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Interaction Design & User Experience

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I have been solving information challenges since 1995. I am currently leading mobile payment user experience design at Monitise for Visa. Before that I was at Eveo, where I built mobile user experiences for health management apps. I started my career in UX at Isobar, a large digital agency, where I worked on global UX redesigns for companies like Adidas, TreSEMME, Boost Mobile and many others.

My time at Academy of Art's MFA W/NM program has been spent establishing a healthy toolkit to draw from in my every day work as a user experience practitioner. Here, I've learned not only to conceptualize a design approach, but also to research and validate a design with users with rapid protoypes and conduct formal usability tests. The W/NM program has also given me a grounding in design fundamentals: typography, hierarchy, grid systems as well as the capacity to build UI prototypes with tools like HTML5, jQuery and CSS.

My thesis Road Case was featured at 2013 Spring Show at San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts. You can view most of my thesis documentation here.

what i do

Portfolio

This is a sampling of work I have done while at AAU.

• Opera companion
  UX Design, jQuery Mobile
  x

  

  Opera Companion
  UX design, Mobile Web Tech

  This concept is a tablet-based companion app that would give SF opera patrons an interactive tool to augment their opera experience: offer subtitles preferred languages, digital program, map of the venue, request an usher, or get the opera's soundtrack.

  This prototype was built using jQuery mobile, and can best be viewed on a large or small tablet. Executed during a Directed Study: Interactive Media WNM275 (Mobile Web Tech), with Martha Breen.

  Launch project View UX Docs
• Macy's Outfit Builder
  UX Design
  x

  

  Macy's Outfit Builder
  UX DESIGN

  This document represents UX design deliverables for an outfit recommender concept for Macys.com. This was a self-initiated assignment, which shows the results of a user-centered design approach to a solving a problem or client request, and prefaces wireframes & user flows with defined user targets and considerations, competitor/peer research, and an estimated timeline for design & build.

  View UX Docs
• MATRIX SOUNDTRACK
  Sound Design
  x

  MATRIX SOUNDTRACK
  SOUND DESIGN

  This assignment for Sound Design gave me a chance to try a job I was always curious about: foley work & environmental sound for movies. I have replaced this scene from The Matrix with entirely new background sounds, dialog and other sound effects.

  I've often wondered how, according to the canon's parameters of the Matrix world, characters are able to speak, as they are not using their human vocal chords in the "real world", only their mind... translated electronically in the Matrix. I tried to create dialog that seemed more digital in its origin.

• MOBILE BANK APP
  Visual Design
  x

  

  MOBILE BANK APP
  Visual Design

  This is a visual design concept for a mobile banking application, that makes NFC payments in retail scenarios. The user logs in with their banking credentials, and can select one of their cards to use for an NFC tap payment.

  This concepts features a very clean, flat design, with large touch targets for a mobile user. The design is meant to be platform-agnostic, but would scale easily to Android or iOS interaction guidelines. This exercise was to show mobile UI best practices, as well as annotations to communicate gestural interactions to a developer or client audience.

  View Storyboard
• LUNCH / MEET
  Mobile Web Tech
  x

  

  LUNCH MEET
  Mobile Web Tech

  This jQuery mobile web app is a geo-location powered social application designed to help co-workers coordinate their schedules to meet up for lunch on a large campus.

  This concept features a map or list view showing nearby coworkers, with the ability to message them to coordinate meetups. There is also a view that shows the menus of the various cafes on the campus.

  Open Project (best on mobile device)
• collage
  Visual Design
  x

  

  Self Portrait Collage
  Visual Design

  This assignment from Digital Applications called for making a collage by overlaying related images that matched the tone and weight of the primary image.

  To create this piece, I used Photoshop to create a layered mosaic of smaller self portraits.

• Style Guide
  Visual Design
  x

  

  Style Guide
  Visual Design

  The Visual Design Directed Study was an immensely productive phase in developing my thesis, which centered on the look, feel and tone of my project.

  This document is an example of a design styleguide, which establishes the color family, logo, typography and screen layout of the primary templates of Road Case.

  View PDF
• Portrait: Eliot
  Photography
  x

  

  Portrait: Eliot
  Photography

  This portrait was an assignment from Digital Capture, where we were given free rein to choose a subject and style of portraiture.

  I wanted to capture Eliot in his natural setting (the convenience store near his apartment), to make him more comfortable with being my subject. I waited until the "Golden Hour", the period near sunset where ambient light is prime for photography, and asked him not to pose in any particular way. He was quite hungover from the night before, but I think this image still captures his whimsical nature.

• Kitty Mixer
  jQuery, HTML5
  x

  

  Kitty Mixer
  javascript, HTML5

  This fun piece was an experiment using javascript and the HTML5 canvas to create a piece that mixes images of various cats to create new cats.

  This assignment was from my Directed Study: Interactive Media WNM275 for Responsive web.

  Open Project
• Random
  Type Animation
  x

  Random
  Type Animation

  This short video, created during coursework for Digital Typography, is meant to capture the essence of the word "random", using AfterEffects for animations of type.

• Portrait: Sabrina
  Digital Capture
  x

  

  Portrait: Sabrina
  Digital Capture

  This portrait of my new wife, Sabrina, was taken in Golden Gate Park. The assignment was to demonstrate the rule of thirds, and subject association by perspective.

  I was particularly happy with the tones of the flowers, how they correspond to Sabrina's lips and face highlights, and the natural frame that the rose bush created around her.

• Cookie Time
  Responsive Web, PHP, MySQL
  x

  

  Cookie Time
  Responsive Web, PHP, MySQL

  This simple, responsive website was an assignment for my Directed Study in PHP. We were to create a restaurant website, whose menu would be powered by a MySQL database and delivered by PHP to the browser.

  Visit Project

My Day Jobs:

• Visa payWave Mobile

  At Monitise (2011 - present), I lead product design for our mobile payment apps in North & South America. I am currently the lead UX designer for the Visa payWave Mobile project, which puts the power of NFC-enabled payments onto Android, Blackberry and Windows mobile devices.

  Visit the Visa payWave Mobile center to learn more.

  Watch a demo at MWC Barcelona.

• My Lap-Band for iPhone

  At Eveo (2010 - 2011), I was the UX designer for this healthcare app, which was a coaching & companion app for patients undergoing Lap Band surgery, to help support them through recovery.

  Visit My LapBand on the App Store

• TRESemme.com

  At Isobar (2008 - 2010), I was the lead UX designer and information architect for the redesign of TRESemme.com, where I revamped their global navigation and page templates to make it easier for customers to explore their product lines across locales.

  Visit TRESemme.com

• Example deliverables

  For work examples from these and other projects, please contact me.

Thought Leadership:

• Presentation: Designing for Mobile Payments

  I recently gave a talk at MobXCon 2012 in Berlin, highlighting UX design methods that solve the challenges of designing mobile payment experiences. I am currently writing a book on this topic.

  Slideshare

• Article: Four small businesses that are rocking social media (iMedia Connection)

  I was approached as a consultant to write a featured article about the effective use of social media and geo-location apps by retail shops.

  Read the article

contact me

Contact ME

Please reach out to me if you would like to talk more about UX design, and how we can change the world around us.