Michael Adcock

Creative Problem Solver

MLIS Graduate

I earned a Master of Library and Information Science degree from the Information School at the University of Washington in the summer of 2008. Detailed descriptions of my projects and experiences can be found in my MLIS Portfolio. My coursework listing and pdf Transcript are also available.

The projects and topics mentioned below are just a few highlights.

Information Architecture

  • I participated in an intensive, week long course where I learned the history of IA, challenges, techniques, and methods.
  • The final team project had us “pitch” a solution with only four days to produce a strategy, enough artifacts to describe the design, and a presentation.
  • I also attended my first IA Summit in 2008, thanks to a scholarship from Eric Reiss at FatDUX. I’ve attended every IA Summit since, and continue to be active in the community.
  • Additional details can be found here.

Usability

Interaction Design and HCI

  • After learning fundamentals like Fitts’s Law and reading Don Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things, I worked with two colleagues to create the fundamental interaction design for a zero-button mouse. While the design and final analysis was a team effort, I implemented the prototype myself in JavaScript and tried to ensure cross-browser compatibility.
  • Additional details can be found here.

Taxonomies and Controlled Vocabularies

  • During a course on the construction of indexing languages, I developed a web application that my team used to construct and maintain a thesaurus. (Note that we were only expected to create the thesaurus, not a tool!)
  • I later used this TiddlyWiki Thesaurus as a focus for usability improvements, and students in two other instances of the indexing course have used it in their thesaurus projects.

Presentation Skills

  • Although one course focused solely on teaching and instruction, I frequently presented findings from research, lead discussion groups, and used PowerPoint presentations.
  • Additional details can be found here.

Library and Information Science

  • I gained a solid understanding of how to model information behavior, covered information organization theory, collection development, and the reference interview process.
  • I also studied metadata design, ontologies, and semantic structures.

Michael excelled in just about everything I saw him do-- he was a key organizer for several conferences, he did fantastic work in the class I taught, and the work that he did for his portfolio was superb. He was not afraid to explore new tools and ways of organizing and presenting information, and shared them freely with his colleagues.

Mike Crandall, Senior Lecturer at the Information School, and current chair of the Masters of Science in Information Management program