Portfolio for Karen Donoghue, User Experience Designer
contact: karen (at) humanlogic.com

Hands-on expert in product experience concepting, prototyping, capturing and prioritizing user stories (using Agile process), information architecture, wireframing and interaction design. I also provide expert reviews of existing user experiences and prototypes. Expert with design tools including Adobe Creative Suite, OmniGraffle and code-generating tools for HTML/CSS/JQUERY, Flex, Processing and Silverlight.
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Consumer Electronics integrated with Web 2.0 User Experience
 

test Key member of small startup team at Frame Media during 2008-2009, working as User Experience design lead in collaboration with engineering, product management and content strategy for the FrameChannel platform for wireless photo frames.
 
test Defined product user experience feature requirements, feature prioritization and complete UI design specification for major "OnDemand" release of the FrameChannel.com platform. Led device UI interaction for the Kodak EASYSHARE Wireless Digital Frame (released Dec 2008). This device UI allows one-touch access to real-time news, weather, stock quotes, celebrity updates and sports served as RSS feeds from the FrameChannel.com site.
 
test Delivered information architecture diagrams of user experience, wireframes and UI design specifications optimized for software engineering for web 2.0 platform, as well as partner frame manufacturers for device user interface (e.g Kodak, DLINK).
 
test Established Usability Testing lab for wireless frames and delivered actionable enhancement recommendations for engineering.
 
test Collaborated closely with software development team to create working prototype of a next-generation interactive touch UI frame in Flex, demonstrated at CES 2009. Tools used also included Adobe Photoshop, Omnigraffle. Coded interactive prototypes in HTML/CSS and delivered complete design specs for new content API product.

 

 
The Kodak Easyshare W series wireless digital photo frame includes FrameChannel as part of the touch-based user experience on the device (top image).

The experience on the frame is customizable through an easy-to-use web site (bottom image).

Click images to see more details.
 
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Mobile Application UI Design/Usability
 

test User Experience Design consultant to Associated Press, AP Digitial business unit in 2008 on user interface design and usability for the Mobile News Network (released for browser in May 2008, and in July 2008).
 
test Worked with AP Digital product and business development team to define user interactions on iPhone for browser-based UI, and later for native SDK UI. Key interactions included overall application navigation design and taxonomy, navigation of articles and viewing images and video.
 
test Delivered rapid usability critiques for "live development" builds to AP leadership team, with prioritized and actionable recommendations to enhance user experience.
 
test Designed UI concept sketches for use of location-centric news navigation on iPhone.
 
test 300,000 downloads on the first day of release for the iPhone.
   
test Runner-up for Best iPhone Web Application, Apple Design Awards 2008

 

 
The Mobile News Network – powered by the Associated Press – is a multimedia service offering iPhone users access to local and national news from trusted sources

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Mobile Application UI Design/Usability Inspection
 

test ProxPro Prompt is a location-centric mobile service that helps users calculate their fastest travel choices for their driving routes, avoiding real-time traffic congestion. The RIM device application uses maps and graphics to visualize the "time to leave" and best route navigation choices.
 
test Delivered rapid usability critique to CEO to enhance the Prompt product user experience, with actionable recommendations to enhance user experience attributes such as "first use", specifying route and general product navigation.
 
test Delivered rapid analysis of Prompt's calendaring UI presentation, and delivered actionable UI recommendations to streamline and simplify upcoming event navigation.
   
test The new UI design enhances a user's ability to understand the impact of traffic and weather data on drive time and route choice, and act on this information using one or two clicks.
   
test Quote from CEO Julian Bourne:
"Your speedy analysis and specific UI design recommendations helped enhance our new features, putting them in easy reach for users without adding unnecessary complexity."

 

 

Proxpro Prompt is a mobile application for
the RIM device. The application understands where you need to be, when you need to be there and displays the fastest route and time to leave to avoid real-time traffic congestion.
     
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Mobile Device Platform User Interface/Tools
 

test From 2005-2007, Senior UI designer at Motorola and member of the Consumer Experience Design Studio dedicated to UI platform design for MOTOMAGX Linux/Java UI powering the RAZR2 V8. Monthly travel to Chicago, Austin, Sunnyvale and other Motorola development locations to collaborate with software teams.
 
test To address the challenge of designing customized user experience on handsets, worked as part of design leadership team to define the syntax and semantics of a UI framework to separate the presentation layer from underlying logic. This new UI framework enabled presentation parameters to be defined declaratively using XML, Javascript and SVG and custom UI components.
 
test This UI shipped as MOTOMAGX on the RAZR2 mobile device in December 2007, and this new UI platform enabled UI design changes to be done declaratively and result in unique UI designs.
 
test Led UI design of a tools chain for UI modeling and specification using the same language as the underlying platform. This tool was built using the Eclipse framework, and allows both designers and developers to access the data model and define screen-to-screen flow logic for real-time rapid prototyping on the actual development platform.

 

 

The Motorola RAZR2 V8 was released in December 2007, and was the first Linux UI handset employing the MOTOMAGX UI platform. Above, UI components for music player displayed on a color external display.
     
