About

I am 27 years old and currently a product designer at Autodesk in San Rafael, California. I received an M.S. in Human-Computer Interaction Design at Indiana University in 2007 and soon after moved to the Bay Area. I am currently the lead interaction designer on the AutoCAD Map 3D software.

My interests as a designer are varied-ranging from design for the developing to world to what I do now designing GIS software. For my Master’s thesis I researched how HCI/d can be practiced in the developing world. Most of this was inspired by visiting my wife in Zambia as she conducted her fieldwork for her phd in Anthropology. My other motivation for this topic was driven by trying to deconstruct how we think about interaction design from an industrialized perspective. The field has largely been driven by the West, and has evolved based on that predisposition. But what will HCI/d look like in a village? Will HCI/d methods be applicable in the developing world?

I am passionate about everything related to design. Many people look at design only in terms of brainstorming and sketching designs. But design encompasses everything that is involved in realizing design: sketching, brainstorming, failure, critique, persuasion (somebody has to believe you’re designing something you need), prototyping and usability testing. I’m also interested in many areas of design: graphics, information design, programming, architecture, and industrial design, but I’m really only good at one: interaction design. I see the big picture. Design for me is about the user and everything I do is motivated by a need or a problem.

My influences in the area of design come from my mentors whom I have worked with, the books I read, clients and users I have worked with, peers I’ve collaborated with and just living in this world everyday. I like to see the big picture of how design changes the world but I also need and strive to make this dream a reality. Genius is only 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. Or, as my mentor Marty Siegel says, “ideas are cheap.” It took me awhile not to jump at every idea I had and to stop complaining when I saw an idea I had created by someone else. As another mentor of mine-Erik Stolterman-taught me, seeing someone else build “your” idea can help you focus your idea and provide a way to focus your own. I have taken my mentors’ words to heart as I see design not only as opportunity and inspiration but as grueling work and persistent effort.