Personal Statement

As a form of applied research, my project and scholarly work explores the implementation of human-centered approaches to interaction design with particular emphasis on the narrative of digitally mediated user experiences, often through the use of motion as a methodology for discovery, presentation and visual communication. Much of my work is educational and/or heath care related and seeks to more clearly inform underserved groups, whether they are employees, novices, volunteers, consumers, learners or children. In instances where the project is defined as speculative, the outcomes consistently lead to recommendations that are implemented, as well as a realization on the client’s part that design research and creative discovery from the end user’s perspective is an important and worthy endeavor.

“The main tenet of design thinking is empathy for the people you’re trying to design for. Leadership is exactly the same thing— building empathy for the people that you’re entrusted to help.”
—David M. Kelley, Stanford/IDEO

At the core of all my project work, teaching and research is a pursuit of a better understanding of human behavior as it relates to a digital interactive experience. This extension of traditional graphic design greatly complicates the definition of a typical “deliverable” and creates new challenges for the graphic design researcher, educator and student to show a work product when, almost certainly, the nature of the design process is collaborative, crosses traditional academic and professional fields, is broken into phases and varying participation, and the final output is unlikely the sole endeavor of an individual. Certainly, the creative “look” of an interactive system falls within the purview of visual communication design, however, the correlating domain of “feel” is fairly new territory for graphic designers. The term “feel” acknowledges that the information being relayed extends beyond the realm of vision; the most interactive experiences depend on input from multiple senses through feedback responses: gaze, aural, gesture, touch, haptic, biometrics (body temperature, heart rate, pulse...). In turn, the sensory feedback is processed through perceptual and cognitive systems of the nervous system and brain.

The behavioral responses to various stimuli are dependent on both physiological and psychological conditions and the individual’s interpretation of those signals—this is very basically how humans interact. In addition to this organic experience, there is the design of the artificial and designed experience. Interaction design, as a discipline, is the design of manufactured experiences between human and machine or human-to-human(s) through the machine. Designing for the interaction between human and machine is, therefore, a carefully thought out and appropriate orchestration of actions, reactions, input and feedback as a task or sequence ending with the user’s desired result. This is where the process starts: with the user’s needs and her behavioral patterns. Clearly, when the subject matter of the designed interaction falls outside my own knowledgebase and skills, expertise must come from the user or other specialists through a variety of generative, participatory and evaluative design research methods. Using such methods, insights are gathered to gain empathy for the user’s needs and desires, which then are manifested in a user’s interface. 

My professional positions are not typical of a graphic designer. Starting as a New Media Designer for Retail Planning Associates, I was designing interactive and motion media for screens as part of an overall retail interior concept. As one of ten distinct design disciplines, I contributed to the overall retail experience for such clients as Diebold, Adidas, Circuit City, Microsoft, and Kodak. At the time, terms like motion and interactive design were unknown—I was a “new media guy.” But the quest to compel a shopper to touch a screen and view animated information was my primary job responsibility. Though “selling stuff” is ultimately the goal of retail design, I preferred to embrace the belief that I was helping the shopper make better decisions through the product information I structured and delivered via the screen.

As the seismic shift to the Internet became a reality, I moved on to become an Art Director at Blue Diesel, a design consultancy dedicated to interactive media, though the parent company, Gerbig, Schnell and Weisheimer, was a traditional ad agency. In addition to designers, the creative teams grew to include database developers, front- and back-end coders and other IT specialists. As opposed to designing for the retail environment, the digital apps (or “products”) were less superficial and functioned more like tools. The projects, which included work for clients such as CIGNA Healthcare, Chase, Eli Lilly, Ashland, and BMW Financial, were more utilitarian and somewhat less glamorous than traditional, consumer-based design projects. However, the work was also more beneficial (or of greater value) to end users. This end-user was often not a consumer, rather, someone using an expert system within an organization. The goal was not always selling, but instead ease-of-use, satisfaction, ergonomics and efficiency. It is increasingly clear that understanding the user’s circumstances are very important to building a system that anticipates behavior and allows her to intuitively complete the desired task.

