Conceptual Design: Nest Water

Google Nest - Nest Water concept design by Ryan Wu & Maksim Surguy

This is a complementary case to my Portfolio file (only available for companies I’ve applied). It aims to support my claim that I’m capable of delivering Visual Design as well as Interaction Design.

The case I’m sharing is a small piece of work I had done at UW for the Industrial, Interaction, Visual Design Studio. Please be aware that this was not meant to be a complete design project, but a minor exercise for us to practice using a design guideline to expand an existing brand’s product portfolio. So the persona analysis, user journey walkthrough, full scope of workflow chart and visual language definition process was omitted.

The conceptual design was based on Nest’s business model, tech capability and design language.

Background

Assignment for TECHIN 524 course at UW GIX—Nest New Product Design Brief

General Objectives

  • Imagine and communicate a potential new product design and identity to propose as an addition to the Nest portfolio
  • Produce a design brief that outlines the visual, interaction, and industrial design considerations
  • Develop a logotype for the product name

Date of Finish

August 11th, 2018 (we spent several days to finalize the concept, I finished the design and document in one day.)

About the Team

Ryan Wu, Maksim Surguy

Role in the Project

I developed the concept based on Maksim’s original input. I finalized the physical design and designed the whole digital experience. The original digital experience was in grayscale wireframe format. I spent one night to explore the visual language and finish the GUI for the version posted here.

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Project Diversita: When Machine Learning Meets User Experience

 

In this two-quarter grad school project, I explored how to unleash the power of Machine Learning to fulfill requirements that were tricky for the previous generation of technologies, with the consideration of Human-Centered Design and Engineering.

Background

Project Diversita was a Microsoft sponsored “Launch Project” at the University of Washington GIX in 2018 under the AI for Earth initiative. It aimed to empower biodiversity research by utilizing Machine Learning (ML) on Edge technology. The ML model had been trained by Microsoft Research based on the iNaturalist dataset.

I received training in Machine Learning and sensors, however for this project my role was mainly on product design. The challenge was to explore the potential market space and find a niche that fits our technology backbone best.

Time Span

Jun. 27, 2018–Dec. 07, 2018

About the Team

A ten-people team consists of UW GIX students (Phelps Xia, Hal Zhang, Ben Keller, and I) and Microsoft researchers (Dan Morris, Lucas Joppa)/engineers (Wee-Hyong Tok, Siyu Yang, Erika Menezes, Xiaoyong Zhu)

Role in the Project

Product Designer (UX, ID), Product Manager, User Researcher

General Objectives
  • Study the market to identify a niche camera trap scenario to disrupt with Microsoft’s ability in AI.
  • Ideate concepts that are desirable for the customers, viable for the business and feasible for engineering.
  • Develop working prototypes to prove the concept.
Keywords

Machine Learning, Edge Computing, Raspberry Pi, IoT, computer vision

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dynaTac: A Device Improves Fishing Performance

dynaTac - Fishing sensorBackground

dynaTac is a novel consumer-facing technology which improves fishing performance. It was developed as the Hardware/Software Lab-II course project at the University of Washington, instructed by Gabe Cohn and Sidhant Gupta from Microsoft Research. A team of three students worked for ten weeks to develop this device.

General Objectives

  • Scope a real-world problem that could be solved/improved with sensing technology within ten weeks.
  • Study the case and experiment solutions to solve the problem.
  • Develop iterations to implement the solution and study from this experience.

Time Span

Mar. 28, 2018 – Jun. 04, 2018

People in the Project

Ryan Wu, Maksim Surguy, Tyson Chen

Role in the Project

Product/Project Manager, Mechanic Engineer

Keywords

Sensor, microcontroller, Arduino, fishing, lab
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