Design | Input & Interaction | Usability | User Research | Metadata & Search | Information Management
Design
1 “Future Mobile Devices for Physical Therapists”
For this project, we designed a futuristic wrist-worn mobile device for physical therapists at the Universityof Washington Medical Center. 
Our team performed field contextual inquiries with key stakeholders. We used a rapid prototyping process to create several iterations of our initial design interface, which were evaluated by stakeholders. We conceived of a working HTML prototype of the menu system and sub-menu directories. Learn more ...
Skills Learned: Contextual inquiry, prototyping, scenarios, personas, metaphors. Extensive project management
Results: This project placed first among a panel of invited Nokia, Microsoft, and Intel researchers.
2 Wireframes of Web Study Portal
Initial screens for a web interactive screening session and interview sequence were developed to enable data
collection of user-defined specifications. Each session screen had its own wireframe in Lo-Fi in Visio which was then adapted into a hi-fi prototype using Axure RP Pro 5
Click here for interactive prototype...
Skills Learned: Hi-fi wireframing, user-specification, Axure RP Pro 5, Visio
Results: A user interface was developed with backend database functionality.
3 “Student Grants Portal” A student grants portal was devised from interviews with key stakeholders and administration officials. We identified faculty and students as the main users of our system and 
conceived of six subcategories to address grant finding, application, and information sharing. The main objective of the grants portal was increased student and faculty cooperation for research, grants funding and scholarships.
Skills Learned: Systems analysis, wireframing, class diagrams, User interface design.
Results: Work was presented to administration in charge of planning grants and funding portal.
4 “Design of Customer Kiosk: Kid Vid City” This project entailed constructing a user experience 
from business specifications. First, research was conducted of small user-centric consumer experiences (LEGO, Build-a-Bear) and customer kiosk interfaces (Best Buy). Next, a proposal was developed to incorporate budget specifications and corporate mission, and business model. Next, an initial prototype was developed and a Google Sketch-up of our proposed Brick-and-Mortar store was presented, along with the customer interface kiosks.
Skills Learned: User experience, UI, information visualization, business specifications, kiosk development
Results: A full proposal was presented.
Usability
5 “Heuristic Evaluation of Treo 750 Smartphone”
I reviewed the Palm Treo 750 smartphone, running the Windows Mobile 5 OS. A total of 28 separate deficiencies in two evaluations were discovered using Nielsen’s usability heuristics and severity/fixability 
ratings. Three critical recommendations, all related to the interface, were suggested as high priority items: make consistent menu scrolling features throughout menus, add a back button instead of relying on a “catch-all” OK button, and add a “change button” icon to assure that the user isn’t guessing about what buttons mean. The largest set of heuristics problems found related to user recall and memorization of menu choices and external phone buttons.
Skills Learned: Heuristic evaluation, interaction design.
Results: Improvements from this evaluation were estimated to increase speed and accuracy by 25% for the end user, resulting in a large performance gain.
6 “Using Fitts' Law to Compare Three Input Devices”
Fitts Law is very important in the design of user interface buttons and controls. For this exploratory study, three participants compared three input devices (Wacom Bamboo Touch Pen, Mouse, and Touchpad) using
Fitts’ Law to determine which device performed best in terms of speed and accuracy. Subjects performed a series of input actions on changing graphical targets using the FittsStudy Program (v.2.0.6.0) designed at the University of Washington.
Skills Learned: ANOVA testing, Fitts Law, interaction design.
Results: Conclusively demonstrated that mouse's information throughput was superior to that of digital pen and touchpad.
Input and Interaction
7 “Zero Button Mouse Technique”
For this project, our team created a zero-button mouse interaction technique called "Orthogonal Reverse 
Cross (ORC)." Inspiration for the project came from original work by Wobbrock and Gajos (Big 3MB PDF) on goal-crossing with trackball and from www.dontclick.it. Ten design sketches were ideated and a lo-fi prototype written in C# was tested on volunteers in a controlled setting. Learn more ...
