Select Works

WEBSITE REDESIGN

  • CONTEXT: NeWorlDeli is two blocks from my apartment. The food is incredible, the service is warm and personable, fostering a sense of community within the neighborhood. Its signature offering is a small stage with live music every single night. The owner is a dynamic family man in his early 60’s with the natural charm of a rock star. Maintaining his café’s website is not high on his list of priorities.

  • PROBLEM: The website as it stands features photos 6+years old, a text-heavy homepage, no prices for menu items, and a visually unappealing music calendar. An opportunity for more consistent business from patrons beyond the neighborhood is being wasted by leaving the website neglected.

  • MY ROLE: As Project Manager, I manifested our mission: get a sense for what makes this place really special and incorporate those elements into the website redesign. First, I organized a group pilgrimage to the café and then orchestrated a stakeholder interview. We talked to patrons and came to understand what keeps people coming back. Once we gathered this information we began our redesign process. I led our group collaboration sessions where I would delegate research and design responsibilities. I focused on prototyping and copy editing, and storytelling for our group presentation.

  • LESSONS LEARNED: Project management was an all-encompassing challenge. As a leader it is very important to me to carefully curate the group dynamic and to ensure that the group is invested in one another’s success, in addition to our success as a collective. I learned a valuable lesson about carefully managing the timeline of a project. Our final act was a 14-hour marathon group session the day before our presentation.

AI-ENHANCED DEVICE DESIGN

  • CONTEXT: We were tasked with designing a device that utilizes AI as a key feature of its functionality. Our group decided to sink our teeth into the concept of improving our recycling habits as a society.

  • PROBLEM: One that thing stood out prominently during our research phase were people’s apathetic and even cynical attitudes towards recycling. This was brought on by two main factors: the progressive worsening of climate change in recent decade, and a disheartening sense of ambiguity regarding what to recycle and what tangible impact one’s individual recycling was actually having.

  • IMPACT: Our immediate goal was to combat the lack of information fueling people’s disillusionment. We designed our at-home recycling bin to offer real-time behavioral suggestions to help users reach weekly recycling goals. The bin’s technology showcased exactly how the materials recycled would be repurposed. It added a social accountability component by compiling neighborhood recycling standings within a two-block radius of the user’s home, while allowing for the option to challenge neighbors to a friendly recycling competition at any time.

  • MY ROLE: Copy editor/ screen prototyper/ game designer. I oversaw all copy and style guide responsibilities for the project. I prototyped screens for the device’s app accompaniment and designed the social accountability feature.

  • LESSONS LEARNED: It was the final project for the boot camp session, and it was really cool to work with a team of 5 in which everyone was comfortable bringing their own strengths to the table. It made for a cohesive and balanced collaboration. The experience also strongly reaffirmed the value of research: recycling feels like it has been around forever but is nowhere close to being universally accepted or adopted.

BOOT CAMP SPECIAL:

CREATE A BUSINESS AND CODE ITS HOMEPAGE

  • CONTEXT: Fresh off of our local business website redesign project, we dove into learning the ropes of HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap. A bit of a left-brain diversion from our UX Design focus. It was a rewarding challenge to apply a brand-new skill while showcasing some creativity. It instilled a confidence in me to be able to communicate in coding language with engineers and developers when collaborating.

  • IMPACT: I love records and I feel a sense of pride in my neighborhood. I might have talked myself into a side-hustle.

APP DESIGN

  • CONTEXT: Inspired by one of our group members living right next to a funeral home, we realized funerals are not something many of us like to think about. Especially not in the context of an app.

  • PROBLEM: Planning for a funeral can be one of the most stressful experiences of a person’s life. Tough decisions must be made quickly by a person or small group of people who are simultaneously navigating the stages of grief.

  • IMPACT: We sensed an extremely underserved niche: an app that helps you plan funerals. Our initial goals were ambitious. With our research, we identified the three biggest pain points in funeral planning vowed to solve for them all: finding the right funeral home/financing the service, making contact with loved ones to notify, and gathering all the required documentation.

  • MY ROLE: Researcher/prototyper. I headed up user interviews and usability testing. I crafted our user persona based off our research and prototyped the main feature we rolled with, our AI chatbot.

  • LESSONS LEARNED: We got stuck about halfway through the project, spreading ourselves thin trying to build out too many features. Upon receiving feedback, we realized that we needed to pull back and focus on one main feature. We learned that we can’t be everything for everyone. By focusing our energy on one distinctive feature, the uniqueness of our concept could shine through.