Cameron Wiles is Content and Usability Specialist for our User Experience team. He started as a student worker a couple years ago and has continued to work with us full-time since graduation. He filmed a student testimonial video before he graduated in the spring of 2018, and edited it over the summer.

What it's like working at the UA Libraries

I mostly work on making the Libraries' websites and services more helpful and easy to use for everyone. I have primarily accomplished this by editing web content and conducting user research. The latter involves doing usability testing, surveys, and interviews with our users to identify issues, as well as gathering web analytics to see how people use our sites. I also have opportunities to complete quite a variety of other duties and responsibilities, such as photographing study rooms and subtitling videos. In fact, during the past few months I was able to try something I'd never done for a job before: create a video. 

My little side project

I originally wanted to make a video from start to finish because I've always found videography interesting and fun to work on. It made the most sense to make a video that was relevant to my work, so I decided to interview some UA students and ask them how the library has helped them in their college careers. Little did I know before going into it that it would take a lot more learning, effort, time, and perseverance than I had anticipated. Even so, I gradually planned, filmed, and edited the video for the past several months with some gracious help from my colleagues to finish my little side project.

Specifically, many thanks to Aengus Anderson for giving me valuable advice on how to film the video and what equipment to use, and Juhyung Sun (former Graduate Assistant on the library's UX team) for editing the audio. Despite all the frustrations along the way (such as non-functional cameras!), I really think it was a valuable ordeal that helped me develop a skill and appreciate the art of videography more. Go watch the video if you like; I hope you enjoy it!

Farewell

Overall, working for UA Libraries has been a pleasant and rewarding experience. I enjoy the work that I do and all the chances I'm given to try something new and fulfilling, in addition to strengthening the things I'm already skilled in. I don't know exactly what I'll be doing after my job here, but I'm hoping it will be great! Either way, I definitely recommend checking out the UA Libraries no matter who you are or what you'd like to do because it's a nice place to study, collaborate, research, experiment, and everything in between. 

Read more staff stories to get to know the people behind UA Libraries.