My portfolio 6.2

EXPERIENCE DESIGNER | RESEARCHERN C AI H L S M UA R

Nicholas Mauro | 2015


SUMMARY While developing soft skills and business acumen at PwC, I was first exposed to user centered design. It aligned uncharacteristically well with many of my diversions. I sought General Assembly’s UXDI to nurture my penchant for design in ways previously unimaginable. Consumer technology is integral to my life and I am humbled to love what I do. Perhaps most importantly, my focus on creating intuitive user experiences is ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated.

HOW I WORK I use a customizable set of tools and techniques, whose appropriateness match that of the task at hand. I work closely and often with stakeholders to ensure their needs are met. Abiding to these procedures allows me to create user experiences that delight, no matter its scale.

What follows are three projects which intend to exhibit my work.

OVERVIEW


MY DESIGN PROCESS

P 1R O J E C T


OVERVIEW

PROJECT BACKGROUND Q-Video (Quora Video) was a 2 week project done this past April for my General Assembly User Experience Immersive (UXDI) Course.

COMPANY BACKGROUND Quora is a question-and-answer website where questions are asked, answered, edited and organized by its community of users.

CLIENT DELIVERABLES (AVAILABLE BY REQUEST) • User flows • Sitemaps • Sketches (ranging from low to

high fidelity) • Survey/polling data • Usability interviews (with

takeaways) • Personas (with development

notes) • Annotated wireframes • Visual documentation (photo

and video) • Interactive prototype (built

with InVision)

OUR SOLUTION Our team sought to leverage Quora’s expert user base to answer questions in video form, in turn, competing with the AMA (Ask Me Anything) styled interviews seen on platforms like Reddit.

THE CHALLENGE While Quora is a website that is known for quality content, it suffers from a dearth of video content, in a increasingly video-centric web.

USER RESEARCH

TOPIC MAPPING

FEATURES DEV

AFFINITY MAPPING MOSCOW

In addition to the methodologies outlined below, my team and I developed a screener survey, a diversity of personas, and held multiple prospective user interviews along with contextual inquiries.


DESIGN

VIDEO TOPICS

VIDEO LANDING PAGEWe conducted 3 rounds of usability tests, iterating between each, to create the digital wireframes used for InVision prototyping.

The result of our hand drawn design studio (right). We used Design Studio to explore opportunities and efficiencies to better serve user needs (left).

VIDEO ‘NOW PLAYING’

USER PROFILE

Q Videos

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Video Questions

Video Answers

Profile Image

FEEDS FEATURED VIDEOS

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About Me

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About Me04/16 - 3PM

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User Name, user catchphrase1 upvote by Musical Matt

Upvote | 143 ShareComment 2 …

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Upvote | 143 ShareComment 2 …


PROTOTYPE

CLICK EITHER HIGH-FIDELITY WIREFRAME TO VIEW INTERACTIVE

PROTOTYPE! (ANY PLACE ON EITHER MACBOOK)


P 2R O J E C T

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MY DESIGN PROCESS

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Unleash your potential

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NAME

EMAIL

John Doe

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PASSWORD ••••••••••

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OVERVIEW

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NAME

EMAIL

John Doe

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COMPANY1change (formally Energy Excellence) is a boutique consulting firm offering programs that help global companies unleash the human potential within their organization(s)

CLIENT DELIVERABLES (MOST AVAILABLE BY REQUEST) • User flows • Sitemaps • Sketches (ranging from low to





with InVision)

PROJECT BACKGROUND 1Change (for iOS) was a 3 week project done this past May for my General Assembly User Experience Immersive (UXDI) Course.

OUR SOLUTION To port the many loved features of the 1Change online platform to to an intuitive and native mobile experience.

THE CHALLENGE People want to make positive changes in their lives but need guidance, motivation, and a way to keep track of their progress.


USER RESEARCH

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NAME

EMAIL

John Doe

[email protected]


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I held user interviews to discover some facts and opinions held by potential users of the 1Change app. The results of these interviews were carefully analyzed to ensure they properly impacted our design.

Persona 1: Casual User

Rene, 23 Outdoor guide and reporter Based: Colorado Single, No Children

Context • Meditation

• Rock Climbing

• Commuting

• Curious/Casual User

• Reduce Stress/Anxiety

User Behavior • Uses iPhone as his primary

computer

• Uses mental thought exercises to

improve

Likes • Likes OmniFocus sync between devices

• Likes challenges w/ rewards

• Like social integration

Dislikes • Notifications can get annoying

• Hard to incorporate tech routines into

daily life

• Doesn’t like when maintenance is

necessary to make tech valuable

Needs/Wants • Needs data to be easy to

understand

• It’s easier (and preferred) to log

thoughts when on the go.

“Technology allows me to get the most from the environments I love.”

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Our Primary Persona: Rene, the new user. He’s ready to improve his self-awareness and the quality of conscious thoughts. He likes having nice things, but dislikes feeling defined by them.

Conducted a screener survey to identify potential user interview subjects. From there, with the help of contextual inquiry, we sought to understand habits and behavioral trends of users.


DESIGN

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John Doe

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User testing helped inform us of our personas and guide our approach to implementing 1Change’s many features.

