Our goal in redesigning the data calculator was to generate an easy to use interaction pattern to help customers evaluate how much data (between emails, streaming video, and more) they might consume in a month and what plan best fits their needs.
Based on observing users as they interacted with the existing calculator, we came up with a new design which answered these 3 guidelines:
Simple: The controls should be known and obvious to the customer. It should use natural language and asks questions that the customer has to think very little about to answer meaningfully.
Fun and playful: The data calculator should allow a customer to easily change setting or play with controls that is no risk and has not perceived cost (page loads, wait time, etc). It should have immediate feedback and surprise customers at times.
Informative: The data calculator should leave the customers with a better understanding of what they can potentially get out of their data plan, and feel confident that they are choosing the best data plan for their usage.
I was part of the team to create several different data usage interaction patterns as well as the interactive Axure prototype. Go to website to play around with the final product.
In this project we helped a multinational software company located in Washington State to rethink their physical retail store experience. Our goal was to create experiences that would define the store as a retail environment with a unique identity – a place where customers not only interact with products but are immersed in everything that is innovative and interesting about this company.
We started out by building the layout of the store and the different ideas we had for it as Lego pieces that can be moved around to create the perfect story of a shopper from the time she passes by the store window at the mall to the time she leaves.
The result is a rich, interactive experience that might engage customers to increase their loyalty to the brand. What customers get in return are enhanced, personalized experiences within the store, whether they are interested in playing, learning, communicating or just hanging out.
For this project I developed the ideas, and created sketches, presentation boards and the physical and virtual store models that allowed us to engage in a different and unique type of conversation with ourselves and the client.
Taking the Windows 7 desktop wallpapers and mapping them to the different Windows Live products was quite challenging. The goal was to make each theme work for web, messenger and Windows mobile. Of course each of these devices is very different in scale, resolution, the amount of text on them and the way people interact with them. The general look of each theme had to remain consistent across all devices.
I loved this design work because I got to work hands on with extremely high fidelity illustration assets, created by artists all over the world that Microsoft had chosen to design their desktop wallpapers. While working on these designs my goal was to simplify the presentation of each theme as it transitions from desktop to other devices, while still maintaining a strong resemblance to the original artwork. In this way I was able to accomplish a strong visual user experience for each product.
TriPlay develops converged rich media communication solutions across Mobile, TV and Web based platforms. The idea is to relieve the user from the barriers of technology, devices and networks. Whether you're at your PC, at home in front of the TV, or waiting for the bus with your mobile, messages come directly to you, formatted for your device.
I joined the company in 2005 when it was still a wee seed and helped grow it into its robust glory days. Here are a few selected highlights of my 3+ years with the company.
Our 2 main clients were Pelephone Communications and Deutsche Telekom, which whom we worked to develop "TriPlay CrEWs", a product that enables a group of friends to communicate with each other using TriPlay's Super Messaging platform.
As UX team leader in a small start-up, I owned all the designs we produced as a team, which included the full design cycle, from initial conception, to final visual representation.
Icons are quite specific sort of illustrations. They should be simple and easy to understand; they should share the same style within one application or website; and they should be drawn pixel-by-pixel. These sets of icons and other illustrations were made in this way.
I worked with a team of top notch pixel perfect designers to design new icons for Windows Live products.
The process: Initial concept/s sketched on paper; Drawing the icon in Illustrator; Fine tuning in Photoshop (adding shadows, glass, clarity, etc.); then Converting to ICO. The emoticons presented here are a few chosen ones I created in Illustrator, 256X256px for marketing purposes. The rest of the set is here.
I loved working with this creative team! In the initial process of designing desktop icons for (back then) the future OS Windows 8, we did a lot of exploring and blue sky exercises.
The emoticons in Live Messenger are used as a fun communication tool and we managed to give them a fresh new and simple look.
My role in this project consisted of everything from the left to the right brain of UX design.
I worked towards improving the user experience of the existing prepaid platform while innovating new designs for future thinking. The experience included the full cycle, from the time a user enters the T-Mobile site to make a purchase, receiving the device, activating it and finally being able to use it from anyplace at anytime. I collaborated closely in an agile environment with a business analyst, visual designers, project managers at Ascentium and T-Mobile, as well as project leaders at Vesta (who were in charge of T-Mobile's finances) and business executives.
I was in charge of the prototyping, information architecture, user flows, setting forth (and optimizing) user experience standards which included interaction patterns and aesthetics/look and feel.
In this project we were asked to design an Intranet for the global marketing team in a European based company. The biggest challenge we faced was designing a web portal intended for a group of completely un-savvy employees that have a very tech-savvy leader. These employees are unmotivated to try anything new for sharing content, when old methods like sending an email work.
We set a goal to create a system that will be playful and fun, in order to engage these people to use it. Our solution involved creating a centralized model. This means a few nominated curators are responsible for generating content, while the other co-workers are not responsible for "feeding" the system, but only receiving information.
As senior UX architect for this project, I created the wireframes for the web and mobile versions, was part of the team that defined the interaction and architectures, and contributed to the visual design presentations.
