Interwoven LiveSite Sales Solution › a prepackaged site for internal sales teams

Interwoven LiveSite, a component-based content management solution, is marketed and sold with partially built websites to allow for easy demonstration and deployment. The Sales Soultion website is designed to provide sales teams with easy access to product-related information, such as news, events, sales programs, customer information, and product collateral. The design and taxonomy is geared towards mid-size technology firms, but the basic design is meant to be flexible enough for many customers to modify so the website fits their specific needs.

my role on this project included:

• Conducted brief interviews with account executives and sales teams to determine information needs and common vocabulary.
• Designed faceted taxonomy to allow for meaningful content contribution and dynamic display of information.
• Developed visual design and layout.
• Created modified faceted browsing interaction to facilitate document location.
• Worked closely with development team to design components and create site templates.

* ia & ui design

WIC Program Guide › an employee resource and management communication tool

Governmental programs are notoriously complicated, for the public as well as staff. At Women, Infants and Children (WIC), staff are often faced with complex situations and have to make quick decisions when helping clients — all while making sure they are following procedure and correctly interpreting constantly changing governmental regulations. With the new program guide, managers are able to communicate procedural changes to all staff, and staff can quickly and easily find answers to their questions without having to search through emails or binders.

My role on the project included:

• Conducting focus groups and observation sessions of users in their work setting.
• Developing and testing initial information design using paper prototype.
• Coding and scripting website for easy update using Macromedia Contribute combined with Dreamweaver templates.
• Working closely with client throughout entire process, from needs assessment to choosing the final visual design of website.

* ia & ui design

Online Time Study Reporting › tracking how employees spend their time

Government agencies are funded from a variety of sources, based mainly on how staff spend their time. The online application allows for simple daily input of hours and supports a complex review and approval process by managers.

My role on this project included:

• Gather system requirements from Finance department and future users.
• Design and test interface.
• Develop application in ColdFusion.

* ia & ui design * applications

Alameda County Social Services › information @ the speed of life

In a effort to save money and improve customer service, the Alameda County Social Services Agency took it upon themselves to redesign their website and intranet. Written in ColdFusion and managed with Interwoven Teamsite, the new website provides community members and clients with information they need in a format geared towards them. The staff section, formally only accessible from within the County network, is now available for workers in the field simply by signing in. Over 1000 documents, previously only available in hard copy (and often outdated) are now online, easily accessible and, most importantly, up-to-date.

My role on the project included:

• Develop new site architecture based on user tasks.
• Create visual design and develop site, including ColdFusion applications and database design.
• Building template pages and navigation structure allowing for easy business-user update to content.

* ia & ui design

Bay Area Census › local census data for local organizations

Many local organizations use census data in developing plans for the future, yet finding the most basic information is quite difficult when using the resources provided by the U.S. Census Bureau. To ameliorate this situation, local governmental organizations are designated to provide location specific data to the public. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission and Association of Bay Area Governments Library, in charge of Bay Area census data, chose to develop a website to make the information freely available. After the website was live for one year, the library decided to redesign the website to make it more usable, instead of just updating the data where necessary.

The current site was developed to accommodate users who regularly work with census data, such as city and transportation planners, as well as those who need demographic information but are unfamiliar with the census and its terminology. By including context sensitive help and clues to direct unfamiliar users, we were able to overcome this challenge and develop a site that tested well with both user groups.

My role on the project included:

• Conducting a heuristic evaluation of the original website and other census websites.
• Developing site architecture, designing and coding several prototypes.
• Understanding organizational constraints, such as lack of dynamic webpage support after my departure, thereby developing the site as static HTML pages.
• Conducting user tests with two groups of users (those familiar and unfamiliar with census data) and incorporating findings into new design.

* ia & ui design

ArchMiner › a Java-based exploratory data analysis application

For our final Masters Project, Leah Zagreus and I designed an exploratory data analysis tool that enables researchers at the Center for the Built Environment (CBE) to investigate data collected by the organization's Occupant Satisfaction Survey. The tool displays visual representations of the survey data in a crosstab format. The user sets up the survey questions to be compared, and the resulting charts allow responses to questions between and within surveys to be evaluated. The ArchMiner interface was built using Java Swing components with charts generated by Visual Mining NetCharts Server, a commercial charting package. The backend is a multithreaded application written in Java using the JDBC to pull data from a Microsoft SQL Server database.

My role on the project included:

• Keeping group on schedule, managing group and client expectations and organizing project documentation.
• Scheduling and participating in needs assessment interviews and user tests of four iterations of the interface design.
• Working with design group to develop two paper and three interactive prototypes of the interface.
• Coded aspects of the interface using Java Swing components.

* infoviz * ia & ui design * applications

Digital Syllabus › a coursework organizer for students and instructors

Digital Syllabus is a Web-based service designed to provide a single space for students and instructors to view, organize, and manage course information and related links. It offers a structured framework in which to display events, tasks and resources commonly associated with a course plan for the digital age — one that taps the hyperlinked and data-driven potential of the World Wide Web in an interactive way.

Conceived as a set of form-based wizard pages (designed to collect information from all members of a course instruction team) and display pages (designed to broadcast information to students and instructors alike), Digital Syllabus provides a customized view of each user's course load. It combines data manipulation and visualization techniques such as selective filtering, color-coding, and column sorting to provide simple answers to specific questions while maintaining a 'big picture' viewpoint.

My role on the project included:

• Developing system goals and user needs via informal interviews and competitive analyses.
• Designing and developing MySQL database backend.
• Coding aspects of interface in PHP including writing necessary database queries.
• Assisting in creation of use cases and interaction flows.
• Creating project website.

* ia & ui design * applications

Napster's Demise › an interactive timeline

A special report for the Berkeley Intellectual Property Blog (bIPlog), this timeline plots the events surrounding the entertainment industry's case against Napster, ending in the proposed purchase of its assets by Roxio in November 2002. While the debate is still open on the legality of sharing files via technologies like Napster, current trends suggest that intellectual property rights will continue to become stronger, thereby stifling the creation of similar, perhaps more useful tools. This piece is envisioned as an informational tool, one that is both easy to navigate and pleasing to the eye.

My role on the project included:

• Researching key events in life and death of Napster.
• Writing content.
• Designing and developing Flash movie and writing ActionScript to interact with the user in a fluid and predicable manner.

* flash * infoviz

MusicMaps › visualizing relationships in rock music

A visualization prototype inspired by the All Music Guide's Music Maps, which provide users with a visualization of related musical styles and influences. Vivien Petras and I felt that although the content is valuable and interesting, the design of the maps is not intuitive and does not allow for exploration above certain levels of data clusters. Our design, using Flash and ColdFusion, uses consistent names and aggregated music styles into schools for a simpler high-level view. We also used other techniques, such as rollovers, color, size and proximity to show relationships as well as animation to show a detailed view for each school of music.

My role on the project included:

• Collecting information regarding relationships between school and styles of music, including grouping styles into schools.
• Working with Vivien to develop basic design and interaction techniques.
• Laying-out design and choosing color palette.
• Designing and coding aspects of the prototype using Flash and ActionScript.

* flash * infoviz