Designer & Educator

Research, sponsored studios, books, ideas. Find out more.

What Does It Mean to Put the User at the Center of Your Process?

Last week I lead a UX design workshop with the University of Georgia's Graphic Design Program. We explored what it means to apply UX methods to understand user needs and then scope…

Workshops/Lectures
Before there was Illustrator

How can we use computation to augment our mental abilities? This was Vannevar Bush’s query in 1945 when he wrote “As We May Think.” Two of his ideas: the Memex: (also here) a…

Uncategorized
A Bag of Beacons: Enabling Personal Mobility

This fall, the NC State graphic design junior studio spent two weeks collaborating with the SAS accessibility team. The goal: remove barriers to independent personal mobility for people with visual impairments or…

Inclusive Design, Workshops/Lectures
The Unboxing: A Project with Sealed Air

In my Special Topics Studio this semester, NC State graphic design seniors worked with Sealed Air to reimagine the secondary packaging unboxing experience. As part of their user-centered research process, the students…

Funded Research
Making Astronomy Accessible

This week, Alexandra Grossi (NCSU MGD '17) and I travelled to Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin. There we met with a team of researchers and educators committed to making the study of astronomy…

Funded Research, Inclusive Design
Exploring Conversational Interface with SAS Analytics

What is the role of Natural Language in SAS products? This year's NCSU graphic design seniors took on this question through an 8-week collaboration with SAS Analytics. Over the course of the…

A.I. / Machine Learning, Funded Research
VR. No One Can Tell You, You Are Doing It Wrong. Yet

Interested in designing user interfaces for virtual reality? Take a look at my recent Design Observer article on the topic, written with NCSU senior graphic design major, Madeline Bone. In-world, gaze-based, audio,…

Uncategorized
What Does That Say? A Low Vision Design Workshop at Drake

A few years ago I traveled to Des Moines to work with graphic design students at Drake University. We spent two days discussing, concepting, prototyping and testing data visualizations for low vision…

Inclusive Design, Workshops/Lectures
Re-envisioning the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences’s Acro Exhibition as an Autism Friendly Space

Last semester the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences asked NC State graphic designer seniors in my special topics studio to take on a complex problem. One of their key exhibitions—the Acrocanthosaurus Exhibition—was not an autism…

Inclusive Design
How might designers create data visualizations for low-vision users?

Undergraduate graphic design students at NC State University collaborated with SAS Analytics to answer this question as they explored how SAS products might be made accessible to a range of low vision…

Funded Research, Inclusive Design