodge, I was a designer of the BBC News Website and related services for a period of just over ten years. In that time I've experienced, practiced and participated in the whole design and development gamut of what has become one of the most used online spaces in the world.
Formally trained in the traditional graphic arts using markers, lithography and manual typesetting, my interest in computer graphics led me to a unique course held in Carmarthenshire based on melding many artistic principles around modern technology.
My main interest was to explore the boundaries of software to create really far-out print graphics, something we weren't seeing much of in the traditional spheres. However, the module on CD-Rom authoring got me thinking down other roads.
This was new, and too good an opportunity to miss.
After learning Macromedia Director (and giving visiting lectures on it at other Universities), I produced a virtual space for my final show which allowed me to display a lot more work than the 2x3 metres provided. Not a big idea by today's standards but the impact it had was enough to reward me with a distinction.
Well before the Web went mainstream, the course gave me a great deal of foresight in to the way society would be consuming information in the future. My Thesis went on to predict transparent advertising within Film and Television programming by the use of meta-filtered, clickable product placements linked to online store databases.
After the course and a stint working in Germany for an advertising agency, I landed my first job in London.
I began my media career in 1995 working for The Multi Media Corporation - A management buyout of the BBC's Interactive Television Unit, the same group of people who created the Domesday project on 12-inch videodiscs.
Being in a large production environment really focussed my skills and attention to detail. I worked on and led the design effort on a number of CD-Rom and software titles for the likes of Electronic Arts, Oxford University Press, Mensa and Magnum Photos.
By 1996 the Web was beginning to eat in to the CD-Rom "Edu-tainment" market and as a result, production houses were finding they couldn't adapt quickly enough. The industry was deflating and in 1997, I was made redundant as the company became a silent trader, selling off its assets to the Saatchi brothers.
All was not lost, I came out with a fresh portfolio and some knowledge of HTML, so by this I was primed for the next wave. I joined the recruitment agency Price Jamieson and within 2 months of freelance work I had a contract with the BBC News Website.
Starting on the website was, in hindsight, an amazing experience. We were still in the pilot phase and about a month from going live. It was a real seat-of-the-pants time as the initial team of four designers grappled with methods that we quickly realised had to change in order to handle the pace.
A lot of the work I was charged with at the time was heavy on illustration to tell stories, not much to do with actual usability, but that was to come and as we found the time we focussed on our audience to help us get better for them.
I did my first paper prototyping in 1998 with a number of members of the public (novice and seasoned users) hand picked by Serco Consulting. We iterated the site from this and it gave me my first insight in to User Centred Design. Since then I've relied on wireframes, card sorting, surveys, studies and other UCD methods.
I've produced many of the heavier and longer lasting aspects of the BBC News website such as the Market Data portal, the Education League Tables and just about every version of the Audio and Video player. Right up to the current iPlayer, I represented the News website in the pan BBC design working panel, advising on key functionalities, taxonomies, brand management and consistency.
Other projects I've led include in-house content management application design, scalable mobile solutions, automated map production, portal refresh and web based client management interfaces for syndication partners.
After thirteen years in London, I've now moved back to my home town of Huddersfield with my wife and son. At the moment I'm freelancing under the name UXNorth, looking for exciting opportunities in the User Experience, IA, Usability fields.