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User Research & Product Design in the climate technology space.
Work
Work
()Research & Writing Samples
()Research & Writing Samples
A few of my hobby websites
A few of my hobby websites;
Human Centered Design for Volvo Group
in my role as .masters candidate
Context Sponsored by Volvo Group & MACK Trucks, part of recent graduate study at Carnegie Mellon.
Key Stakeholders | Feature development for industrial-electric vehicles, sponsored by Volvo Group & MACK trucks to improve the experiences of drivers and other stakeholders in the commercial electric vehicle industry.
Our Mission To learn and improve as product innovators and to motivate change in a legacy company to help underserved users.
Contributions
User Research | Conducted 15+ extensive interviews & deployed surveys {n=187} to research & validate product requirements.
Human Centered Design | Participated with our team of 6 Carnegie Mellon students through a comprehensive integrated design & product definition process (detailed below).
Led the final delivery phase of our 6 month process.
Outcomes
Useful, usable, and desirable design for sponsors and users.
User focused innovation presented to the product & innovation teams at Volvo Group and MACK Trucks.
Process For Human Centered Design Project
Carp Solutions
Organic Plant Food
in my role as .Designer/Executor
Our Mission Create a new economy based on sustainable fishing practices to replace the harmful chemical-agricultural techniques that dominate our food production in the western US.
Context Improving a public domain fish-protein-hydrolysate manufacturing process from an old USDA journal then building a business.
Contributions
Design | Conceptualized product roadmap from market opportunity & product definition, through launch and growth, then balanced features informed by both user feedback and manufacturing requirements.
DFM | Created a new supply chain by applying commercial salmon fishing techniques in a new domain, and rapid prototyping. Then built a multi-channel distribution system by finding and developing channel partnerships.
User research | Customer interviews, co-design sessions, web analytics.
Package Design | Maintained ISDA compliance (don't get me started), lead a design team to create packaging for 3 retail SKUs.
CPM | Opened new sales channels, maintained channel partner relationships, developed referral program,
Outcomes
3 retail SKUs with strong customer retention and a fantastic brand.
Improved the product over time through customer feedback.
Exited the business with a rich collection of failures and lessons learned.
Why look at this?
Look at the SIZE of this problem!
This was an honest attempt to improve water quality across the entire western continent.
If we could remove enough harmful fish, AND replace chemigation techniques with good old fashioned carbon-sequestering plant food in one step it would dramatically improve our wetland ecosystems.
The Giant Pineapple Shaved Ice
in my role as .Designer/owner
Our Mission Create a delightful, contactless service experience for customers.
Context Haven't we all thought about owning a food truck? The recent global pandemic was my team's opportunity to provide a contactless social experience and flip a food truck.
Contributions
Design | Assessed a new market opportunity and designed a service to match.
Marketing | Created brand identity, developed assets, Go-to-market planning and deployment.
User research | Interviewed competitors customers to identify and prioritize product differentiators.
Leadership | Led a team to improve and operate a mobile food service business.
Management | Scaled the business with structured customer feedback. Kept the books and staffed the company.
Outcomes
Product market fit.
Sold business for profit (+24.1% ROIC) after 2 years profitable operation & summer wages for the team.
Delightful product for thousands of happy customers.
Why look at this?
Is running a small business better than an MBA? I don't honestly know, but I do know that we CRUSHED it!
This little side project created SIX freaking jobs during the height of the COVID pandemic.
We orchestrated a service to absolutely delight thousands of people in troubled times.
Envision Yoga Mats online store
in my role as .designer/developer
The Mission Learn to host an online store outside of CMS environments and build on HTML/CSS skills.
Context I noticed a collection of terrible products on Amazon, and want to build an alternative. After co-design with a manufacturer and a big import/shipping rodeo I have a garage full of excellent yoga mats and this web project is to help me sell them.
Contributions
Market research | Deployed web scrapers on Amazon reviews to inform product definition and value opportunity analysis.
Design | Co-designed with the finest exercise mat manufacturers in Guangdong Province.
Connected manufacturing specifications (size, thickness, color, material selection) to features and benefits from user research.
Developed product and brand identity from competition research.
Illustrated the functional and decorative elements for the exercise mat to drive meaningful product differentiation in a saturated market
Outcomes
Novel product innovation for yoga mats.
An online shop for my product development experimentation.
Learned about Github & version control.
Still selling yoga mats
Why look at this?
I design and build functional e-commerce platforms.
I play nicely with manufacturers.
You should buy a yoga mat. They are honestly great and I have so many in my garage.
Nyxt - open source Lisp web browser
in my role as .UX Lead
The Product
Programmable, keyboard driven web browser.
Unusual & powerful modal interaction model.
Extensible in Lisp to the point of madness
My Mission
Help the engineering team develop a novel product to machine augment the web browsing experience for super users.
