UX Portfolio Hamish Tennent HT @ mynameishamish.com (+1) 415 767 8322 www.mynameishamish.com
My name is Hamish Tennent and I’m a designer born in Auckland, New Zealand where I grew up pulling things apart and (mostly) trying to out them back together again. My background is in industrial design and I love the creation of objects and systems embedded in these objects. I received an undergrad in Industrial design at Massey University in Auckland, where I traveled and studied abroad at San Jose State University. After a few years working in the field doing a range of things from prop and model building to graphics, web and interaction design I found myself searching for a way to combine my love for the human centered and systems thinking approach of interaction design with the joy I have crafting physical objects. This led me to go back to school to gain an MFA in Design from CCA in San Francisco, where I have just graduated. I used this time to explore the past combining world of embedded electronics and how this new field requires skill-sets across both Interaction and Industrial design. I now work at Stanford in the research lab for autonomous cars were we study the ‘human’ in the interaction design scenario. I love this world of the physical, of the human interaction and of systems level thinking and would love to find a place to take this to the next level.
Hamish Tennent HT @ mynameishamish.com (+1) 415 767 8322 www.mynameishamish.com
Education California College Of The Arts MFA In Design (Interaction/Industrial Design Hybrid) Summer 2013 - Summer 2015 Massey University - New Zealand Bachelor Of Industrial Design 1st Class Honors 2008-2011 San Jose State University Bachelor Of Industrial Design 1 Year Student Exchange 2009-2010
Experience VAIL (Automotive Research Lab @ Stanford) Interaction Designer - Summer 2015 (ongoing) I’m currently working with the autonomous automotive research lab as an interaction and visual interface designer on projects with several high profile auto manufacturers. Sparse Industrial Designer - Summer 2014 (ongoing) Working on a taking a number of different bicycle accessory projects from the concept phase through to pre-production. Audi Fellowship Concept Interaction Design - Summer 2014 Working with the Audi Innovation Research Lab (AIR) in an intensive fellowship to design concepts for the future of automobile transportation.
Recognition Displayed At: Milan Salone Satellite 2011 ICFF New York 2011 Neocon East 2011 Sustainability 3.0 Featured on: Yankodesign.com Core77.com Awards: 2013 Dyson Award Runner-up 2012 Best Awards Bronze 2011 Neat Ideas Fair EDF Sustainable Design Sustainability 3.0 - Innovation
California College Of The Arts Teaching Assistant and Lab Operator - 2014 Teaching assistant and technical advisor in the furniture department for a class aimed at teaching students how to utilize technology. Gyro Constructivists Contract Model Builder - 2012 - 2014 Worked as a contractor where I build props for Cadbury, Stella Artois and created promotional interactive exhibits for the Hobbit films.
Honda Motorcycles Motorcycle Design Fellowship - 2011 Working on a satellite project with Honda Motorcycles Europe to design a new concepts for commuter motorcycles.
R2 Enterprises Graphic/Interaction Designer - 2010 - 2014 Worked on branding, visual identity as well as re-designing the companies online system to better customer experience.
Skills Abilities Include: Design Research: User Studies HCD Methods Case Studies Field Research User Research Need Finding Customer Journey Mapping User Flow Analysis
Expertise In: Solidworks Keyshot Rhino + Vray Adobe Creative Suite: Photoshop Illustrator Indesign After Effects Premier Pro Cinema 4D Arduino Processing Sketchbook Pro Final Cut Pro Office + iWork
Design Generation: Ideation (2D+3D) Sketching Industrial Design Graphic Design Mockups + 3D User Probes Web Design UX Design Design Thinking
Design Realisation:
Design Presentation:
Prototyping Pre-Production (CFM) Manufacturing Analysis Product Development User/Concept Testing CAD + FEM Front End Dev UI Design 3D Printing
Proficient In: Autodesk Alias Modo HTML5 + CSS + Javascript Swift Python Bootstrap Wordpress Quartz Composer Sketch Proto.io Autodesk 3DS Max Autodesk Fusion 360
Model Making Rendering (Hand+CAD) Branding Motion Graphics Video Production Photography Data Visualitaion
Adaption App Not for public consumption. A research tool to examine driving styles and different feedback mechanisms at Stanford. Chosen to showcase UX thinking for a research platform with easily usable UI for smooth data gathering. Part of an ongoing project, more details are available in discussion.
