User Experience
Portfolio
Starting as a technical writing intern in 1992 at Health Micro Data Systems, I've worked my way up the ranks slowly by earning credibility as both a Usability Engineer and an Interaction Designer.
When I moved to California, I landed a job at Informix Software as a Technical Writer and soon began running usability tests. Working as a Research Scientist for NASA taught me to be methodical and pay attention to detail.
Becoming a Usability Engineer at Oracle fulfilled a goal I had after taking my first Human Factors course, but becoming an Interaction Designer has fulfilled a lifelong dream.
More than 19 years of Design, Usability,
& Technical Communication Experience
Software Design and Usability
I was one or just three Interaction Designers that supported Oracle's entire SOA tools and software applications offerings.
Although we were officially part of the User Experience group, we considered ourselves embedded within the SOA software
development teams, working directly with them instead of acting as consultants. The result was Oracle's fastest growing
product line, receiving many top awards, and bringing in more revenue for Oracle per quarter than most of the other software companies in the world generate in a year.
UX Portfolio
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
Service Oriented Architecture
As a designer of software user interfaces, I need to have expert knowledge in all the following areas: - Design Principles - Usability - Human Psychology - Software Technology - Graphical Design
- UI Look and Feel Standards - Domain Expertise
- End Users Profiles - Application Task Flows - Interaction Patterns - Computer Science
- Technical Communication
UX Portfolio
Designing Interactions
Principal Interaction Designer
All of Oracle's User Experience designers must contribute to the corporate guidelines for the official desktop and browser look and feel, which changes with each new release or version of the software.
As part of the Tools division, we were also responsible for designing the technology stack components that are used to build Oracle's applications.
UX Portfolio
Supporting Oracle's Look and Feel
Standards & Guidelines
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a
middleware architecture solution that includes the following applications:
- ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) - Business Rules
- B2B (Business to Business)
- BPEL (Business Process Management) - Human Workflow
- BAM (Business Activity Monitoring) - CEP (Complex Event Processing) - JDeveloper
The common thread with all these applications is that they run on a middleware server which is connected between a database and an end-user's browser on their personal computer.
SOA
Middleware
Service Oriented Architecture
Each week, User Experience designers and managers of the Server Tech Tools division meet for 90 minutes to discuss all the
outstanding bugs and issues pertaining to the next release of JDeveloper, which is Oracle's Java and SOA software development tool. Some of the issues are bugs logged by software developers, others are generated from usability activities, but must come from the Interaction Designers attempting to
determine corporate standards and guidelines. I was responsible for the standard
arrangement of the multiple panes within the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) based on user's expectations of where they should appear by default.
SOA
JDeveloper UI Design Team
SOA within the JDeveloper IDE
BPEL is a visual design environment intended for business users to layout their business processes in graphical form.
B2B is a middleware application intended for the quick electronic exchange of information and business.
Both of these products require a high level of support from Interaction Designers working directly with the software development teams. Our User Experience group has adopted the strategy of embedding ourselves into each team in order to develop tight relationships and be able to make immediate decisions on the direction of the product.
SOA
Working with Developers
BPEL and B2B Software
Complex Event Processing is an emerging technology that attempts to manage streaming events and data in real time. The UI needed to assist users in managing all the possible complex events that may arise must show the flow of data as it moves from the sensor's edge into the SOA middleware infrastructure where it can rerouted to other applications and databases.
I designed the first UI at Oracle for a Complex Event Processing visual diagramming tool, allowing users to shape the flow of their events by dragging objects onto a canvas and connecting them with lines and arrows.
SOA
Designing the UI for a New Tool
Complex Event Processing
BAM provides real-time performance
management by letting business users design their own custom dashboards.
A performance dashboard should allow
managers and executives to measure, monitor, and manage their business processes in order to improve their company's daily performance. BAM allows end user to create their own set of dashboards and reports from within an easy to use design environment.
I recently led the effort to improve the entire look and feel of the product by adopting the new Oracle Fusion Middleware standards for BAM dashboards.
BAM
Real-Time Performance Dashboards
Business Activity Monitoring
BAM was on display as part of Oracle's
Innovation Center on the grounds of the 2007 OpenWorld conference in San Francisco. For three days, I manned the booth with members of OAT Systems, the leading consulting firm for RFID implementations. We demonstrated how workers in a retail store could instantly scan misplaced clothing items during a cycle count, and then monitor the inventory levels on a BAM dashboard before locating replacement items in the back storage room.
BAM
Demonstrating Real-Time Monitoring
of RFID Tagged Inventory Items
As a designer, it's my responsibility to pass on my knowledge of good design practices onto the end user.
This can be best done in BAM through design templates that can be customized by
dashboard developers to fit their own business needs.
BAM
Helping Users to Design Dashboards
Dashboard Best Practices
As the lead designer for BAM, I'm responsible for proposing new UI features and driving product direction.
I've written a proposal for the redesign of the User Experience for the next release of BAM. It includes major changes to the design
environment, providing easy to use templates for real-time report & dashboard
development.
I'm leading a user-centered design process driven by usability activities and end-user input. All design proposals will go through an iterative and collaborative review process.
