Vialogues

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The project:

Redesign Vialogues with a focus on self-directed learning and increased discoverability and usability of the various features.

Vialogues (which derives from "video dialogues") provides a space for users to hold meaningful and dynamic time-stamped discussions about videos.

Potential new landing page

My role:

I was the lead designer on this project and was responsible for its' complete creative execution.

Tasks & Deliverables:

Evaluation of existing platform
Existing users' interviews
Wireframes
High-fidelity mockups
Creative direction of visual design
CSS implementation
Usability testing

The old landing page

Conclusion:

The project is out in beta and undergoing usability and functionality testing and should be launched in August 2017.

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Jaguar Land Rover

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The project:

Rethink In-Vehicle Infotainment systems with Jaguar Land Rover’s product innovation team in Portland, OR. Explore future product concepts and usages in a highly inter-connected, Internet-of-things, augmented reality world.

Testing our ideas

Tasks & Deliverables:

Usage models and scenarios
High-fidelity, functional prototypes
Detailed interaction design specs
Design recommendations

This project is under a strict NDA, so if you’d like to learn more, please ask offline.

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EdLab Website

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The project:

Design an updated website for EdLab, where users can interact with the enormous amount of content that EdLab produces across its' network of apps.

The new site

My role:

I was the lead designer on this project and was responsible for its' complete creative execution.

Deliverables:

Evaluation of existing platform
Users and stakeholder interviews
Wireframes
High-fidelity mockups
Detailed specs for developers
CSS implementation
Usability testing

The Process:

Phase 1: Our initial focus and assignment was to simply 're-skin' the old website, and make it look nicer and cleaner. The stakeholders wanted it to be a simple project with updated copy, look and feel. As we went down this first path, we realized there were things about the site that didn't work, right from the platform it was on (Drupal) to the CMS to the account system (the site needed its own authentication, separate from EdLab's other network of sites).

The old site

Phase 2: Once it was established that the site needs more than just a simple new skin, we delved deeper into the site, into EdLab's purpose, into all the apps that EdLab has in its network, and all the content that is produced in those systems.

We felt the site needs to be a central point for everything EdLab, and not just be an 'About Us' brochure site. We revised the IA, simplified the navigation, came up with a simple and clean design aesthetic.

This process also lead to the creation of other projects, including the EdLab Global Search project, the EdLab CMS project, integrating EdLab authentication system, etc. The new site is now a place to discover our network of apps and all the interesting content that it produces.

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Rhizr

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The project:

Rhizr strives to create "a learning environment in which the student can learn to restructure the new information and their prior knowledge into new knowledge about the content and to practice using it" - Dean A. McManus

This was one of my first projects at EdLab. When I joined the team, this project had almost been shelved.

My role:

As a user experience designer, I worked on giving the project a new creative direction and redesigning the interface. As a user interface developer, I also helped develop this project using a Bootstrap framework and the Meteor JavaScript platform.

Tasks & Deliverables:

Evaluation of existing platform
Users and stakeholder interviews
Design thinking sessions
Wireframes
High-fidelity mockups
Detailed specs for developers
UI development
Usability testing

Design process summary:

I started by understanding what the original project idea was (a play on metaphors) and understanding what failed with the interface that was built. With the help of a UX researcher, the dev team and a couple of design thinking sessions we came up with a revised idea for the project.

New user models

Task flow - creating a new Rhizr

Wireframe - view a Rhizr

Wireframe - my library

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Intel Internet of Things

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The Project:

Work with Intel's IOT team to explore future product concepts and usages surrounding Internet of Things, and design+develop beginner demo interfaces that showed users how to use the IOT kit through different use cases.

Tasks & Deliverables:

Usage models and scenarios
Wireframes
Detailed interaction design specs
Develop functioning web apps

Designing a 'demo experience kit' for Intel's Starter IOT Kit

Designed and developed web apps for different IOT use cases

Intel Realsense application prototype

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Simplify Dell.com

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The Project:

Simplify Dell.com by decluttering the landing page to enhance the shopping experience for the millions of visitors to the site.

