Date
January 2011 - May 2011 Team Members
Drew GilespieMauricio GiraldoBen GotowSpencer Sugarman
January 2011 - May 2011 Team Members
Drew GilespieMauricio GiraldoBen GotowSpencer Sugarman
The Pangea Learning Platform
A forward-looking technology for schools.
I've always had a passion for educational technology and I was able to pursue this interest through my capstone project for my Masters in
Human-Computer Interaction. I spent the past eight months working on The Pangea Platform, a forward-looking interactive solution that
facilitates small-group learning. We worked with our
client, The 3M Company to develop a hardware and software
solution for the classroom of tomorrow. This process
included a semester of user research and concept validation with teachers
and K-4 students as well as a semester of prototyping both the hardware
and software components of the product.
We applied data-driven design methodologies to determine
the appropriate product for the current educational
climate that would leverage 3M's innovative technologies.
As the User Research Lead, I was responsible for
determining appropriate concept validation and user
testing methodologies. We developed and tested
paper and high-fidelity prototypes of the hardware and performed
participatory design and scenario-based activities with students and teachers. It was particularly important
for our team to address the technical requirements for the product and develop a plan to integrate
it into the current educational infrastructure. After four
rounds of heavy user testing, we delivered two high fidelity hardware
prototypes as well as a medium fidelity interface prototype as well as a
concept video.
*NDA with The 3M Company prohibits further detailing of product or process.
Date
August 2009 - December 2009 Team Members
Molly NixDane PieriTony PoorGarret Young
August 2009 - December 2009 Team Members
Molly NixDane PieriTony PoorGarret Young
BookShelf
A website for book collectors.
BookShelf is a website designed for book collectors not only to manage, but to tell
the story of their collection. This project developed over the course of
a semester as our team employed a range of HCI research methods to
capture the intricacies of collecting and translated them into a wide
feature set. We first began with Contextual Inquiry and Contextual Design
to discover the explicit and tacit processes involved in collecting.
We also used Keystroke Level Modeling (KLM) to prevent our team from
making the same mistakes as our competitors. Furthermore, we used
Think Aloud to learn of the features that collectors would want in our
product.Our team decided to center our system design on four
core concepts. Our emphasis on time and story relates to the purchase
and story behind the artifact. This segment is emphasized in the timeline
feature that displays the acquisition history of the collection.
We create organization and relationships between books by allowing
customers to create intricate connections amongst books, through linking
books and tagging categories. Social Interaction among collectors is also
an important feature as it facilitates the growth of collections. Lastly,
the Digital Management section provides the unique multiple organizational
capability available in the digital realm that is not available in the physical realm.
Date
August 2010 - December 2010Team Members
Karl DockeryDaniel LagrottaRae Wen SheeBrian Wang
August 2010 - December 2010Team Members
Karl DockeryDaniel LagrottaRae Wen SheeBrian Wang
PUCS - School Web Portal
A school's back-end portal for administrators and parents.
For my senior capstone project in Information Systems, my team and
I are built a backend portal for PUCS, Pittsburgh Urban Christian
School. Components of the project include: student enrollments and
activities participation, teacher grade input, volunteer management
and event organization. The website is built on the Ruby on
Rails framework, and I was primarily responsible for the front-end
development. As the UI designer on the team, I created all design
prototypes for our client and work with them to determine the
functionality they wanted. I also ensured that our designs are consistent
with the old outward facing website, as the two go hand in hand.
This project relied heavily on user testing as the parents that use the
system are from very economically diverse groups.
Date
January 2009 - December 2009 Team Members
Rachel DouglasShipeng GongYiwen JiaGarret Young
January 2009 - December 2009 Team Members
Rachel DouglasShipeng GongYiwen JiaGarret Young
TimeTrak
An electronic time-card system for Carnegie Mellon University.
You would think that a University at great as Carnegie
Mellon University would have a more efficient means of
time tracking, however CMU relies on paper timesheets for
its hourly workers. For my junior Information Systems
project course, I worked to develop a digital solution
to simplify this process. As the front-end developer on
the team, I ensured that the system was usable by a
variety of users including office administrators and
tech-savvy students. The project was developed on Ruby
on Rails and addressed all use cases with regard to
managing employee accounts, submitting hours and
approving hours.
Construction Junction - DIY
A design concept to support a local business.
