Nicole Califano

Nicole Califano

User Experience Designer :: San Francisco office

Nicole is a UX designer in the San Francisco office. She likes to think of herself as the office’s cheerleader because of some serious SF pride (even through the typical ‘summer’ months).
She received her masters from the Academy of Art in New Media, focusing on User Experience. Her thesis was a prototyped real-time (GPS, touchscreen & tons of other good stuff) competitive running device and an online tracking app. We can’ tell you much more about it just yet because its in the works! Prior to Barbarian Group, she worked at Organic, Comcast, and Goodby Silverstein & Partners. Before going back to school she spent 5 yrs in various print & web design positions. Nicole has had a lot of odd jobs including: candy & cigarette girl, barista, model, cardio kickboxing instructor, hostess, lifeguard/synchronized swimming coach, and dog-walker. Oh, and if you want to lay it on really thick, ask Nicole about her prom queen days. She’s got some stories.
Like all Barbarians, she loves the internet. She likes designing useful actions, but especially enjoys picking apart god-awful experiences.
She will eternally curse an unnamed ex-boyfriend for informing her that spending tons of hours on social networking sites ‘isn’t going to make you any more money or advance your career.’ Oh boy, was he wrong. He only fueled her undying desire to test, and recall every social network out there. She’s social on & off-line, and she hopes to work with you real soon. Just don’t say the F (fog) word in front of her.

Formal Friday SF: Halloween Style


Happy Halloween from kooky San Francisco – it doesn’t get much more festive than this!

Formal Friday SF: Black & Brown

Unintentionally we seemed to sport the Black & Brown combo- the neutral-on neutral that used to be considered a big fashion no-no!
We may be a small bunch over here…but you can’t deny that we are wooing you with trends.

Formal Friday: SF Posers

With help from our 2 Boston visitors, we’re representing a very legit Formal Friday this week! Thanks to Justin for photographing us, and The Breakfast Club for inspiring us!

TBG SF's 1st Formal Friday!

Hello world, SF is really on the TBG map, now!
Here we are showing off our 1st formal Friday!

User Preferences: Laundry Locker

Due to curiosity and some light frustration by my usual laundry joint, I recently checked out Laundry Locker, an innovative laundry/dry cleaning service in SF. Laundry Locker offers eco-friendly dry cleaning and wash&fold services, with 24×7 pickup and delivery, in the convenience of your apt building. Or, for those like me who [...]

Dot Surveys: Lo-Fi Analytics

While designing a custom web analytic project at work, I’ve found myself increasingly intrigued in data sets. At work I’m thinking about data sets particular to the web, and at home I’m thinking about data sets specific to….just about anything, such as… Q: Number of cookies eaten today? A: 3 Q: Ratio of plants to [...]

UX Week 08, pt. 5 (Day 4)

Alas! my last UX Week post! Well it went out with a bang- the last day at UX Week was jam-packed goodness! In an effort to keep it brief, I’ve listed Friday’s speakers with little commentary this time…but as a side note, I thought the Robot&Wii talks were the best of the day.

UX Week 08, pt.4 (Day 3)

Day 3 Theme: ‘Play&Immersion’ Highlights: • Keynote: A Game Designer’s Perspective on the Future of Happiness by Jane McGonigal McGonigal’s inspiring keynote suggested UXers are ‘Happiness Engineers’ and that we can continually ‘bring happiness to users by getting them to participate in every moment.’ • Your Phone is Your Controller, by a substitute for Jury Hah Jury couldn’t [...]