My name is Kyle P. Johnson, and I am a web designer and developer with over 9 years experience in designing and developing Web sites and Web based applications. I am the Senior Web Developer for Seattle's Children's Hospital in Seattle. Prior to moving to the Seattle area I lived and worked in the Great Plains as Web Site Coordinator for The Nebraska Medical Center and also spent time as a Web designer for Nebraska's 2nd largest ISP.
I also have done freelance work for Web Aesthetics, a small Omaha based Web consulting company that I co-founded with Mike Sheehan in in August of 2006. Although it has been disbanded for the most part due to distance and other endeavors, there are still some projects that take shape there behind the scenes. In addition to development work, I also spent time as a contributing editor for a formerly prominent Web 2.0 blog Wisdump (also known as Whitespace) until it was acquired by Splashpress Media in June 2007.
Professional Bio
I have been dabbling in the Web since the mid 90's when I hosted a personal site in Tripod. A simple small personal hobby spun into a college hybrid programming degree which ended up getting me in a round about way into the Web industry.
I started my professional career with a Nebraska ISP as a tech support rep. After working there for a time and becoming increasingly frustrated with how cumbersome data entry was for new customers I began creating a Issue/ User management tracking tool. I eventually was able to parlay this simple task into a full time Web Designer role at the same company. During this time my interest in Web standards, SEO, and accessibility began to grow. I made attempts at changing the culture of the Web environment there, but despite my best attempts at helping them move forward, I failed and so I moved on in 2006.
I took a new job as a Web Site Coordinator for the 2nd largest employer in the state of Nebraska called The Nebraska Medical Center. [In Progress]
In January of 2008 I made a bold move and left the great plains which was home for 26 years and moved to Seattle to take a job with Seattle Children's Hospital where I am the Senior Web Developer on an extremely talented Web team.
Personal Bio
I grew up in rural Northwest Iowa in a small town called Albert City, and started college as a Computer Programming at Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs. After realizing I really didn't like or understand programming I graduated in a more generic degree called a Micro Computer Support Specialist.
After college I lived and worked in the area for 6 more years until I moved to the Seattle area in early 2008. At this point we have no plans to move back to the Midwest.
Other Place To Find Me
Affiliations
Additional Writings
About This Site
I started Designs By Johnson in 2003 with the intention of starting my own Web development firm. After working in the industry for a while, that got put on the back burner and the site was converted to more of my own personal blog.
I use this site to talk about topics in the industry as well as personal issues that I have dealt with in my life.
The Technology
I have hosted on several different services, and also used a number of different publishing platforms, but I have finally settled in on a few that I have really fell in love with. Designs By Johnson was built on the ASP.net 2.0 framework,and is run and managed on BlogEngine.NET. This is probably the most robust open source ASP.net blogging product I have worked, and I would highly recommend it to anyone.
The site is hosted by Lunarpages Windows hosting and has been for the last couple of years now. They are extremely stable for a shared hosting platform and have only had a couple of downtimes. I have been extremely happy with them and would have no problems recommending them to anyone.