Adaption Driver Styles App Current project that is ongoing as part of my work at Stanford. We are building a research tool to begin to profile driving styles and to investigate how drivers can best use this information to improve.
Adaption Driver Styles App I came into the project when it was already under way and was shown a code base that was fracturing under different people’s ideas of what functionality should become the core idea. When I joined the project I immediately had to fight to keep it as one app, rather than splitting off into multiple. I set up a number of brainstorming sessions with all parties who had an interest and we first worked out everything that was wanted. I then distilled this down into the core functionalities for development priority and begun building a systematic hierarchy.
Adaption Driver Styles App I distilled the functionalities into three main categories. The first was the one we had already, which was to record sensor data and store it for exporting. The second was to have an archive of these instances. The third was a research interface that would provide live feedback about the drivers performance.
I started with these core three functionalities of measuring, archiving and feedback.
I had to prioritize these for development timelines for research to allow for studies to be run and date to be gathered.
I began to build the recording and live feedback experience of the app into a more unified area.
As I started to sor through the fuller experience needed to use the app, sections such as profile and archive management began to be included.
Adaption Driver Styles App The final app is still being developed in our lab and I can further discuss details in person. The tool is being aimed to help a broad range of research in understanding contexts, moods and personalities of drivers and how that influences driving styles.
Adaption Driver Styles App I had to build out full user flows to researcher participants and researchers to use and extract data out of the app. I also prototyped and tested different interactions so that the multiple levels of information display were easy to transfer through. The project is being build in Sketch, prototyped in Quartz and coded in Swift w/ Xcode.
Adaption Driver Styles App The information displays are still evolving and will continue to be tested with academic research to measure their impact. The live information display is an example of how we are testing graph/numeric data readouts vs a more descriptive language approach. Studies are still being designed and this information is not for public consumption, I am happy to discuss this further in person however.
MFA Thesis Work A year long exploration into emotionally reflective design and it’s impact on self awareness. Chosen to showcase interactive 3D/2D objects an embedded systems. Completed for my MFA Thesis
MFA Thesis Work During my graduating year of my MFA thesis I wanted to focus on investigating large scale problems whilst still finding ways of how I could create interactions that people could have in their every day life. My initial exploration was looking at the modern hyperconnected lifestyle and how our lives are becoming increasingly plagued by things life isolationism, insecurity and inattentiveness. The diagram below outlines some of the areas I was studying, investigating and talking to scholars about.
As my project progressed I needed to find ways that these concepts came to earth. I chose to narrow in and focus my research and learning into adults with suffer ADHD. This group of people were dealing with these large issues that I had been learning about, but to a much more debilitating degree. It was then I started to first learn and converse with, but then interview doctors working in this area, friends of friends who were dealing with ADHD. This lead me to start finding a link between emotions, motivations and attentiveness, something that would become a core tenet of my thesis work.
Technology Meditation
Isolationism Attentiveness
Insecurity Self Presentation
Slowing Down
Buddhism
Hyper-connected Modern Day Lifestyle
Social Anxiety
High levels of stress and anxiet y.
Finding difficult to deal with pace of li fe.
Adults With ADHD
Inability to control focus and block out stimuli.
Disconnection with self.
Dealing with cognitive fatigu e.
Inability to manage inte rpersonal relationships.
Finding a user group.
Initial Inter views “Life was SUPER fr ustrating because everything always should be something different, and never was.”
Dr Joshua Israel
“I never really miss anyone. I've broken so many ties with old friends because I'm terrible at keeping up with people.”
“ADHD is a disorder of actualizing good intentions.”
Emotions
“For me, it's about stopping myself the moment I feel myself getting irritated, long before I actually get angr y.”
Dr Russell Barkley
“ADHD is not a mood disorde r. It is a failure to regulate mood disorde r.”