Skills Learned: Usability testing, interaction design, interaction sequences, paper prototype.
Results: Based on the no-click design, users scored an error rate of less than 10% for target aquisition, given distractors from 4 directions. Click here for executable demo.
Metadata and Search
8 “Lodgings in the Pacific NW”
This project involved systems analysis and XML development of user-defined specifications in the creation 
of a website for lodgings in the Pacific NW. Initial sketches were created and then a systems analysis of metadata was performed to synthesize a schema (XSD) document. XML transformations (XLT) were performed to render an instance document in HTML.
Skills Learned: Content management, XML, XLT transforms, XSD schema, XHTML.
Results: A nice functional website with interchangeable data structures
9 “Comparison of Search APIs of Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo” A study was designed to compare the user ratings of unbranded search results with the search rankings provided by Google, Yahoo, andMSN. 
First, an API search tool was implemented to gather user search queries during a set of information seeking tasks. Next, users were presented with a list of the unbranded search results from all three search engines and asked to rate results as either “relevant”, “partially relevant,” or “not relevant.” Finally, data analysis was performed on all search results to compare user relevancy ratings against those provided by Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The goal of this study is to give users insights about the relevancy of search engine results and the effects of branding. Learn more ...
Skills Learned: Search metrics (NCDG, MRR, Precision), Google/Yahoo/MSN APIs (SOAP-AJAX).
Results: Even though Google is the most popular search engine according to users, search results from MSN were comparable to Google in terms of user search relevance.
User Research
10 “Educational Interfaces for Native American Students” Research work centers on designing novel educational interfaces with multimodal functionality for Native American students studying environmental science. Extensive interviews were conducted with teachers from custom-designed study instruments. A 
pilot survey on graphical paper was devised and used to inform semi-structured interview schedules.
This project will include development of functional specifications for future development and interative design. Research from this project is the first of its kind and will inform educational researchers of indigenous populations and should give educational administrators a workable tool for environmental science fieldwork.
Skills Learned: User-centered design (UCD) and prototyping of UIs, multimodal interaction and interface design, cognitive modeling, research methods, statistical analysis.
Results: Ten interviews and pilots were conducted. An detailed survey on digital paper and semi-structured interview instrument were designed and piloted. Generalized results from interview data will be used in functional specifications.
11 “Study of Educational Attainment by Women in Rural Towns from 1978 to 1998” Using selected data from the 1978 and 1998 General Social Survey (GSS),I tested the proposition that there is a 
statistically-significant relationship between the size-population of a community in which a woman lives and her educational attainment, as measured by completion of high school graduation in that community, when compared with a similarly-situated population of men.
Skills Learned: ANOVA, hypothesis testing. SPSS software was used extensively throughout this project.
Results: This original study showed that there was an educational benefit afforded to women living in larger urban settings in 1978, but that by 1998, any benefit of this education advantage was negligible.
Information Management
12 “Business Intelligence Toolset” A fictional company, Hipster Clothing Company, was created and a business intelligence dashboard was prototyped in relation to existing business specifications that were part of a planned strategic alignment for the company. The dashboard served to inform executives and 
line-of-business managers of shared, interoperable metrics within a particular division. Expenditures and alerts were added to make the BI wireframe more realistic.
Skills Learned: business analysis, functional wireframing, strategic initiatives, program management, information visualization.
Results: A new understanding of how to organize the effective use of business information and assure that there is a strategic alignment of business objectives with technology implementation.
13 “Indigenous Information Storage and Retrieval” For this independent research, I examined 
indigenous storage and retrieval. First, a description of indigenous knowledge was proposed through a review of the literature. Next, organizational memory from the perspective of information theory, was applied in the domain of indigenous methods for information storage. Finally, examples of both traditional and modern types of storage media were shown.
Skills Learned: information theory, knowledge creation
Results: Research is ongoing in conjunction with educational interface design
Virtual Representation of Me!
A Good Quote: "The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time." - Bertrand Russell
Contact Me
My email address is if you want to contact me. I am usually available via email on a regular basis.