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In order to showcase the power and flexibility of the database behind Freebase.com, we designed an exploratory tool that simplified the query-building process. The visualization builder defaults to a table-view of topics which can be configured, filtered, added to, exported, and saved. Users can also choose to view the data in a gallery, timeline or map.

My role on the project included:

• Developed initial concept for a simple tabular query builder.
• Created several wireframe iterations and worked with team to determine use cases and hone project goals.
• Directed project definition when feature requests began growing too large.
• Refined design based on usability tests, engineering constraints, and project redefinition.

Example design-work:

• 1st Wireframe
• More Features
• Final Design
• Sorting
• Visualizations

Freebase.com users want to be able to share information about themselves and find other users with similar interests. This information can be explicit, such as a hometown or birth date, or can be implied through the activities the user engages in on the site. The user profile was designed to show both kinds of information through a chronological reporting of activity, listings of saved views and bases, and a link to a person topic about them.

My role on the project included:

• Responsible for information design and page layout, including determining fidelity for different pieces of information.
• Write specification for how and what information should be reported as user activity.
• Design contextual help feature for connecting the user profile to a community-editable person topic.

Example design-work:

• Your Profile
• Person Topic
• User Activity

One of the primary design objectives of Freebase.com was to allow users to input data about anything and everything. In order to benefit from the robust graph database back-end, it was important to ensure data was added in the correct format, whether it be a date, text, integer or a link to an item previously entered into the system. However, from a form design perspective, the fields needed to allow the user to input information how they want to, instead of how the database required them to.

My role on the project included:

• Designed flexible inputs that accepted a variety of formats and gave immediate feedback to ensure the system's interpretation of the input was as intended.
• Tested and iterated interaction details for item selection when the input field offered options.
• Provided flow-diagrams, mock-ups and specifications to engineering, while also working closely with the developer to implement and refine details.

Example design-work:

• Auto-suggest
• Info Pane
• Interaction
• Date Input
• Select List

Initially, Freebase.com was designed with both a central discussion area and a help center for documentation. After some use, we found that this separation between staff-generated content and user discussions was less than ideal for both the users looking for help and the staff members trying to provide it. The central discussion area was removed and its content was simplified and integrated into the help center. This provided a single place for users to find answers and encouraged community by showcasing recent discussions and inviting participation.

My role on the project included:

• Worked closely with community manager to determine requirements.
• Designed data model to allow documentation manager to organize content.
• Created page layout and new discussion feature to clarify page function and direct user towards helpful content.

Example design-work:

• Discussions
• Help Center
• Final Design

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 Solution 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 the 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.