BAM
User-Centered Design Process
New Design for BAM Active Studio
Oracle's SOA suite offering now allows the creation of adapters for RFID and other sensor events. These adapters integrate real-world sensor data into the middleware
infrastructure.
Within Oracle's Enterprise Manager, you can monitor the status of RFID devices along with the application servers that are receiving data from the sensors.
I designed the UI for both the SOA composite editor that leads users through the creation of sensor adapters and the dashboard within Enterprise Manager that lets the DBA monitor both device and server status in real time.
RFID Sensor Software
SOA Real-Time Dashboard Design
Combining Sensors with SOA Software
Oracle decided to create a new RFID application to manage streaming data read from edge sensors. It was based on the new Electronic Product Code Information System (EPCIS 1.0) standard.
I led the entire user experience and UI design effort from beginning to end, designing every page and the UI for all the new features.
I met with the entire development team twice a week and worked daily with individual members to work through solutions together.
The result was a rapidly developed software application with a cutting edge look and feel that received EPCIS certification after its beta release.
RFID Sensor Software
Designing a New Software
Application from Scratch
Oracle Sensor Data Manager
Sensor Edge Server 10g was developed using Oracle's UIX tech stack and the corporate browser look and feel.
For the next Fusion 11g middleware release, I led the effort to port the entire code base from the old UI tech stack into the new one. This required understanding the interaction patterns for the application and applying the proper set of components into each page's new layout.
If a component wasn't tested and ready yet, I had to design a workaround and implement a different solution until the proper Application Development Framework component was available.
RFID Sensor Software
Porting the UI for the Next Release
Oracle Sensor Edge Server
None of Oracle's RFID software applications had an embedded dashboard or reporting feature that would automatically display information in a formatted and easy to read report.
I designed new dashboards and a set of reports that would help users visualize how their RFID data could improve their business process monitoring.
The designs and proposal were based on the idea that customers should not have to depend on 3rd-party solutions for their business reporting needs, but that Oracle's RFID software
applications should come with pre-designed reports right out of the box.
RFID Sensor Software
Designing RFID Data Visualizations
RFID Tracking Dashboards
Oracle's Balanced Scorecard provides
executives with a way to evaluate the overall status of their company by letting them monitor Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) across the organization.
I ran numerous usability activities in support of the product. In one test, ten participants with experience monitoring business performance metrics spent two hours interacting with scorecards and indicators that measure an organization's performance.
The purpose of this test was to get baseline usability data for a released version of Balanced Scorecard.
Balanced Scorecard
Executive Dashboards
I worked on the Discoverer suite of products for more than 5 years, running dozens of usability tests and designing a number of new features and improvements.
I helped design the most highly visible change to Discoverer, which was the addition of the Item Navigator pane next to the worksheet. The users now had direct access to all of the available items, conditions, and various calculations.
They also were able to create new objects without having to leave their worksheet by selecting various cell, row, and columns and then choosing an action from the menu or toolbar.
Business Intelligence
Discoverer Plus Ad-Hoc Reporting
Ad-Hoc Reporting Tool
Most enterprise business software
applications have a calculation or expression editor, but few have templates or UIs that walk the user through the calculation building
process. I helped to design and test a new feature called Guided Analysis.
The goal of the Guided Analysis feature was to allow users to perform complex analysis tasks that may require calculations, conditions, and stepwise query execution using a GUI and appropriate defaults.
I ran usability activities to determine the user expectations and preferences, discover what the default settings should be for each type of calculation, and find out how we should
support and format multiple levels of aggregation.
Business Intelligence
Helping Users Create Calculations
User Guided Analysis
Based on observations from site visits to customers that were using Oracle Warehouse Builder (OWB) to try and map database
metadata between source and target tables, I proposed the design of an automatic mapping dialog that would let the user focus on just two tables at a time, instead of navigating around the dozens of icons in the current mapping editor.
The strategy behind the design was to put the user in a "divide and conquer" mode, so they could select the two tables they needed to work on, and then concentrate on the task at hand without worrying about interacting with the larger mapping diagram.
Business Intelligence
Designing a New Mapping Editor
Metadata Mapping Editor
The goal of the study was to test how well the Report Builder tutorial assisted users in
discovering how they could insert a report block or a graph into a web page.
This test was requested by the Report Builder development team to assess the product’s usability, specifically the usability of the tutorial for guiding webmasters in importing components into an HTML web page.
The development team was chiefly interested in the reactions of existing Reports users who produce web reports as part of their daily work.
Reporting Tools
Tutorial Usability Walkthrough
Business Intelligence Reporting
In order to design and create effective reports within dashboards, you need to understand how report developers interact with IT administrators.
Business intelligence tool administrators create views of database tables, business metrics, and targets and tolerance ranges for these metrics. They may also create custom views, reports, and data analysis tools for end users.
During the Wants and Needs session, eight Business Intelligence tool administrators brainstormed ideal administration tool
characteristics and features. Participants also completed questionnaires that requested information about their job experience and computer skills.