Though I may not have fully appreciated it at the time, I was witnessing the emergence of a number of sub-disciplines that would take the graphic designer into the “feel” territory of the interactive system including: information architecture, user interface, user experience, motion and interaction design. In hindsight, the tragic events of September 11, 2001 and the burst of the Dotcom Bubble, which claimed my job after the third round of layoffs, simultaneously opened up a new phase in my career that allowed me to study a new kind of design. I subsequently pursued an MFA in Design while consulting on various projects independently, with other freelance designers, or contracting through a design and development firm. The type of work and the extent of my role varied greatly and included clients such as Nationwide Insurance, Motorola, and AAA. As a hired consulting designer, I had more influence to advocate for the end-user’s experience and produced compelling prototypes supported indirectly by the research I was conducting as a graduate student.

It is important to summarize my former professional experiences since they continue to inform my empathy-driven, human-centered approach to the design of interactive systems. While some of my research projects are “product” oriented, such as a web application or tablet app, others are experimental, speculative, pedagogical or serve the discipline of Design. The rigors of a full time academic position may prevent a full-time engagement with a “Microsoft,” but the amount of human-centered design influence I can offer seems to be inversely proportional to the size of the client. It is also precisely because I am in an academic environment that I provide my services to important projects that may not include much compensation or may be funded collaborations inside and outside the University. I offer three representative examples of my research in this area: (1) a tablet-based app that graphically depicts world history for high school students, The Flow of History, (2) a web-based, drag-and-drop statistical analysis and visualization tool for the non-expert, EngineRoom, (3) and the designed, edited and published 200-page digital collection of peer reviewed essays, imagery and animation from my second international pedagogical conference on motion design education, MODE Conference Proceedings.

Allow me to take a moment to acknowledge that in a creative field, academia understands a significant professional project as research. And while the University may view a candidate’s scholarship, teaching, and service in neat and tidy silos, the application of design thinking, methodologies, and processes to everything I do blurs these distinctions. To quote a colleague, design is an “integrative force” and breaks down these barriers where every challenge is an opportunity and a design problem. For instance, the MODE Conference Proceedings is part scholarship because I am an editor, contributing author, and established the relationship with the publisher. It is also a significant creative work since it is not only book design, but utilizes an emerging electronic interactive publication format that is almost essential to expressing the content: motion design. Simultaneously, the conference and proceedings exhibit the highest level of service to the discipline as an international scholarly event and peer collaboration with the goal of shaping a sub-discipline of design education. It also serves the University’s reputation through peer recognition of a quality and future-thinking visual communication design program. And finally, it is affecting the teaching of my motion design class because the knowledge shared flows into and out of the classroom improving the content and pedagogy.

Collaborating with like-minded colleagues to explore the best practices of motion design education is rewarding and discipline specific, though the subject matter of content varies greatly. This is truly the greatest challenge for design professionals, educators and students: learning just enough about a given topic to be able to structure an effective communication artifact for a specific audience. While still on the topic of education, I now turn to two digital educational tools: The Flow of History and EngineRoom. Each leverages my human-centric approach to interaction design to visualize world history and statistical analysis. It is important to note that I designed the interface in addition to the user’s interaction with app. I am by no means an expert on history or data analysis, but through team collaboration, I can employ information-gathering strategies to gain empathy for the end user. In fact, this is the challenge because each of these digital tools is meant, by design, to ease the acquisition of knowledge for students of history or statistics. In other words, as the designer, my interface is the conduit through which each of these apps conveys its content from the expert (client/teacher) to the novice (user/student).

