Linda Brooking Portfolio - User Experience

User Experience Design Internship at Intermec Technologies

While working in the UXD group at Intermec, I have had the opportunity to work on a wide variety of user experience design projects. The projects included visual design work, interaction design, information architecture, usability studies, heuristic evaluations, and competitive analysis. The projects involved a wide range of Intermec hardware, firmware, and applications, including key products with future release dates.

For the visual design work, I produced, created, and delivered a large number and variety of graphics including icons, buttons, startup screens, web graphics, setup menu graphics, and wizard and tools graphics. The graphics were created to work across the wide range of screen sizes and resolutions of Intermec products. I created both new designs and repurposed existing designs/graphics into new uses. Here are a couple of samples of my design work that have been recently released on the 70 Series devices:

Accelerometer Icon

For this icon I came up with a few initial ideas, then transferred them to Illustrator and started working on variations. One design branch was created by me while the other was based on research and some initial designs done by previous employees in UXD. I created a wide range of variations which were then presented to the others in UXD, and narrowed down. Then they were tested among others who had not seen the design and asked what the icon meant to them. The final design was chosen based on all of the input.

eMDI - Icon and Button for Focus Lock

Within eMDI , Intermec's Mobile Document Imaging Solution, is a setting called focus lock in which the focus at a certain distance is locked. An icon was needed to let users know that they had this setting turned on, but not be so obtrusive that it blocked the ability to see the document being scanned. In addition, it needed to work for a variety of screen sizes. The initial ideation for the icon was with hand drawn sketches, then I took the best of those and created them in illustrator. This allowed for a greater number of variations to be easily created, and then they were shown to others not familiar with the project and asked to tell what it meant to them. The best was then chosen and then used within the software. A toggle button was needed to quickly turn on and off focus lock, so I created a four state button based on the icon design, two in the on state (regular and pressed), and two in the off state. Multiple versions were created and in the end an off/on "light" along with an unlocked version of the focus lock were chosen to better clarify for the user the toggle state.

One of the interaction design projects involved determining the best two dimensional focus navigation paradigm for a particular user interface. On paper, I came up with 4-5 variations for the focus behavior. Then I was given an older flash prototype of the interface, which I modified by adding in missing assets, and programmed new button behaviors to accommodate the focus paradigms. Each variation was evaluated using the prototype. One paradigm stood out from the others and is being used within that interface.

A usability study with three advance users was conducted on a key product. During this study, I was one of the observers taking notes. The findings from this study indicated an issue with the structure of one of the menus. Based on that issue, a more focused usability test was conducted, followed by a card sort activity to help with the restructuring of the menu. For this study, six users were divided into three groups of two, where I mediated one of the groups, directing them through both activities. The findings from the groups were evaluated and led to a change in the information architecture of the menu.

Throughout my time within the UXD group, I was frequently asked to heuristically evaluate icons, user interfaces, interaction designs, layouts, and various items within Intermec products.

Most recently, I undertook a competitive analysis between the CS40, an Intermec handheld computing device, and three other competitor's devices. The manager of UXD initially walked me through the process with the CS40 device, and I undertook the remaining analyses myself. This consisted of walking through a checklist which was adapted from the IBM OOBE standard process. It included important unpacking and setup steps for the device including user/usability items for each device in order to see how well the others did compared to the base device. Each session was audio recorded and I talked through my observations/thoughts/feelings about the device as I was going through the unpacking and setup of the device. In addition, photos were taken of the entire process, and screen shots were added following the initial evaluation. The audio was transcribed and placed in a detailed report for each device. Then the overall results will be summarized in a chart for a future PowerPoint presentation.

Accelerometer Icon Development

Accelerometer Icon and Connection Manager Icon on Device

eMDI - Focus Lock Icon Development

eMDI - Focus Lock Icon on Device

UX evaluation of Fashion Entities on Amazon.com

This group course project was undertaken in coordination with Amazon.com. For this project, the primary goal was to evaluate user experience concerning fashion entities (apparel brand stores) on Amazon.com as they had no previous evaluation, and report the findings and recommendations to an Amazon.com panel.

Following the preliminary proposal, a test plan and kit were developed for this study. These contained the four question which the evaluation was designed to answer and all of the materials needed to undertake the study, including: the recruitment ad, pre-screening questionnaire, phone interview questions, consent form, testing protocol and script, post-task questionnaires, and post-evaluation interview. Six participants were recruited, one for the pilot test, and five for the study. The testing took place in the Laboratory for Usability Testing and Evaluation (LUTE) at the University of Washington. The testing involved six tasks, the first was an exploratory task on the Tobii X120 eye-tracker, and the remaining five were think-aloud scenario-based tasks that were live-moderated and used Morae Recorder and Observer to capture the data. After each task, a post-task questionnaire was administered and after all tasks were completed, a final post-evaluation interview was conducted.

