Ruth Ellison
Photo credit: Alastair D'Silva
This is me, I work on the web.
I'm an interaction designer. I live in the capital city of Australia, Canberra. I love the web. I love the possibilities it offers. I love how I can keep across my friends' lives fairly easily and even keep up, in a fashion, with the little bits and pieces that form all our lives, thanks to Flickr, Twitter, Facebook and the multitude of cool stuff out there.
I first discovered the internet back in mid 1995 with my first exposure to IRC. I created my first (god-awful) homepage in 1997 complete with the Under Construction animated stick figure, and I think I even experimented with the blink element for a very short period of time!
Not everything revolves so soundly around the web though. I have family members who have email but still prefer to pick up the phone and talk to me. I even have two friends who have an email address but hardly ever use it!
I love music, particularly jazz. I sing in an acapella group called Raw Honey, which is really an excuse to get together with friends, eat fine foods, drink lovely wines, and do some singing! I also enjoy playing my djembe, the piano and my violin. I have a sister who is a professional musician.
Hubby and I share a love of photography. We spent our honeymoon last year in a camper van travelling up north of Western Australia, stopping where we felt like, and living and breathing photography for 13 days straight.
I really enjoy learning new stuff, exploring new ideas and places, learning about how we interact with each other and with systems. I also love meeting lots of people but interact best with small groups.
I'm also quite a shy person. I used to be almost chronically shy and it's taken quite a long time to get to my current level of shyness. But I do love to laugh! And smile! I have a great sense of humour which is expressed in my love of witty t-shirts and British comedy.
I may be fairly quiet, but I'm deeply passionate about a lot of things - accessibility, web standards, great user experiences, learning and sharing knowledge, travelling, photography, science fiction books, caring for the environment...
I love life.
(PS: and handbags, shoes, jewellery, and electronic gadgets)
(PPS: and Doctor Who)