i started my new job last week and so far so good.

my semi-official title (i don't actually have business cards yet, which makes it truly official) is "Application Designer". and that's what i do: design interfaces for applications based on the web. "whazzat?" you say? well ... when you buy something online and it automatically creates an order, sends it out to be processed, and bills your credit card, that's an application. amazon.com's site is a great example of this.

basically, any dynamic content that's driven by input from the user is an application. it can be anything. conceivably, it could be a spreadsheet, a word processor, a contact database, a calendar, or a program that calculates your compatibility with your partner based on your birthdates. most of those wouldn't be efficient to run off the web, but there's little reason you couldn't do it.

as the web becomes less and less a place where static pages full of information you don't care about and more a collection of useful tools that make your life easier, my job is going to become only that much more important. for without a usable interface, a brilliant tool is nothing more than idle code.

but i digress.

the work is thought-consuming. it makes my days full and difficult but inspiring and fulfilling. my current project affects a tool that accounts for upwards of 70% of the revenue of a multi-billion-dollar company. that's a lot of responsibility.

the people are great: very smart, very fun. the office seems to live around the "work hard but we still have lives" principle. we take off at 12:30p on Fridays. you just can't beat that.

so i'm happy. i think i made a great choice. lucky me.