The qualitative data, in the form of video recordings, was analyzed for common themes and outstanding statements concerning the participant's experiences, while descriptive statistics were used to analyze the quantitative data from the post-task questionnaires. Along with researcher observations, the data was triangulated to check the participant's consistency of response, and from this the findings and recommendations were made. In general, the pages were found to be easy to use and navigate, however there were additional improvements needed to be made in content and selection in order to draw customers back over time. The findings and recommendations were positively received by the Amazon.com panel.

Skills used:Research design, questionnaire design, participant handling, moderating skills, observation skills, technical communication , statistical analysis, protocol writing, interview protocol creation, qualitative data analysis, transcription, PowerPoint, presentation skills, usability testing equipment and software knowledge.

LUTE website design and implementation

The Laboratory for Usability Testing and Evaluation (LUTE) did not have a website in the fall of 2009. In the past LUTE had a website, but it had been incorporated into the Human Centered Design and Engineering Department website. As the LUTE Research Assistant, I was assigned the task of implementing a new, updated website that would be a solid resource for those wanting to use and learn more about the usability lab.

In my approach to designing the website, I took into account the close relationship that the lab had with the department. It is the only independantly funded lab within the department that allows students and other researchers to use it's facilities. With that in mind, the design I choose tied it to the department website using a similar layout and color scheme. The architecture of the website was slightly changed from when it was incorporated in the departmental website and a new logo was designed to give a unique and memorable identity to the lab.

To create the website wireframe, I used both Expression Blend 4 Sketchflow and hand coded XAML. Using this foundation, I hand coded the HTML and CSS in Dreamweaver for the actual website.

Skills used:UI design, Information architecture design, interactive wireframe using MS Expression Blend 4 Sketchflow, XAML, XHTML, CSS, usability testing, graphic design, typography, Dreamweaver CS4, Illustrator CS4, Photoshop CS4.

LUTE website

Information Architecture

LUTE website wireframe

Instant messaging in the workplace: Examining use differences between managers and independent contributors

This course project was based on a literature review conducted to investigate prior research on concurrent instant messaging (IM) in the workplace. For this project, the primary goal was to examine the differences in instant message (IM) use between managers and independent contributors within the workplace using emperical research methods.

Data collection consisted of a web-based, digital survey in which the url was distributed to other students within the course, on the department blog, and to any contacts know to have used IM within the workplace. The results were statistically analyzed in SPSS. It was found that differences in IM use was most likely due to difference in work tasks and native language. The findings were presented in a research paper and a powerpoint presentation.

Skills used: Research design, survey design, statistical analysis, SPSS, technical communication skills, PowerPoint.

Promoting Oneself on Flickr: Users' Attitudes and Strategies

This course project involved examining self-promotion attitudes and strategies of Flickr users in the context of computer mediated communication. Following the acceptance of the project proposal, an interview protocol was created and revised. A literature review was then undertaken to examine if similar research had been done previously and to help build a foundation for the study. Ten participants, who were regular Flickr users from the area, were recruited. Each were interviewed using a standard protocol that we had written. The interviews were transcribed from the audio recordings and the qualitative data was analyzed using sorting and coding techniques. We found this to be a little studied area, and that there were specific attitudes and strategies used by the participants. The findings were presented in a paper and a powerpoint presentation.

Drawing upon the results of this research, a small group of the researchers prepared this data as an extended abstract for submission to the poster presentation section for Group '10, a conference that promotes the bridging between computer supported collaborative work and information systems. The abstract was accepted and the poster was presented at the Group '10 conference.

Skills used: interview protocol creation, literature review, interviewing, qualitative data analysis, coding, techical communication skills, PowerPoint.

This Charming Candy - user centered web design

This course project involved working with a newly formed company to provide them with a template for a website. "This Charming Candy" was the start-up company we choose to work with for this project. The project consisted of standard steps involved in practicing user centered web design. A project proposal was created which outlined the scope of the project,the assumptions and constraints, along with a competative analysis. A user/task analysis matrix was made, and using that information, personas were developed. One of the personas developed is shown here on the left. The next step in the project was to prepare a digital card sort, using WebSort. Based on the results of the cardsort, the information architecture of the website was created and a paper prototype developed. Based on the paper prototype, a digital prototype was created and then usability testing was completed using test scenarios we created. Finally, the coded template was presented to our clients.

We consulted with the company propriators through the entire process. In addition to completing the process above, we assisted in content creation as the company only had the logo design shown in the prototype at the beginning of the project. Although they liked the template we created, they choose instead to use a blog and an Etsy.com shop where they had a pre-built shopping cart and did not have maintain a website on their own. I felt that their logo and product colors did not work well together, so I created another version of the homepage design that addressed this issue.

Skills used: XHTML, CSS, Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, WebSort, proposal writing, persona development, card sorting, paper prototyping, digital prototyping, usability testing, user/task analysis, usability testing scenario creation.