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Mobile Device Platform User Interface
 

test SavaJe Technologies developed the SavaJe OS, a Java OS for advanced mobile phones based on Sun Microsystems' Micro Edition. SavaJe offered a Swing-based phone development platform for creating richer user interfaces for handsets.
 
test Lead User Experience Designer for SavaJE OS from 2003-2005, responsible for design of overall OS user experience (25 applications) and underlying UI components (40 widgets).
 
test Led UI design for three reference themes for platforms, including all visual and audio assets. These themes were segmented by lifestyle for sports enthusiasts, youth and "connected executive" users.
 
test In April 2007 Sun Microsystems acquired the intellectual property assets of SavaJe, now used in JavaFX Mobile.
 
test Established mobile device usability laboratory, and performed over one dozen usability tests both in lab and in the field. Defined all UI design specification formats to allow for rapid development cycles by software engineering.

 

 
At the 2006 JavaOne conference, their Jasper S20 phone was the device of show.
 
     
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Information Architecture and UI Prototyping
test Liquidnet is an electronic marketplace that facilitates institutional equities trading for asset management firms worldwide. Liquidnet consolidates and delivers the institutional equities market directly to the desktops of more than 550 buy-side trading firms.
 
test User experience design consultant, collaborating with product development and company founders to envision a first-generation prototype of the user experience.
 
test Liquidnet had defined the functional specifications for their product but had not yet developed a prototype to show potential investors, customers and partners.
 
test Assisted Liquidnet in conceptualizing the product user experience and produced a prototype that presented a clear product visualization. Developed information architecture and narrative as guides, and designed prototype screens with a storyboard that illustrated the user experience and illuminated key components of value proposition to customers, investors and partners. The prototype included a novel means for displaying real-time liquidity information and facilitating effortless trading negotiations between participants.
 
test Liquidnet successfully used the prototype in meetings with potential investors and partners. The UI design work on the prototype informed the design of the Liquidnet user experience for the ultimate product, which launched in April of 2001.

 

 
Developed information architecture and user task flow diagrams (top image), and designed rapid prototype screens with a hand-sketched and digital storyboards (bottom image) that illustrated the user experience and envisioned key components of value proposition to customers and investors.
     

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User Experience Prototyping for startup acquisition integration
 

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test Raging Bull is a leading dynamic online financial community providing individual investors with access to discussion boards, free real-time stock quotes, financial news, and company financial data. Following AltaVista's aquisition of Raging Bull in 2000, asked by CEO to design a working prototype of a new user experience that combining both the Raging Bull and AltaVista Money user experiences.
   
test Worked with Raging Bull and AltaVista executives to develop a conceptual demo of the newly merged user experience by analyzing the business goals of Raging Bull and AltaVista, and the goals, values and profiles of the two online communities.
   
test Led strategic sessions with executives to rapidly articulate and refine the customer experience strategy. Developed several models for information architectures and user interface wireframes which were reviewed with the team for feedback.
   
test Built HTML prototypes used as a test bed for gathering market research from users to ensure a good user experience. Challenges included integration of navigation and taxonomies of two distinct online communities and creating a well-integrated co-branded experience. Deliverable featured 18 screens, showing details such as message boards, postings, and a searching UI for rapid quote searching. This demonstrable test bed enabled the team to conduct online focus groups to validate the user experience quickly among target users, and as a demonstration to show senior management.
   
test The newly-merged visual branding scheme combined the identities of AltaVista and Raging Bull and produced a succesfully integrated online experience. A new visual model for navigation made it easier for users to understand the value of each section and aspects of the user experience such as curved-tabbed elements and the enhanced Quote & Message Board search were adopted as part of the overall AltaVista Money channel user experience.

 

 
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The newly-merged visual branding scheme combined the identities of AltaVista and Raging Bull and produced a succesfully integrated online experience.

Aspects of the user experience such as curved-tabbed elements and the enhanced Quote & Message Board search were adopted as part of the overall AltaVista Money channel user experience.

Click image above to see more detail.
     
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User Experience Prototyping for highly transactional financial services product
 

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test Hired by Fidelity Investments to act as consulting user experience strategist in the product planning stage of the trading site "PowerStreet Pro".
   
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 Product featured online tools and resources for qualified active traders who wanted a single online financial environment. Other features: Real-time and Nasdaq Level II quotes, the ability to place trade orders (including complex options orders, such as straddles and spreads) and an integrated user experience displaying centralized real-time quotes, account holdings, third party stock charts and news from a wide range of independent sources
   
test Worked with Fidelity executive management, product team members and target customers in rapid brainstorming sessions to develop a conceptual mode for user experience and a demo of the product’s user experience for use as a "talking piece" with potential customers.
   
test Developed hand-sketched iterations of user experiences, then working HTML mockups for user testing. Mockups were handed off to a development team for coding and rapid usability testing, and adjustments added into the prototype.
   
test Delivered wireframes and HTML prototypes for new UI elements, including a single, aggregated view of a security, in the form of a "palette" of security-centric information from which users could execute a trade transaction on a security. The design also featured a portal-like home screen which aggregated mission critical data - such as alerts, watch lists and "pushed content" - into a single unified view.
   
test The working demo enabled Fidelity's customers to experience the value of the PowerStreet Pro product and to provide feedback before the product was built. The demo also helped sell the product concept and value proposition to senior management.

 
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Employed rapid prototyping techniques to articulate product functionality and communicate business benefits in a cohesive, easy to demonstrate Web-based mockup.

Demo was used as a live test bed for feedback from customers, the development team, and senior management.

Click image above to see more detail.

 

    
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© 2010 Karen Donoghue