With The Flow of History, high school history teacher Chris Butler has an innovative approach to structuring history as a collection of flow diagrams. The original user interface, however, suffered from illegible type, heavy-handed line work, confusing indexing strategy, and counter-intuitive gestural motions in a touch-based medium. My approach was largely simplification, but because I was reorienting the entire screen experience, I sought substantiation through a typical web design method: wire-framing. This was a necessary step since the client desired, but resisted, change. By showing intent through a visual plan, the client participated in the design process that ultimately cultivated even greater change. This project also became an excellent case study in class for discussing advocacy for good design—I cannot win every battle over every pixel. The Flow of History is published worldwide to the iTunes App Store and available for download in various editions using the same designed format with a substantial discount for schools. The app maintains a commutative average user rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Until recently, my most rewarding project of all time was a bone reformation and osteoporosis two- and three-dimensional motion piece for Eli Lilly (2002). I directed a small team of designers, met and brainstormed with Ph.D.’s researching this topic, and played an influential role in convincing a very large corporation to invest in a better way to understand both a disease and drug efficacy. MoreSteam’s EngineRoom, a web-based data analysis application, has now superseded this previous project experience. As software, EngineRoom began as a plug-in module for Microsoft Excel, but as a result of this redesign, it is now a stand-alone web app running in a browser window. The initial interface design phase began as a deep dive with a client team that included statisticians, computer scientists, developers, and the president of the company. User empathy was once again a critical component of the design, as was having a basic understanding of the rationale for the app and its various statistical analysis methods. Working with one of the statisticians, a persona and use case was developed to model a design concept. After designing the core of the user interface, the bulk of the work was completed in a yearlong development cycle until its initial release in spring of 2013. The interface guidelines that I provided, which included recommendations for color, typography, transitional motions, and screen organization, were followed and expanded upon through the development phase. EngineRoom is published worldwide on the Internet using subscription-based model for license purchase. Google has purchased over 200 licenses.

These experiences are only possible when clients consider the interaction designer to be a necessary part of the aesthetic and functional underpinnings of a digital product. But in an age of “design thinking,” designers must also remind themselves that experts from other fields are now embracing the value of design, and designers must therefore remain humble agents for translating complexity into usability. Representing the needs, expectations and desires of the end-user is primary responsibility of the designer. The designer is not, and should not, be at the center of the work. This is a way of thinking that is the cornerstone of my every class and research project.

For every semester going back eight years I have, with great success, brought client-sponsored projects into the classroom. The lines are blurred as disparate aspects of the academician are expressed simultaneously. Guiding a classroom project of this magnitude with real-world clients is the equivalent of serving in the position of a creative director at a design consultancy.  I am responsible for many of the same aspects: defining the project scope, managing the client relationship, and overseeing a team of designers. As an opportunity to enlighten myself, the students and the client, the projects are conceptual (even “blue-sky”), but have always ended with actionable ideas, recommendations and implementation strategies. The concepts produced in the client-classroom engagements include: health tracking interface based on 20 million health records (Healthville), interactive and analytical app for the Shakespeare play (Luminary Digital Media), prototype vacuum forming factory interface (Paramount Plastics), trucking industry turnover tracking visualizer (Stay Metrics), public food safety mobile device interface (SmartTemps), athlete’s concussion evaluation mobile app (Contect), early detection autism diagnostic tool (Computer Science), and a patient’s care cycle monitor app (Beacon Health System).

In addition to acquiring and applying creative skills, these client-sponsored projects are essential for the educational and professional development of design students. Even the most reluctant learners appreciate team dynamics, client interaction, consulting with experts, and field research with a diversity of end users that ranges from truckers to factory workers and autistic children. The project results, usually presented to clients in the form of prototypes, are most successful when students understand the stakeholders’ unique points of view. Now a trending buzz phrase, I assert that “design thinking” is achieved simply through empathy—primarily for the end user, but also for the teammate and the client. To be an effective interaction design educator, this empathy muscle cannot be lectured to. On the contrary, it must be exercised. Not to put too fine a point on it, this process is grueling and demanding. It begins with cultivating a relationship with a potential classroom client and subsequently managing the expectations of what might be possible through a student-client collaboration. In many cases, the client also funds the project by supporting the design program. Scheduling must follow the rigid meeting times for the class, and building enthusiasm for a project is difficult when I purposely refrain from defining parameters before the students have developed a rapport with the client. The results of these kinds of classroom engagements are students who are more prepared for the realities of working as professionals on digital product teams filling a variety of roles, and clients who better understand how to work with designers.

