Product Launches
Sensors woven into any normal commercial fabric by any manufacturer + attached Bluetooth dongle facilitate control of phone features e.g., texts, calls, listening to podcasts or music.
Swipe your cuff one way and a text is read to you. Another way and a streaming song is skipped. Or whatever you want the gestures to do.
Screenless interfaces -- coming to a built environment near you.
Meanwhile, Jacquard was an interesting experiment. One of those "great tech, world not ready-yet" innovations. Not enough elite early adopters commuting on bikes in urban environments (the primary use case).
GOOGLE Project JACQUARD
Presence/gesture recognition creates a touchless interface on Google smartphones.
Turns out that applying this technology to this use case overlaps with privacy issues if not handled with care. Responsible tech is developed in alignment with the needs and expectations of real life: users and their contexts.
PROJECT SOLI
Conducted an end-to-end behavioral study series among Google employees that utilized 3D-printed smartphones, with follow-up interviews.
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Generated a detailed conceptual frameworks for radar-embedded mobile interfaces.
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These were the first User Experience Research findings for Project Soli.
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Touchless gesture tech launched on Google Pixel 4.
Samsung Milk Music was a radio streaming service with a gorgeous and enticing user interface developed in startup mode and later intended exclusively for Samsung mobile devices. The service pivoted to managing other streaming music apps and then was dropped entirely by Samsung.
Years later Samsung is still in the business of promoting audio content, especially music, on its mobile devices.
It's a long yet informative and gripping tale.
SAMSUNG
MILK MUSIC
Sole UX researcher conducting exploratory to late-stage formative research on music enthusiasts' fundamental values and resulting behaviors to deliver useful, usable, and delightful music experiences.
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Close alignment with product management and design teams. Ensuring excellent FTUE + forever happiness.
​Bill Gates wanted to show off a natural user interface using the Microsoft operating system at the Consumer Electronics Show. The inner technology was being invented at Microsoft Research and university labs. world wide.
The first prototype was a repurposed IKEA coffee table.
The entire team was incentivized by HR to actively participate in the UX research, including going into the field. One protocol was inadvertently invented by the engineering team during a research session, and encouraged and documented thereafter.
The use cases were fever dreams that went from Direct to Consumer, to Enterprise in Consumer settings. TV weather and election maps use this technology today.
MICROSOFT PIXELSENSE [PLaytable]
Led the first multi-phase consumer ethnography to investigate US home adoption of a Natural User Interface entertainment device.
Data collection was comprosed of household and 1:1 interviews, semantic testing, user's mapping their home activity patterns, home tour interviews, lab product demo sessions streamed to the team, and dense foam form factor evaluation.
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Led to a business model and product pivot - a win for generative research​​
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Software and hardware development requirements and use cases