Due to the confidential nature of most of my design projects, detailed designs and specifications are not posted in my public portfolio. To review and discuss detailed deliverables, contact me at karen [at] humanlogic [dot] com.
Web appliance for intelligent light network management
Light Rules is a web appliance for managing a wireless network of intelligent LED lights that leverage innovative sensors to maximize energy efficiency, allowing lighting to be treated as a managed resource through an easy-to-use web interface. Facility managers can control operating hours and energy use, make changes to sensor settings on lights and run daily reports.
Working with the founders, product management, engineering and marketing team members, I used agile development methods to capture UX requirements and deliver a complete UX design specification for software development.
My deliverables included detailed wireframes and interaction specifications. The project was initiated and completed in 2010.
As part of the UX design for Light Rules, I designed custom UI components to allow ease of use for key tasks such as scheduling and specifying rules for time-based lighting behavior.
Web application for a startup building a data loss management platform
Co3 Systems is a startup in Kendall Square, Cambridge MA developing a security and compliance platform. Co3Systems is a Fairhaven Capital portfolio company.
Working with the founders, I used agile development methods to capture UX requirements, develop a concept design and deliver the UX design specification for the V1 product.
I delivered complete wireframe specifications for the platform UX and all interactions, and worked with the software development team throughout the development cycle. Product is in beta release during 2011.
I continue to work with the product and engineering teams on new features and user experience enhancements.
Application Design for provisioning an intelligent light network
During the planning of a Digital Lumens intelligent lighting project, a key component for installing lights is using software to configure light settings for each device. The Commissioner Tool is an application (for PC and Mac) to program system networks, zones, gateways, and lights during the provisioning process.
Working with the CTO, founders, product management and engineering team members, I used agile development methods to capture UX requirements and feature definitions for the Commissioner Tool. Key features in the UX included the ability to define a map file that stores the location and settings of every light, and the ability to individually program each light fixture as a node on the network.
My deliverables included detailed task flow analysis, wireframes, interaction specifications and a clickable prototype for the Commissioner Tool. The application is written in Qt, a cross-platform application framework widely used for developing application software with a graphical user interface.
As part of the UX design process for Commissioner Tool, I designed a usability test to confirm that design assumptions and to test usability with target users. I performed the usability tests and delivered a set of actionable updates to the software development team.
Provisioning UX for place-based social networking platform: LocaModa Manager 4.0
LocaModa is a place-based social media company in Cambridge, MA helping locations engage customers and brands engage audiences.
Working with the executive team, product development and software engineering team, I designed a UX to enhance the provisioning of LocaModa 4.0, LocaModa's place-based social media platform. I began by working with the team to define the feature set and agile user stories, then performed task analysis before completing a set of wireframe designs.
Key areas of focus included usability enhancement of network provisioning, and the integration of installation of LocaModa’s Twitter, Foursquare and Facebook Places application. The user experience was designed to allow non technical users to provision place-based social networks, as well as support the efforts of technical users.
The new platform was demonstrated at Digital Signage Expo 2011 in Las Vegas.
Science education online experience for tweens with integrated incentive system
SparkSense is a Web-based product for tweens (ages 8-12) which uses a novel incentive system and trending to encourage increased learning and consumption of science content online. SparkSense is a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant project.
Working in collaboration with co-founders, product management and engineering team, used agile process to lead product planning session, capture of user stories for market release.
Designed wireframes of major user scenarios and detailed user interactions for AJAX front end user experience.
Worked with visual designer to create visual look and graphical assets for screens and collaborated with engineering team during build cycle to complete and release software. Participated in usability testing of web site prior to release.
Consumer wireless device experience integrated with Web 2.0 User Experience
Recruited by the CEO, I joined a small startup team at Frame Media during 2008-2009, working as User Experience design lead. I collaborated with engineering and product management for the FrameChannel platform (2008-2011) for wireless photo frames
Defined product user experience feature requirements, feature prioritization and complete UI design specification for major "OnDemand" release of the FrameChannel.com platform. Led device UI interaction for the Kodak EASYSHARE Wireless Digital Frame (released Dec 2008). This device UI allows one-touch access to real-time news, weather, stock quotes, celebrity updates and sports served as RSS feeds from the FrameChannel.com site.
Delivered information architecture diagrams of user experience, wireframes and UI design specifications optimized for software engineering for web 2.0 platform, as well as partner frame manufacturers for device user interface (e.g Kodak, DLINK, Samsung).
Established Usability Testing lab for wireless frames and delivered actionable UX enhancement recommendations.
Collaborated closely with software development team to create working prototype of a next-generation interactive touch UI frame in Flex, demonstrated at CES 2009. Coded interactive prototypes in HTML/CSS and delivered complete UX design specs for next-generation content API product.
