01
Start with the user
The project began with a usability problem: powerful Internet services existed, but students needed a simpler way to reach and understand them.
EARLY PROJECT / ORIGIN STORY1997
The Dragon
Making the early Internet easier to navigate.
As a Cerritos College student, I built a menu-driven interface that gave users a simpler way to reach Internet, file, communication, library, and account tools on the college's VMS environment.
Platform
VMS / AlphaServer
Role
Creator / Developer
Focus
Usability + Access
Evidence
Article + Screenshots
THE PROBLEM
Powerful tools. Unfriendly interface.
In the mid-1990s, accessing Internet services on a college computing system could mean remembering commands, tool names, and unfamiliar workflows. The capability was there; the experience was the obstacle.
I wanted to create a friendlier layer over those services so students could concentrate on what they wanted to do rather than on memorizing how to get there.
ORIGINAL ARTIFACTS
The interface itself.
These are preserved screenshots from the original system—not modern recreations.
WHAT IT PROVIDED
One interface. Many services.
The Dragon organized a growing collection of computing and Internet capabilities into categories users could navigate from a common interface.
+Menu-driven navigation
+Electronic mail access
+FTP and Telnet tools
+Lynx web access
+File utilities
+User information tools
+Online library access
+Help and guided navigation
IN THE ARCHIVES
Featured in Talon Marks.
On March 5, 1997, Cerritos College's Talon Marks profiled the project and the self-directed learning behind it.
“I'm driven by hunger for information.”
WHAT STAYED WITH ME
The technology changed. The approach didn't.
02
Learn what the problem requires
I taught myself the programming and system concepts I needed as the project grew instead of limiting the solution to what I already knew.
03
Iterate from feedback
The interface continued evolving as people used it and requested additional capabilities—a pattern I still value in analytics and software work.
1997 → TODAY
The Dragon was an early version of the same work I enjoy today: understand a messy system, organize it, learn what's necessary, and make the result useful to someone else.