Real Moms

(presented at GLS Conference 2011)

Games have the unique ability to put us inside an experience. In Real Moms I explored how to use experience modelling and games to bring real qualitative data (21 women, 50,000 words) to life. Presented at the Games+Learning+sSociety Conference 2011.

Flockjot

Entice to Extend. Cheap to Expensive. Feasible to Ridiculous. We often explore insights by mapping them on two by twos. Flockjot lets distributed teams collaborate in real time to find the most meaningful axes.

Art Loop Open

Following in the footsteps of Art Prize, Art Loop Open is an art competition with a $50,000 purse and winners determined by public voting on over 200 pieces of art displayed around Chicago’s Loop. We were hired by the Chicago Loop Alliance to perform user research and design a compelling visitor experience.

Co-chair of the 2010 Design Research Conference

In its 9th year, the IIT Institute of Design’s Design Research Conference (DRC) is the leading professional conference on design research. DRC 2010 was the most successful yet, selling out at over 400 attendees and featuring Tim Brown, Don Norman, and Rick Robinson amongst 27 other speakers.

Betacup Challenge Finalist: Champion Cup

Champion Cup was one of three runners up to the $10,000 top prize in the Betacup Challenge, out of 430 entrants. The challenge was to reduce the number of non-recyclable cups that are thrown away every year by creating a more convenient alternative to the reusable coffee cup.

Featured in Core77, FastCompany, CNET and Starbucks.com.

Motorola ARMR

Rugged phones have mastered toughness, but there is more to a construction site than a harsh environment: there is also a constant need for information and feedback. MOTO ARMR addresses this need. The assignment was to design an innovative new cameraphone for Motorola, and the final presentation was to senior members of the Motorola design team at their headquarters in Chicago.

Modular Grill

The modular grill is a solution to the problem of small spaces, smaller kitchens and the observation that the size of grill you need depends on your situation; a college dorm-room has vastly different requirements to a dinner party Korean BBQ.

Acanthus Intranet

The Intranet allowed Acanthus to:
- Track relationships with 6,000+ contacts at 1,000+ institutional investors
- Track their investments in 1,000+ private equity funds
- Manage our clients’ fundraising
- Make it easy for nontechnical users to use and contribute to this data

I pitched, designed, and project managed the intranet, which replaced the dedicated research function at the company and is still in constant use.

Goose Island Scrap Yards

Photography to support research on the lives of scrap traders on Goose Island.