For my Design and Social Change course, our class partnered with Construction Junction,
a local "non-profit retail warehouse supporting conservation through the reuse of building materials." Our project involved creating a design concept
for a new DIY feature. The basic idea of the DIY station is to display a finished product made with Construction Junction supplies, and provide instructions on its
creation in order to motivate customers to build it. Many Construction Junction customers are regulars who build as a hobby and our goal in developing the DIY section was to sell unsellable products,
increase customer visits, and build a community.We came up with both a design for the Construction Junction space, as well as a marketing strategy for the
DIY section's unveiling. Each of the DIY stations were indicated via a staple orange door featuring a DIY product and instructions on building it. We used an incentive system to motivate customers, as customers
who submitted Idea Cards of products they've built to be featured on the DIY station were given free supplies for their next creation. Our biggest goal was creating a sense of community, and we were able to accomplish this
by bringing various hobbyists together through the cyclical DIY idea submission and feedback process.
KnoWhere Mobile App
An app that tells you where to party.
KnoWhere is a mobile application
concept prototyped in Flash. It was created for Carnegie Mellon students to
publicize parties and events on the fly instead of planning ahead of time.
We found through our user research that many parties and events go un-noticed
simply because not enough people know about them. We wanted to avoid the task
of mass texting by allowing users to not only find out about multiple events
at once, but also the quality of the event from current attendees.
Users provide input to positively or negatively rate the event. The results
display in real time, and users receive points, as incentives to be the first
to rate an event.From our interviews and scenario building
exercises, we found that users not only want to know where an event is,
but also the most optimal means of getting there. Thus, we utilized GPS
to plan the most efficient route for the user to hit up the parties they
want to attend.
Build A Room
A website to help you paint your walls.
Build A Room is a website designed to help
the untrained homeowner accomplish the daunting task of choosing the right
paint color for a particular room. Its interface allows the user to choose
the type of home, mood, layout, and furniture in the room so that a unique
and fitting set of colors is suggested. The goal of Build A Room
is to bring out the designer in you. We conducted user research with
homeowners to find out their process for selecting paint colors.
We also performed a Bricks and Mortar at Sherwin Williams and interviewed
their employees to understand their process for suggesting colors. We used
scenario building and personas to ensure our features fit the needs of the
user.
BOSE Radio Redesign
A redesign of a terrible car stereo system.
For my final project in my
Human Factors course, I decided to redesign a relatively new BOSE
radio system in order to address some of the critical Human Factors
problems that cause drivers to defer more cognitive resources to the
secondary task of associated with the radio than they should. Due to
capacity limits, the more attention is devoted to setting the radio,
the less they have available to drive.I performed two Task Analyses
of the old interface. A lot of the problems that ensued included issues with
mapping and control order, clutter, vague labeling, inconsistency and lack of
feedback. The overall mapping has been improved as a result of the redesign.
Higher-level tasks such as power and mode selection are located above the CD
insert, and lower level controls are located below. The new mapping and
reduction in clutter also provide the user a better mental model of the
control order as all the buttons specific to setting a preset are located
on the bottom half of the controls. The combination of the 3 buttons, Seek,
Tune and Select function into one joystick provides better mapping and reduces
the clutter of the overall system. Furthermore, it promotes easier
understanding of control order because the user only has one knob with
which to manipulate as opposed to three separate controls.
Date
April 2010 - May 2010 Team Members
Yiwen JiaDaniel Ladenheim Anthony Zhang
April 2010 - May 2010 Team Members
Yiwen JiaDaniel Ladenheim Anthony Zhang
KinderTab
A vision of the educational technology of the future.
KinderTab is designed as ubiquitous computing technology that serves Kindergarten
teachers facilitate social relationships amongst their students.
The technology consists of KinderTab, an iPad type device held by
the teacher, as well as KinPins that are worn by students.
My team used Affinity Diagramming and Storyboarding to create
initial solutions for the teacher, however all the Kindergarten teachers
and educational coordinators we interviewed emphasized hesitation when
it came to technology taking over their role. In our design, the KinderTab
interacts with the RFID technology in the KinPins to track students
and perform analysis on their performance. It is meant to be unobtrusive
and perform repetitive organizational tasks such as selecting seating
arrangements, taking attendance, and recording story-time conversations
so that the teacher can spend their time working with students instead of
performing such tasks.