Motivations
Attentiveness
“I’m always getting ver y distracted at bad times, which leads me to sink into anxiety and depression issues”
MFA Thesis Work
Academic Research I began by interviewing doctors and reading academic literature on distraction, inattentiveness and ADHD
Concept Probes I created tools and concept mockups to use to further discussions with interviewees
One to One Using the concept probes and long interviewing/discussions to further my understanding of ADHD
Support Group
Concept Testing
I made contact and utilised local support groups for people with ADHD to both learn and test my thinking and early stage ideas.
Using these group and individual contacts I tested my concepts in short (1hr) and long (1 wk) time periods.
Design Development Using these constant testing phases I pushed the development of the ideas which resulted in 3 primary explorations (in following pages).
The diagram on the left shows my design process throughout this journey. I approached the whole project from a experience design standpoint and really tried to understand the systems around my users lives.
MFA Thesis Work One of key ways that I found people and was able to have such San Francisco Group quick feedback loops for what I Group mantra “I am not my emotions”. was working on was to work with two support groups located in the Discussed emotional regulation strategies Bay area. These groups led me to and the need to find ways of removing another tenet of my thesis work, yourself from your train of thought or which was finding that people with pressure filled environment. ADHD had trouble emotionally Palo Alto Group regulating. They often found themselves having strong and “The more we can be outside ourselves the more we can learn how we see the world” uncontrollable emotional reactions to their environments which A group more focused on discussing caused them to not be the version strategies to be more aware of the self, such of themselves that they wanted. as meditation. The made portion of my thesis work (next sections) focuses on two people as proxies for the 40+ people I spoke to. I built journey maps for the people through a huge number of interviews with many people and in depth conversations and self reports with specific people.
Adult ADHD Support Groups Meet at Kaiser and in Palo Alto once every two weeks to discuss strategies and things they are struggling with.
Eckhar t Betty
“I have different planes of attention, I need a type of white noise to keep the back of m y mind busy to keep me focused ”
Maggie
“I have to learn to get control of ‘The Point’. I have to let the emotion wash over and away from me like soda bubbles.”
Caitlan
“Quiet the chaos” “I have to learn how to create stimulations that don’t have emotional consequences .”
Stone A biometric object for self reflection and awareness Part of my thesis work for my MFA in Design
Discontent MFA Thesis Work - Stone The first of my made explorations is called ‘stone’ and is a small handheld device that reads and responds to the persons breathing rate. I worked closely with Caitlan for this project, studying and interviewing her about her emotions over time, not just single snapshots. This can be seen in the diagrams above and right as I created types of ‘journey maps’ for her emotions over a typical day. The stones purpose was to create a reflective object that engages her sometimes twitchy hands. The targeted emotion for her was discontent and the object aims to make her more aware of any growing tension before it causes her to lash out.
These maps represent journey maps and full day length maps of emotions over time. These were gathered through many conversations and self reporting exercises (after many different ways were attempted.
Caitlan Existing
‘Quiet The Chaos’
Intended
San Francisco CHADD Support Group for Adults with ADHD “Boredom frustrates me, I have to have something going on or it starts to make me stressed and I go and create some chaos around me”.
Events
Existing Behaviours
Disruptive Stress Nervous Anger Discontent Sadness Calm Happiness
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Tracking Emotions Disruptive Stress Nervous Anger Discontent
Sadness Calm Happiness 930
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MFA Thesis Work - Stone Inspired by a moment by the river side. The idea for the form came from skipping stone or river stone, something that feels calming and cool to the touch. Although it went through various stages of prototyping, lo and hi fidelity. The final incarnation used a pulse oximiter to sense before an anti-stiction pump inflated the hollow silicone shell to mirror the persons breathing rate. This setup was all run through an Arduino. As I developed this further I built some exercises that were triggered when the person was in a highly agitated state. These breathing exercises started by mirroring the persons breathing rate before guiding it downwards into a more manageable one.
