Work : Design Concepting

Design Concepting

Design + Strategy

A few more samples to show how design thinking (design as problem solving and integral to strategy) can help better
meet business and consumer needs.

Reading Coach

Amplify Reading Coach

Amplify (formerly Wireless Generation) serves the K-12 educational market with a a wide range of software applications, mobile and web-based, many focused on making state-required assessments easier and more efficient. The Reading Coach application can be thought of as an online tutor for children struggling with core literacy skills. Amplify licensed the technology from Carnegie Mellon University and had a limited amount of time remaining to decide if and how they wanted to go to market with the tool. Working with the Product Manager, I helped conceptualize how to leverage the technology into an interface that met pedagogical requirements, could be used by children with little to no reading ability, and was engaging.

Click the image or arrows below to browse through this project's samples.

First dialog - ensuring user has audio access

Part of the authentication UI for low-literacy user

First time set-up, showing calibration and avatar selection

Student's Home Screen

Confirm dialog

Transition to Read Mode

Corrective reading UI

Record answer UI

Reward/social play at end of exercise

Teacher's Home screen

Teacher UI - Student Detail

Teacher UI - Review Student's Session UI

AuthenTec

AuthenTec biometric reader

AuthenTec was an early innovator in biometric scanning, and their readers were incorporated into many PC laptops at the time of this project. This UX work helped ensure that users both found the reader and understood everything they could do with it (such as logging into web sites). With a CEO that challenged everyone to not limit their imaginations, I felt free to suggest industrial design adjustments (such as on-product graphics) to help meet these goals, as well as ideas for more easily acquiring accurate fingerprint data, which was challenging at the time. Not long after we finished this project, Apple acquired the company.

Click the image or arrows below to browse through this project's samples.

Industrial design suggestions - reader placement

Industrial design suggestions - lights and/or on-product graphics

The implementation of the reader reminded me of a razor blade—not something you intuitively wanted to touch! These suggestions attempted to provide a way to make a finger swipe a more obvious and welcoming action.

Control panel setup

Control panel setup - assigning fingers to tasks

Prompting user to log in using the reader for subsequent boots (OS integration)

Idea for an easier way for users to provide fingerprint data

The swipe action was a bit challenging in their implementation - pressure and angle had to be just right. I suggested this alternative idea of coloring in a circle until the system had the data it needed.