Customer Context
Programmers need three things to operate; a coding environment, a terminal, and a browser. This straightforward use case has millions of permutations, and our ongoing work is to bring open source programmability to the browser part.
Contributions
Strategy
Established pre-series-A milestones.
Conducted business model innovation process.
Designed and conducted mission critical Lean Startup experiments.
Established product metrics.
Defined market opportunity and conducted experiments for three business models.
People Research
Conducted 20+ user interviews and 2 surveys.
Completed JTBD task analysis.
Validated customer personas with user research.
Validated customer journey (pains, gains).
Interaction Design
Persistently nudged engineers to prioritize positive early user interactions (~380 UX related Github contributions in a 16 month period).
Published a tutorial for new customers.
Published instructional video series.
Interface/UI Work
Collaboratively structured, then delivered the visual design system & coherent brand identity.
Designed and delivered several beautiful theme extensions.
Delivered layout and written content for the homepage-conversion-machine.
Illustrated compelling graphics for published content.
Results
Strategic Outcomes
Provided much needed business model clarity, and changed the fundamental output of the project from assorted code to validated learning.
Tested and confirmed value hypothesis & growth hypothesis.
A system for observing demand in our early-adopter niche.
Data validated monetization strategy to carry the company forward for years to come.
Identified a Blue/Purple Ocean of competing factors.
Research Outcomes
Delivered valuable context for narrowing the scope of engineering efforts.
Published content for community engagement, data driven insights for discovery phase.
Communicated customer requirements to engineers and beyond.
Prioritized product roadmap with data and a clear product strategy.
Interaction Design Outcomes
Dramatically improved early user experience to increase user activation.
Improved activated user experience & product visibility.
UI Outcomes
Simplified and unified thousands of decisions in ongoing interface development.
Launched paid extensions that you can buy today.
Attractive homepage with increased conversion rate.
Delightful illustrations that communicate the purpose of the product.
Why look at this?
Impactful user research in complex domain.
Magnificently broad interaction point.
These designs increase user activation.
Product market fitting in action!
Workplace Design at CMU
in my role as .masters candidate
Context
My previous career was selling and installing photovoltaic solar systems.
That industry is a hot mess and I wanted to generate some insights to improve a few small parts of it.
The Project
Elaborating human dimensions in the process of selling solar PV systems.
Learn a great design process and elaborate a better way for people to navigate buying solar panels.
Why look at this?
Condensing research into helpful visual artifacts to build empathy across roles.
Watch me pull big insights from small parts of workflows.
Designing for manufacturing & assembly
in my role as .masters candidate
Team
Toaster
Substitutes
Disassemble
Re-assemble
Part Efficiency
Functional Reqs.
Insights
We begin by forming a cross-functional team.
Designing for manufacturing & assembly
in my role as .graduate student
Team
Toaster
Substitutes
Disassemble
Re-assemble
Part Efficiency
Functional Reqs.
Insights
Next we select an existing product from our problem space to explore.
This toaster will do nicely.
Designing for manufacturing & assembly
in my role as .masters candidate
Team
Toaster
Substitutes
Disassemble
Re-assemble
Part Efficiency
Functional Reqs.
Insights
At this stage we identify substitute products and assess product reviews.
Our purpose here is to elaborate customer requirements and establish importance for each subsystem.
Designing for manufacturing & assembly
in my role as .masters candidate
Team
Toaster
Substitutes
Disassemble
Re-assemble
Part Efficiency
Functional Reqs.
Insights
With care and a recording device -- we disassemble the toaster, recording detailed observations for each component, and labeling meticulously.
Designing for manufacturing & assembly
in my role as .masters candidate
Team
Toaster
Substitutes
Disassemble
Re-assemble
Part Efficiency
Functional Reqs.
Insights
Rebuild the product, completing a cost assessment for each component.
Re-assembly provides an opportunity to really consider each component individually and to identify candidate parts for elimination.
Designing for manufacturing & assembly
in my role as .masters candidate
Team
Toaster
Substitutes
Disassemble
Re-assemble
Part Efficiency
Functional Reqs.
Insights
Using our component level observations we can now calculate the important cost analysis factors: assembly efficiency and part count efficiency.
Empowered by this thorough cost analysis, we then bring our attention back to the product as a whole problem solving unit.
Designing for manufacturing & assembly
in my role as .masters candidate
Team
Toaster
Substitutes
Disassemble
Re-assemble
Part Efficiency
Functional Reqs.
Insights
Armed with our cost analysis we elaborate the product's functional requirements; main, critical, and auxiliary, along the lines of material, energy, and information flow.
Designing for manufacturing & assembly
in my role as .masters candidate
Team
Toaster
Substitutes
Disassemble
Re-assemble
Part Efficiency
Functional Reqs.
Insights
Finally we organize insights and sketch concepts for improvement.
From here we can do it all: simplify the existing design, reduce manufacturing costs, prioritize features, develop new forms. Even cook bread!