Bunny A support and stress relieving object for anxiety and depression. Part of my thesis work for my MFA in Design
Stress MFA Thesis Work - Bunny The third of my made explorations was a small robotic rabbit named ‘bunny’. This was designed whilst I was working with Lydia who suffers from stress related anxiety. She would tell me about how she often feel overwhelmed after internalising something insignificant for hours on end. I wanted to make a small companion that was able to interrupt this internalising with by moving its ears and engaging her. Interrupting this internalisation was important as I could see when we worked together to build the diagrams of her emotions throughout a typical day. If left unchecked and uncomforted then these could lead to feeling of anger, discontent and nervousness.
These maps represent journey maps and full day length maps of emotions over time. These were gathered through many conversations and self reporting exercises (after many different ways were attempted.
Lydia
Existing
‘Snowball’ “Life is super frustrating because everything always should be something different and never way”.
Intended
“These things creep up on me so slowly that I can find myself in bad moods 12 hours after my boyfriend leaves the fridge open”.
Events
Existing Behaviours
Disruptive Stress Nervous Anger Discontent Sadness Calm Happiness
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Tracking Emotions Disruptive Stress Nervous Anger Discontent Sadness Calm Happiness 930
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MFA Thesis Work - Bunny The bunny was inspired by the childrens soft toy and has a number of different systems within it to engage and respond to the user. It is able to engage and implicitly signify its sensing of the persons vocal tone through moving its ears. Once picked up, it responds to stroking and cuddling by purring and warming up inside. These very ‘cute-sy’ interactions are aimed at providing comfort and consolation to the user as well as breaking the possibly harmful train of thought they were engaged in. I built this all off an arduino and used a number of different sensors and output devices for the movements and interactions. Some of these include servo driven ears and a voice shield to detect voice tone. It also uses capacitive touch and vibration motors to sense and respond to physical interactions between user and object.
Car Of The Future Group project done for the Audi AIR+CCA Fellowship Program in 2014 Chosen to showcase high level customer experience design. Group: Maria Carrion, Leah Zaldumbide, Hamish Tennent
MARIA, MOTHER OF TWO RECREATION RECREATIO ODE: OBLIGATION MODE:
CONNECTED DEVICES+DATA + AFFECTED SENSES
JEFF, OFFICE WORKER LOUD MODE: QUIET
TRANSITIONS WITHIN CAR
EMOTIONAL + SOCIAL RESPONSE
CONNECTED DEVICES+DATA + AFFECTED SENSES Weather Info/ Car’s Heater + AC
7:30 am
Baby Biosensing / Car Dashboard + Icons
7:35 am
Traffic Data / Navigation System
7:40 am 7:45 am
7:50 am
Biosensing / Volume + Type of Audio Health + Chores App / Interactive Audio + Light Game
7:55 am
Predicted Schedule / Shape of Seat
8:00 am
Predicted Schedule / Type of Audio
8:05 am
Predicted Schedule / Type of Audio
8:10 am
8:15 am
8:20 am
Predicted Schedule / Shape of Seat
Mom and kids ds get into car Baby’s mood icon appears on dashboard Calculation of route to avoid Driving sharp corners Begins Child’s “Healthy Directional music for Habits” Game Mom and baby turns on
Drop baby off at daycare
Drop child off at school Audio shifts to Mom’s current Audiobook
Destination : Work
Child’s seat repositioned to “focused mode” Audio in the car shifts to reviewing school material (ABC’s)
Biosensing / Shape of Seat Biosensing / Volume + Type of Audio
EXTENDING DECISIONS FROM HOME TO THE CAR
ENCOUR-
GAIN POINTS FOR GOOD CHOICES
MICROCLIMATESAGING
PREPARATION FOR FOCUSED ENVIRONMENT
ENCOURAGING
BONDING TIME
Biosensing / Speed + Wind Impact Biosensing / Volume + Type of Audio Predicted Schedule / Shape of Seat
TRANSITIONS WITHIN CAR
Seat hugs his natural posture Driving Begins
Music turns on, Volume is low
Windows roll down Music volume increases Seat begins to morph into “focused mode” Windows roll up
External Air Quality Sensor / Permeability of Car Biosensing + GPS Data / Car’s Heater + AC
Warms up
Gets into car
EMOTIONAL + SOCIAL RESPONSE
PREDICTIVE