Early design wireframes. By dint of following an iterative design process, these were put to the users to gather information. This information was synthesized and incorporated into the next iteration of the design.

Multivariate Testing helped in/validate design assumptions. With it, we were able to determine which combination of design variations performed the best with users.

Initial Design

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Multivariate Testing

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We wanted to keep the circle while also giving users valuable and insightful feedback about how they were

doing in each of the four core areas of Body, Heart, Mind, & Spirit. We designed a few different visual representations and were pleased that people #1.

OriginalResilience

Test Results Graph

We used paper prototyping to quickly (and cheaply) test design assumptions. It’s invariably easier to change a prototype than the final design and thus it was critical we had means to iterate our in-progress user interfaces.


1CHANGE: AN IOS WELLNESS BETTERMENT APP

Unleash Your Potential


NAME

EMAIL

John Doe

[email protected]


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PROTOTYPE

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EMAIL

John Doe

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After several iterations, our team had an interactive prototype built for demonstration. By interacting with the prototype, one will see illustrations of how the app may (if properly coded) allow a user to:

• Create a new 1Change account • Partake in a 24 question resiliency

questionnaire • Select an area for personal

improvement • Select a “practice” to aid in the

enforcement of the aforementioned improvement

• View and manage their progress


P 3R O J E C T

MY DESIGN PROCESS


OVERVIEW

PROJECT BACKGROUND I <3 NY (for iOS) was a two week project done this past April for my General Assembly User Experience Immersive (UXDI) Course.

APPLICATION BACKGROUND The I <3 NY app is a 2015-initiative by New York’s Division of Tourism. Its aim is to provide NYC-bound travelers with recommendations regarding the top 200 attractions, as evaluated by New York’s Tourism Promotion Agents.

OUR SOLUTION Design an iOS app that is both easy and enjoyable to use for the widest-range of people; therefore bolstering NYC visits, stays and in-turn, tourism-related revenue.

THE CHALLENGE New York City tourists want more effective, digitally-led ways to manage their sightseeing.

CLIENT DELIVERABLES (MOST AVAILABLE BY REQUEST) • User flows • Sitemaps • Sketches (ranging from low to





with InVision)


USER RESEARCH

User testing helped inform us of our personas and guide our approach to implementing I <3 NY’s features.I conducted contextual inquiries to

study how people perceived our brand, and how they plan/manage their sightseeing adventures!

Our Secondary Persona: Cher, the local. She lives in Manhattan and enjoys frequent visits to NYC’s innumerable sightseeing locations.

Used the MoSCoW technique to reach an understanding with stakeholders on the importance they place on features.


DESIGN

Iterative design allowed us to continuously improve our design, increasing its fidelity with each round. Above image shows an earlier design while the left shows a screen capture from the interactive prototype.

These hand drawn stretches are the result of a design studio. Next, using Sketch (OS X), we digitized our high-fidelity analog wireframes.

I <3 NY utilizes x-callback-url through two means: Calendar: Upon completion, a user’s itinerary will be exported to their calendar backend of choice (gCal, iCloud, Outlook, etc.). What’s more, a x-callback-url is automatically placed in the url section of the calendar event, putting users a mere two taps away from accessing I <3 NY’s sightseeing info homepage. Maps: From any number of the menus within the create an itinerary feature, a user can tap for a direct link to Google Maps (or iOS Maps) ... with the appropriate destination pre-filled!


I <3 NY: IOS TRAVEL COMPANION

PROTOTYPE

Unleash Your Potential


NAME

EMAIL

John Doe

[email protected]


Sign Up

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VERIZON 22%4 21 PM:

After several iterations, our team had an interactive prototype built for demonstration. By interacting with the prototype, one will see illustrations of how the app may (if properly coded) allow a user to:

• Create a mock NYC sightseeing schedule

• Export their newly created sightseeing schedule to a calendar app of their choice

• Easily view any of their planned sights on a maps app of their choice


FAVORITE SOFTWARE • Sketch 3 • OmniGraffle • InVision • POP • Ulysses (markdown) • Google Analytics • Silverback 3 • Animation (Hype, Pixate) • iWork (Keynote, Numbers, Pages) • Google (Sheets, Slides, Docs) • Evernote • OmniFocus

TECHNIQUES I LIKE • User Centered Design • Competitor Analysis • Stakeholder Interviews • Contextual Enquiry • Content Audit • User Interviews • Heuristic Review • User Testing • Affinity Diagramming • Persona • Wireframe • Card Sorting

TOOLBOX

HARDWARE I USE • MacBook (12inch) • iPad Mini 3 • iPhone 6 • Kindle Voyage • WATCH

I worked (as a Senior Associate) for the consulting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for nearly five years after earning my degree. In early 2015, I left PwC to pursue a career better aligned with my diversions. These interests include: design, philosophy, consumer technology, and human-computer interaction. Possibly most of all, I enjoy the process of learning for practical application, to become a better friend and citizen.


THE SUBJECT OF ME

Some hobbies and diversions: • Author of regularly-updated:

thewrongsideof.com • Early explorer and purveyor of consumer

technology • ESL volunteer tutor (through English in

Action) • Nutritionist and personal trainer on coach.me • Seasonal Zog (football) competitor