Once here, Kreps made two important discoveries: A flourishing high-tech industry, and Barton Springs pool. She quickly immersed herself in both. Homing in on her "new media" talents crafted while at Prodigy -- the pioneer of on-line services -- where she worked as a features editor, Kreps took on local consulting jobs. As if with a click of a button, Kreps rapidly grew into her status as a guru of interactive content design -- those snazzy Web site features that enable users to feel more like welcomed visitors than awkward guests.
Today, Kreps is plying her high-tech trade as creative manager of Interactive Design Works, a subsidiary of Cox Enterprises, Inc., the parent company of the Austin American-Statesman. Kreps and a team of 18 other Interactive Design Works staffers are charged with building the colossal Web site for our daily. Kreps is also the president of the Austin chapter of the International Interactive Communication Society (IICS), and was a panelist this week at the SXSW Multimedia Festival, speaking, of course, on the art of making Web site content interactive.
"Traditionally, newspapers have been a one-way source of communication," Kreps says. "Too many Web sites are like that, too." In working up interactive content, Kreps simply applies common social skills. "The way you win friends and influence people is to ask questions about the person, to take an interest. The key to interactive content design is to make the sites as user-friendly as possible, to present information in a way that the users will want to take action."
Kreps' love of Barton Springs pool -- where daily swims through the winter months bear out her devotion -- played a large role in the Statesman's decision to include environmental content in the daily's long-awaited Web site, which is expected to debut soon on the Internet. Interactive matters aside, Kreps still holds a warm place in her heart for print media, which is where she got her start, first plugging in movie listings for Cue New York magazine, followed by jobs at Eastern Airlines' in-flight publication and Woman's World magazine. There'll be no displacement of newspapers and magazines, she says assuredly. "The newspaper will always be around. It's got that touchy-feely feeling that can't be replaced." -- A.S.