Tasks & Deliverables:

Brainstorming & Ideation sessions
Wireframes
Prototype development
Remote usability testing
Recommendations

Revised landing page

The process:

Analysis: We started the design process by talking about the existing landing page. We dug deeper into the multiple categories and sections on the homepage. The landing page reflected the internal organization structure as each team wanted a piece of the pie, leading to an information architecture that did not make any sense to customers.

Old landing page

Potential solutions: We decided on a multi pronged approach -
1. Product Consolidation - bring all products under one section and help users find what they are looking for by 'Product Type'.
2. Franchise Branding and Activities - allow users to shop by 'Brands' (such as Latitude or Alienware) or 'Activity'.
3. De-segmentation - remove the confusing segments ('For Home', 'For Small Business and Office', 'For Medium Business', etc.)

Initial design

New Categories: We came up with three options to categorize the products:
Option 1. Products [complete desegmentation]
Option 2. For Home, For Work [two main business segments]
Option 3. Home & Home Office, Small & Medium Business, Public & Large Enterprise [partial desegmentation]

Prototyping & Testing: I created hi-fi interactive mockups of these designs in Axure. These three designs were tested against each other and the existing Dell.com segments, with several users of the site.

Testing Results: When I consolidated the findings, the most favored was found to be option 2 (two main business segments). This was partly due to the large volume of highly technical business users who visit Dell.com to purchase specific high end equipment for their companies.

Success:

This was implemented in March 2013 on Dell.com!

I helped simplify the product browsing and shopping experience for millions of customers who visit dell.com every month, by reducing the segments on Dell's main homepage from five to two ('For Home' and 'For Work').

Note: Dell.com has since been updated to category option 1 (complete desegmentation).

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Create Personas for Dell

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The project:

The user experience and development teams at Dell were using personas created by Marketing. These personas were not ideal for use by the UX and development teams. As such, they wanted to create new personas and map the end-to-end user journey with a product from research to purchase and beyond.

My role:

Ideation & goal-setting: I was involved in the initial brainstorming phase of the project to determine project objectives, analyze existing personas and determine short-comings.

Interviews: I helped plan the interviews, prepare interview questions, recruit users and then conducted interviews with users from the 'consumer' segment.

Interpretation and Affinity Diagram: The interviews were followed by interpretation sessions where we broke down the interview notes and created affinity notes and consolidated them into an affinity diagram/wall. Once we created the initial affinity wall, we had walk-through sessions with other members of the UX team, and refined the affinity diagram.

Interview planning and affinity wall

Conclusion:

The project was a longer term project than my internship duration, and continued through more phases after me, towards generation of the new personas.

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Evolve Outlet

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The Project:

Work with a multi-disciplinary team to redesign the standard wall power-outlet considering advancements in technology, increased user demand and new user requirements.

3D print of our solution

The Team:

Our team was lucky to have an ideal and diverse set of members - a mechanical engineer (Cole), an electrical engineer (Karthik), a business major (Dan) and a user experience designer (me).

My Role:

As the user experience lead, I was actively involved in the research and design process.

Tasks & Deliverables:

Ideation & brainstorming
User interviews
Conducting surveys
Persona generation
Comparative analysis
Sketching and prototyping
User testing

Understanding our users:

We recruited a few of our friends, classmates and professor and interviewed them; we also observed their outlet usage at their homes, dorms and apartments. We then observed general usage at more public spaces, like coffee shops and classrooms.

The most common issues we identified were:

1. Inaccesible outlets (either located far away or behind some obstruction)
2. Not enough sockets (already occupied by other chargers)
3. Lack of USB ports (need to use an extra adapter)

Evolution of our design

Final Design and Success:

Our design had multiple sockets, USB charging ports, and an extension cord - all built into a standard size gang-box with unobstrusive design.

Expanded model view

The evolve outlet was displayed at the Design Expo at University of Michigan and won the Best Project Award as voted by peers. The project was also displayed at UMSI's expoSItion '13 and we got an honorable mention under the overall best project category.

Final design showing features

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