Crisis situations – such as natural disasters, global health epidemics, civil unrest, or conflict-inspired mass migration – occur on a regular basis throughout the world. Response efforts are stressful, messy, and put a burden on humanitarian aid workers to plan and communicate life-saving interventions effectively.

I led a research and strategy effort to understand the common needs of Communicating with Communities (CwC) initiatives during a crisis response, then oversaw the development of a global crisis response toolkit. It is currently in pilot in East Africa.

Credits: Dalberg Design (research and strategy) and Method (design)

Additional Project Partners:  UNOCHA, ICRC, IFRC, IOM

Funder: DFiD Humanitarian Innovation Fund

2018

DigiFarm is an integrated mobile platform that offers farmers convenient, one-stop access to a variety of services that decrease the cost and increase the quality of farm inputs, while enabling farmers to easily transact, learn and grow. The product provides access to discounted inputs from iProcure depots, an SMS-based adaptive learning system from Arifu, and M-PESA, Lipa na M-PESA, and M-Shwari from Safaricom.

DigiFarm was a much longer initiative, but during this six week project the team conducted two rounds of HCD research and hosted three participatory workshops in Kenya to define the product's MVP and coordinate the activities of each partner.

Winner of Fast Company’s 2018 World Changing Ideas Award, Developing World Technology category. 

Credits: Dalberg Design

Additional Project Partners:  Mercy Corps, Safaricom, iProcure, Arifu

Funder: MasterCard Foundation

2016

MAMA Connect provided pregnant women, new mothers, and maternal healthcare workers access to a free wifi hotspot with health content and training videos – powered by satellite-based connectivity.

The team led HCD efforts across a 15 month pilot to evaluate the service, identify opportunities for improvement, gauge impact, and to support efforts to develop a sustainable business model. Our recommendations encompassed infrastructure support, content strategy, and interface design.  

Credits: Dalberg Design

Additional Project Partners: Nigerian National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Inmarsat, Praekelt Foundation

Funder: United Kingdom Space Agency

2015-2016 

Equity My Life provided public access to a free content portal that including entertainment, news, finances, and education – powered by satellite-based connectivity.

My team led HCD efforts for 18 months to evaluate the service, identify opportunities for improvement, gauge impact, and to support efforts to develop a sustainable business model. Our recommendations encompassed content strategy, interface design, marketing, and a new onboarding process for bank employees.

Credits: Dalberg Design

Additional Project Partners: Equity Bank, Inmarsat, Catapult, Praekelt Foundation, Caribou Digital, BRCK

Funder: United Kingdom Space Agency

2015-2016 

For Rogers Media (Canada), we launched Shomi, a new video on demand service that organized film and television content around quirky, curated collections (instead of generic genres). We were responsible for naming, brand identity, tone of voice, product strategy, web/tablet design and usability testing. To deliver this, we worked extensively with the Rogers/Shomi content, product, and marketing teams to establish an operational environment that could support the service. 

Credits: Method

2013

Steelcase tasked us with redesigning their 10 year old corporate website for a diverse, international B2B audience that includes professional interior designers, facility managers, and CFOs serving the space needs of corporate offices, creative spaces, hospitals, classrooms and more. With an energetic client team committed to the HCD process, we hosted regular workshops and several rounds of global, virtual research to re-define the content strategy and launch a responsive website for global markets.

www.steelcase.com 

Credits: Method

2013

For the NYC Campaign Finance Board, who are responsible for publishing Election Voter Guides, we created a new identity and mobile website that included an election count-down, candidate list, poll-station map, contribution mechanism, and voter registration service. The beta released just before the city’s Mayoral Primary and has continued to evolve.

Credits: Method

Additional Project Partners: Pivotal Labs, Turbo Vote, Reboot, Tipping Point Partners 

Press links: 

New York Times  

Wired

Core 77

 UX Mag

Gotham Gazette 

2013

Open English was a relatively mature start-up delivering online, English-training to students in South America. In preparation for roll-out to Russia and China, we re-designed the student learning platform against three core experience principles: fun, human and achievable. 

Based on a three-part curriculum that balances live classroom time with immersion study and practice units, the homepage provides a weekly study list in small, achievable steps that makes learning more approachable. 

Credits: Method

2012

Bottomline Technologies creates white-label banking software for the world's biggest banks. To help explore a new strategy for small-business owners, we created a tablet-based prototype and hosted concept validation research sessions to identify and prioritize future features.

Credits: Method 

2012

I was hired to establish the school's New York studio, serving as the liaison to New York Board of Education, and to 'digitize' the culture and curriculum. In addition to overseeing 100+ students, faculty, guest speakers, and staff on a quarterly teaching schedule, I also designed and launched a global pilot program for continuing education and created a number of new student services outside of the classroom.

Initiatives included: Lunch & Learn series, Guest Speaker series, Pitch Night events, Guest Critique and Mentors program, Annual Student Ping Pong Tournament, and a global continuing education program called MAS Pro for working professionals looking to up their creative skills.

2010-2012

Medco is the ‘Amazon’ of prescription drugs and challenged our team to think about the future of pharmacy services on the heels of the first iPad launch. Our concepts ranged from paperless prescriptions to patient-oriented packaging and a website with an integrated view of the entire family’s medicine cabinet.

Credits: AKQA

2010

We redesigned NYCB's digital experience to support ticket sales and drive interest in the ballet with younger audiences. This concept was intended to roll-out through several phases, but the project was cancelled after NYCB was forced to lay off several dancers and scale back operational initiatives due to budget problems. 

Credits: AKQA

2008