Jaime Levy is an American author, new media artist, interface designer, and user experience strategist. She first became known for her new media projects in the 1990s. Her best-known projects include the floppy disk distributed with Billy Idol’s album Cyberpunk, WORD, an online magazine, and an online cartoon series, CyberSlacker.Can You Be a Millionaire?. (2000, December). Dateline NBC [Television broadcast]. New York, NY: NBC Universal Television.Evans, Claire. (2019, July). Picking up the Cyber Slack. Eye on Design. pp. 127-139 She is the author of the business book UX Strategy, which was first published by O’Reilly Media in 2015. It is widely regarded as the definitive work on the practice of user experience strategy and has been translated into nine languages.
Background Levy was born on March 8, 1966, in Hollywood, California, and raised in the San Fernando Valley.Evans, Claire. Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet. Portfolio/Penguin, New York. 2018. p. 181 In 1988, she graduated with a B.A. from San Francisco State University.Evans, Claire. (2019, July). Picking up the Cyber Slack. Eye on Design. p. 130 In 1990, she earned her master's degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts where she later spent seven years as a part-time professor.Huntington, A. (1995, September). These Women Do Not Fear The 21st Century. Harper’s Bazaar. She later taught graduate level courses on UX design and strategy for six years at the University of Southern California (USC) in the Viterbi School of Engineering.https://viterbi.usc.edu/directory/faculty/Levy/Jaime USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Retrieved September 24, 2019.Evans, Claire. (2018, April). The Untold Story of Jaime Levy, Punk-Rock Cyber-Publishing Pioneer: How a punk kid from L.A. created the coolest publications of the 1990s. Book excerpt. New York Magazine. Retrieved on September 24, 2019 from: http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/04/claire-evanss-broad-band-excerpt.html
Career Levy's career began in 1990 with the creation of the electronic magazines Cyber RagFroman, L. (1992, October). Jaime Levy’s Pioneering Electronic Magazines. Mondo 2000, p. 112. and Electronic Hollywood.Ehrman, M. (1993, March). Behind The Zines. Los Angeles Times, p. E1, E6. They were programmed in HyperCard and Macromedia Director and distributed on 800k floppy disks.Evans, Claire. "Picking Up the Cyber Slack". Eye on Design. AIGA. p. 128 She leveraged her publicity from numerous print publications and tvFeature on Electronic Magazine Publisher, Jaime Levy. (1993, January). KCET: Life and Times. [Television broadcast]. LA, CA: PBS Los Angeles. to increase the sales of these disks in book stores and mail-order.Evans, Claire. (2018, April). The Untold Story of Jaime Levy, Punk Rock Publishing Pioneer. New York Magazine.
In 1993, she worked with EMI Records where she designed, animated, and programmed the first commercially released interactive press kit (IPK) for Billy Idol’s Cyberpunk CD digipack.MTV News: Billy Idol Cyberpunk Disk. (1993, May). MTV News [Television broadcast]. New York, NY: MTV. The project featured sequenced samples, digitized video, hypertext, and interactive animation all integrated together as a seamless experience.Appelo, T. A Star Is Virtually Reborn. (1993, July). Entertainment Weekly, p. 24.Saunders, M. (1993, May). Billy Idol Turns Cyberpunk on New CD. Boston Globe, p. 31, 34. She followed that up with the animated electronic book, Ambulance,Coover, R. (1993, August 29). And Now, Boot Up the Reviews. New York Times Book Review, 7, p. 8. that was written by Monica Moran and included music by Mike Watt from the band Minutemen and art by Jaime Hernandez of Love and Rockets.