UI/UX Design and Development Specification for Mobile Visual Voicemail application
uReach Technologies is a leading provider of converged communications solutions for wireless, wireline and broadband carriers.
Working with Product Management, I helped design and specify the user task flow and detailed user interactions for a novel mobile application that dramatically improves the user experience for mobile voicemail. Mobile Visual Voicemail is part of a client-server system based on uReach’s commercial voicemail service.
The Mobile Visual Voicemail application allows cell phone subscribers to skip the step of having to dial in to a voicemail system. The UI employs a novel 3D carousel, allowing the user to rotate through messages, listen to voicemails instantly and see voicemails as transcribed text on a MIDP Feature Phone.
uReach’s Mobile Visual Voicemail solution was premiered at 3GSM Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain in 2009. The original UI design has been taken forward in a number of commercial uReach products, both as white label products and direct-to-consumer applications such as Read-it Voicemail in the Android Marketplace.
User Experience Design consultant to Associated Press, AP Digitial business unit in 2008 on user interface design and usability for the Mobile News Network (released for browser in May 2008, and for Apple native SDK in July 2008).The Mobile News Network – powered by the Associated Press – is a multimedia service offering iPhone users access to local and national news from trusted sources.
Worked with AP Digital product and business development team to define user interactions on iPhone for browser-based UI, and later for native SDK UI. Key interactions included overall application navigation design and taxonomy, navigation of articles and viewing images and video.
Delivered rapid usability critiques for "live development" builds to AP leadership team, with prioritized and actionable recommendations to enhance user experience.
Designed UI concept sketches for use of location-centric news navigation on iPhone.
300,000 downloads on the first day of release for the iPhone.
Runner-up for Best iPhone Web Application, Apple Design Awards 2008.
Mobile Application UI Design/Usability Inspection
ProxPro Prompt is a location-centric mobile service that helps users calculate their fastest travel choices for their driving routes, avoiding real-time traffic congestion. The RIM device application uses maps and graphics to visualize the "time to leave" and best route navigation choices.
Delivered rapid usability critique to CEO to enhance the Prompt product user experience, with actionable recommendations to enhance user experience attributes such as "first use", specifying route and general product navigation.
Delivered rapid analysis of Prompt's calendaring UI presentation, and delivered actionable UI recommendations to streamline and simplify upcoming event navigation.
The new UI design enhances a user's ability to understand the impact of traffic and weather data on drive time and route choice, and act on this information using one or two clicks.
Quote from CEO Julian Bourne: "Your speedy analysis and specific UI design recommendations helped enhance our new features, putting them in easy reach for users without adding unnecessary complexity."
Mobile Application UI Design/Usability
From 2005-2007, Senior UI designer at Motorola and member of the Consumer Experience Design Studio dedicated to UI platform design for MOTOMAGX Linux/Java UI powering the RAZR2 V8.
To address the challenge of designing customized user experience on handsets, worked as part of design leadership team to define the syntax and semantics of a UI framework to separate the presentation layer from underlying logic. This new UI framework enabled presentation parameters to be defined declaratively using XML, Javascript and SVG and custom UI components.
The UI shipped as MOTOMAGX on the RAZR2 mobile device in December 2007, and this novel UI platform enabled UI design changes to be done declaratively and result in unique UI designs.
Led UI design of a tools chain for UI modeling and specification using the same language as the underlying platform. This tool was built using the Eclipse framework, and allows both designers and developers to access the data model and define screen-to-screen flow logic for real-time rapid prototyping on the actual development platform.
Though I was based in Boston, my work required monthly travel to Chicago, Austin, Sunnyvale and other Motorola development locations to collaborate with software teams.
Mobile Device Platform User Interface (Java and Swing)
From 2003-2005, I was the founding Director of User Experience at SavaJe Technologies. SavaJe developed the SavaJe OS, a Java OS for advanced mobile phones based on Sun Microsystems' Micro Edition. SavaJe offered a Swing-based phone development platform for creating richer user interfaces for handsets.
I established and led the User Experience Design team from 2003-2005, and was responsible for design of overall OS user experience (25 reference applications and three themes) and underlying UI components (40 widgets using Java Swing).
Working with several external design vendors, I led UI design for three reference themes for the SavaJe platform, including all visual and audio assets. These themes were segmented by lifestyle for sports enthusiasts, youth and enterprise users and were demonstrated at 3GSM.
Established mobile device usability laboratory, and performed over one dozen usability tests both in lab and in the field.
In April 2007 Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) acquired the intellectual property assets of SavaJe, now used in JavaFX Mobile.