Reporting Tools
Wants and Needs Session
Performance Dashboard Reporting
I conducted a Usability Evaluation on the XML Publisher Online Builder in order to gather feedback from targeted end users and to assess the usability of various design alternatives.
This study used low-fidelity prototypes and mockups to walk typical users through the application's user interface.
Specifically, we observed how difficult it was for users to find the correct tabbed toolbar icon while trying to edit an object within the report.
The main interaction we were concerned with was the appearing and disappearing of
different tabbed toolbars as an object was selected for editing.
Reporting Tools
Studying Toolbar Interactions
XML Publisher
The objective of this project was to gather empirical data from end users of Business Intelligence (BI) reporting tools and
applications.
We gathered the bulk of our data through contextual interviews with individual users at their worksites.
We sat with individual users at their desks, cubicles, or offices, and asked them to describe to us how they do their jobs, especially with respect to reports and reporting tools.
The result was a comprehensive
understanding about how different types of users interactive with each other during the entire report building process.
Reporting Tools
Observing Customers On Site
End User Research Study
After designing new features for an
application, but before we ask developers to code them, we bring in real users of the product to evaluate how successful the
designs are in helping them complete common tasks.
We asked participants to perform tasks using an HTML prototype of Oracle Balanced
Scorecard. We tested the interpretation of the grouping of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Strategic Objectives within a Scorecard. Overall, the product received positive reviews for usability and visual design. Users could interpret cause and effect relationships among KPIs, were able to search for and find specific scorecards, and navigated around successfully.
Usability
Testing the Usability of a Product
Formative Usability Evaluation
When a usability team wants quick answers to new designs, its often easier to put together a quick study using your own employees, if they have familiarity using the software tool. I recruited and led a group of more than 20 employees who used Discoverer to create reports. One study was designed to answer specific questions about drilling that was posed by the Discoverer development and design teams.
All participants were Oracle Financial Analysts and were recruited from the Discoverer
Internal End User Group at Oracle. They also participated in design reviews, pilot tests, and expert interviews.
Usability
Discoverer Internal End User Group
End User Group Activities
JDeveloper 10g introduced a visual editor for UIX, an XML based technology that allows users to generate web pages according to the Oracle Browser Look and Feel standard. I conducted a Usability Test on the new visual editing feature within JDeveloper. Each
participant performed two tasks using the UIX visual editor: Creating a home page and
creating an object list master-detail page. Questionnaires were administered at the end of the test session to obtain subjective
measures of usability and ratings of satisfaction.
The results helped the development team make the UIX visual editor easier to use for non-programmers.
Usability
JDeveloper Usability Test
Summative Usability Test
An internal site visit to the Oracle campus in Pleasanton, CA was conducted in order to observe members of the Oracle Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) team as they used and evaluated the Mapping Editor within Oracle Warehouse Builder (OWB).
I then traveled to Denver, CO to interview and observe customers using the same product. Based on the results of these two studies, I designed a new mapping editor feature that would automatically connect source and target fields.
I then conducted a user evaluation to test the usability of the new auto-mapping dialog and to obtain user feedback on the need for any additional functionality. The new auto-mapping feature tested very well.
Usability
Warehouse Builder ETL Tool
Customer Site Visit
As a graduate student at San Jose State University, I worked at the NASA Ames Research Center as a Research Scientist conducting lab experiments on Virtual Reality.
I worked within the Human Systems Integration Division, which advances human-centered design and operations of complex aerospace systems through analysis, experimentation, and modeling of human performance and human-automation interaction.
No, that is not me in the space suit fixing the satellite in orbit around the earth.
NASA
Research Scientist
NASA Ames Research Center
Virtual environment systems raise new questions about human perception and performance
because existing display systems such as desk-top monitors do not compensate for a viewer’s head movements.
A Head-Mounted Display (HMD) can provide a person with a virtual environment that is
reactive to head and body movements. Our lab at NASA Ames allowed people to view virtual objects through an HMD.
HMDs can enhance the performance of many tasks by providing information in a highly personal way since the imagery is presented naturally in the direction that the viewer is looking.
NASA
Studying Virtual Environments in
Head-Mounted Displays
Most virtual environment systems suffer from latency, or a lag in time between the
manipulation of an object and the perception of the visual display. Since transmission delays are inescapable in many telerobotic and virtual environment applications, they are likely to persist in virtual reality systems even as computing speeds increase.
Display update rate manipulation seems to have weaker effects on placement and tracking than does system latency
manipulation. There are indications that tracking is more sensitive to manipulations of system latency than grasping or placement of objects. These studies have implications for the design and application of virtual control panels in a virtual environment.
NASA
Studying Latency and Update Rates
Tracking Performance
A research paper titled “Three Dimensional Tracking in Augmented Environments: User Performance Trade-Offs between System Latency and Update Rate", was published in the
proceedings of the 46th annual meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society in 2002. The authors were Stephen Ellis, myself, and Bernard Adelstein, all from NASA Ames.
User performance trade-offs between latency and update rate were measured with objective and subjective measures and a possible performance model was evaluated. The results showed that tracking error was significantly affected
by update, latency and their interaction.