In 1994 while employed by IBM as an interface designer, she began hosting "CyberSlacker" salons for programmers and animators at her East Village, Manhattan loft.Mead, Rebecca. (1994, June 13). IBM’s CyberSlacker. New York Magazine, p. 49. By 1995, she took a creative director position at Icon CMT, where she could focus on the creation of the online magazine WORD.Silberman, S. (1998, March 11). Word Down: The End of an Era. Wired.Cavanaugh, K. (1995, June 15). Post Focus on a Revolution: The Techies. New York Post. It received national recognition for its design and cutting-edge non-linear storytelling.Goodfellow, K. So What’s A Web Browser, Anyway? (1995, August 14). The New York Times. She was recognized as Newsweek’s top 50 people to watch in cyberspace50 for the Future. (1995, February 27). Newsweek, p. 42, 44. and on Good Morning America as one of "The Most Powerful Twentysomethings in America."Charles Grodin Interviews Jaime Levy, David Lauren “Slackers”. (1996, January). ABC: Good Morning America. [Television broadcast]. New York, NY: ABC.The Most Powerful Twentysomethings in America. (1996, January). Swing.Powerful Twentysomethings. (1996, April). NBC: Inside Edition. [Television broadcast]. New York, NY: NBC Universal Television.
At the beginning of the dot-com era, Levy became an independent consultant. In 1996, she designed a graphical multi-user environment called Malice PalaceBunn, A. (1997, November 11) . Upstart Start Ups. Village Voice, p. 1. using The Palace software. Set in a post-apocalyptic San Francisco, users could engage in real-time chat and interact with robots depicted as homeless people.Soledad O’Brien Interviews Jaime Levy About “Malice Palace”. (1996, September). MSNBC: The Site. [Television broadcast]. New York, NY: MSNBC Network.
In 1997, her Silicon Alley-based start-up called Electronic Hollywood received an angel investment. For the next 5-years her company focused on web design, interactive advertising, and original content development. The most prestigious production was the CyberSlacker,Dannacher, Lee. (1999, August). The Big Apple’s Silicon Alley. Animation World Magazine, 4.5. Flash cartoon series, which won the Flash Animation Award. She appeared in Doug Block’s 1999 documentary film Home Page and her story was chronicled in the book Gig.Bowe, J., Bowe, M., & Streeter, S. (Eds.). (2000). Web Content Producer. In Gig. (p. 297-301). New York: Crown Publishers.Grigoriadis, V. (2000, April). Cover Story: Generation 1.0 – Oldest Living Silicon Alley Veterans Tell All. New York Magazine, p. 28-35.Bowe, J. (2000, May). Day Job: Web Content Producer. The New Yorker, p. 160.
Following the dot-com bubble burst, she shuttered Electronic Hollywood and returned to Los Angeles. From 2002 to the present she has resurfaced as a university professor, author, and user experience design strategist. In 2010, she founded her second company Jaime Levy Consulting (formerly JLR Interactive).Stern, C. (2012, September 10) . Jaime Levy Discusses UX at USC . TheDishDaily
Bibliography
Books 2021. UX Strategy (second edition): Product Strategy Techniques for Divising Innovative Digital Products 2015. UX Strategy: How to Devise Innovative Digital Products that People Want
Levy has also published the following white papers and articles: Imagining the YouTube Model for Interactive Television. (2007). In Lugmayr, A., & Golebiowski (Eds.) Interactive TV: A Shared Experience TICSP Adjunct Proceedings of EuroITV 2007. (p. 270-274). Amsterdam, Netherlands: Tampere International Center for Signal Processing.Imagining the YouTube Model for Interactive Television. (2007). In Lugmayr, A., & Golebiowski (Eds.) Interactive TV: A Shared Experience TICSP Adjunct Proceedings of EuroITV 2007. (p. 270-274). Amsterdam, Netherlands: Tampere International Center for Signal Processing. Six Weeks at the Smut Factory: Inside an Adult DVD Authorizing House. (2003, October). Medialine Magazine, p. 40-41.Six Weeks at the Smut Factory: Inside an Adult DVD Authorizing House. (2003, October). Medialine Magazine, p. 40-41. The Small World of Games on DVD: Video. (2004, February). Medialine Magazine, p. 34-35.The Small World of Games on DVD: Video. (2004, February). Medialine Magazine, p. 34-35. Studio Pro vs. Scenarist: Is DVD Authorizing Destined for the Desktop? (2004, May). Medialine Magazine, p. 34-36.Studio Pro vs. Scenarist: Is DVD Authorizing Destined for the Desktop? (2004, May). Medialine Magazine, p. 34-36.
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