I am proud of the student outcomes from these projects in my upper level Web, Motion, Interaction and Information Design classes. When I first arrived at the University of Notre Dame, advanced design classes did not exist. And even as I continue developing curricula for these courses, the very processes and technologies on which they are based dynamically change, requiring constant adaptation to in order to respond to emerging trends and technologies. This degree of changeability is perhaps the most defining characteristic of interactive design, and I have fully accepted the challenge of making it accessible to students. Of course, these classes are successful because of the efforts of my colleagues to prepare the students with introductory classes like an Introduction to Graphic Design and Typography. Originally, only a four-course sequence of Graphic Design 1–4 existed, and none of the curricula included web, motion or interaction. When one of my colleagues proposed changing our program’s name to Visual Communication Design, it was another opportunity to streamline, clarify and even grow the program’s offerings. Though students still have flexibility when it comes to developing their four-year plan of study, the sequence we developed has clarified—to our students—what is expected of them. The academic advising appointments with students each semester provide proof that with a clearer sequence, they need less guidance is choosing courses, and understand the necessity of web as a key foundational course.

Student successes point to evidence of my efficacy as a teacher, and many senior thesis design projects are incubated in at least one of my upper level courses during their last year of study. Many advisees have gone on to win the Father Anthony Lauck award, the Riley Prize in Design, the Emil P. Jacques silver medal, the Emil P. Jacques gold medal, and the Walter R. Beardsley Award. Mentoring continues past graduation with many newly minted alumni following their design-related passions from New York to Hollywood at firms like Google, Activision, A Different Engine, 2U, Precept Wine, The New York Times, and Whirlpool.

I lost my colleague, friend, confidant and mentor, Robert Sedlack, in the spring of ’15 to complications due to ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease. He was the face of design at the University but slowly, over a three-year period, his dexterity and mobility deteriorated, until the galvanizing force of his presence was reduced to a whisper. Still, he continued to teach. It was my personal goal to assist in any way I could and ensure that design could continue to offer students the educational and programmatic opportunities Robert had long-ago established.

Early on, I assumed the reins of Graduate Seminar and Curricular Design, and then I became increasingly involved with the spring Annual Alumni Design Conference and the fall Young Design Alumni Series of talks. With considerable help from my fellow design faculty, I propelled these important events forward in Robert’s absence. I also represented design at the College of Arts & Letters Majors Night and College Open House. In addition, our small faculty took on a huge yet necessary undertaking: the development of the first Senior Design Show and Professional Night hosted by a design firm in Chicago. Though this was a collaborative effort on the part of all of the design faculty, I was primarily responsible for design promotion, logistics, scheduling, budgeting, planning and preparatory workshops. My contributions were a critical part of ensuring that we successfully met our milestones and defined responsibilities.

The increasing importance of digital interactive communications allows for innovations in my specific area of interest, visual interface design, to better connect people to other people, places, information, education, and entertainment. Screen-based user experiences continue to evolve and improve, and it is more important than ever to advocate a human-centered approach. However, I posit that it does not matter because visual interface design is dead. Natural voice (systems understanding speech and context) will replace what is typically visual and tactile input (graphics and buttons). In this statement I will coin “VOX/UI,” or voice user interface. While this will end much of the graphic input side of user experience, I believe the system will still respond graphically (with motion) in response to a verbal query. In other words, I will speak naturally to the system, but it will show me a bevy of visual responses. I have recently submitted a chapter called Navigating VOX/UI: The Integration of Motion in a Voice-Controlled Information System to be published in Kinetic Emergence, a forthcoming book related to this topic.

Herein lies a new opportunity and a pivot in research: dynamically generated information graphics based on voice queries. Computer scientists will address the technology. In the meantime, my primary research question can be summed up thusly: Is it possible to anticipate this next computing revolution and envision methods of dynamic information visualization? I believe this can encapsulate a long-term research agenda with a series of projects that explore the ramifications of a computing revolution with true democratization of information access, beginning with what the user desires—and empathy. A number of recent experiences (such as voice-based autism detection app) and readings have inspired this additional trajectory that is best described as developmental research.* I believe I can continue professional projects (applied research) while also integrating new explorations in a research agenda that extends into the classroom. My ultimate goal is to make good design integral to the transition to a new paradigm for digital interaction rather than an afterthought. And if I can utilize an academic position at a research university to address future anticipated needs of a population through design, then it is not only a fit for the discipline, but also the classroom and the mission of the University.