Car heating begins before Mike goes out
Decrease in temp begins
ACCLIMATION
GRADUAL
REDUCES SHOCK
REFRESHING
ENERGIZING
POSITIVE VIBES
ALERTNESS PRODUCTIVITY REDIRECTION
READJUST
Destination : Work
HOBBY
PERSONAL MOMENT
CONNECTED DEVICES+DATA + AFFECTED SENSES
TRANSITION Mom’s seat repositions to final“focused mode”
LOCATIONS OF TRANSITION
RELATIONSHIP OF SENSES AFFECTED
LOVER IKE, BUSINESS STUDENT + MUSIC LOVE MIKE EXTRO MODE: INTRO
4:00 pm 4:05 pm 4:10pm 4:15pm 4:20pm 4:25pm 4:30pm 4:35pm
Biosensing / Shape of Seat Predictive Schedule + Note Taking App / Volume + Type of Audio
Biosensing + # of People/ Shape of Seat Volume of Conversation / Shape of Seat Car to Phone Communication / Interactive Audio System + Multiple Participants Predictive Schedule / Block Work Related Communication
TRANSITIONS WITHIN CAR
Goes from class to car Driving Begins
Seat repositions between “relaxed” and “focused” mode
Audio playback of notes from recent lecture
4:50pm 6:00 pm
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INTERACT FACILITATING
Picks up friends Seats shift to “relaxed mode” + head rests and sides morph Sharing social playlist Hit traffic
Block work calls and email notifications
CONVERSE
4:40pm 4:45pm
EMOTIONAL + SOCIAL RESPONSE
External Live Streaming App / Volume +Light + Vibration + Audio
Late to concert!! Live stream music from concert + light/ audio visualizer + bass vibration Destination : Concert
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Key Research Questions -What would influence people to have more energetic and positive social atmospheres within the car? -What role do deeper rooted senses such as smell and taste play in the transition of mental states? -Why do we automatically erect impermeable social bubbles around us on transportation when we like meeting new people?
Audi ‘Car Of The Future’ Fellowship We were asked to design a vision for what the car of the future would mean in our lives. Re-imagining the car awy from personal transportation machine to something new. We first looked at classifying the different ways in which people used the car as a space for living and identified a deeper connection to this space as a membrane to transport you from one aspect of your life to another. We used this inspiration for out concept to design a car that would act as a permeable membrane between you and the world, encouraging discovery and highlighting features of the world around the driver.
Audi ‘Car Of The Future’ Fellowship We distilled the experience we were designing into three key aspects. To be seduced into discovering something new from your surrounding. To have magic moments that form the foundations of fond memories and to encourage serendipity. We build journey maps of how this would look for a driver as well as creating a video running in a mocked up (foamcore) driving simulator.
Project SF A location based treasure hunting app designed, built and deployed in Dec 2014. Chosen to show UI + Prototyping skills. Built by me using Swift (Apple), previous version for testing was built using C# (Android).
Splash Screen
Home Screen
Project San Francisco App This was a personal project where I wanted to put to test some of my new coding skills I had been self teaching. Prototyped in Android with C#, then rebuilt in Xcode with Swift, the app uses geo-location based push notifications to lead the user to discover new locations around a city they may have been visiting or a long time resident of. I went out and hid some ‘treasure’ (candy, toys) around San Francisco and released the app to an extended group of friends (30+ people) for them to follow the clues, learn new locations and get some ‘treasure’. I am also in the process of redesigning the app for the Apple Watch.
Clues
Treasure Map
Hints
Project San Francisco App The goal was to re-ignite a spirit of discovery between a person and their environment as quite often people who live in one place for any significant amount of time begin to ‘tune out’ to it. The clues for the treasure often involved learning something about non-famous landmarks or neighbourhoods and with the geolocation base for the app, they were required to physically go out and into the place they were learning about.
Audi Redesign Redesign of the Android+Audi Partnership shown at CES in 2014 Personal Project
50 px blur applied 1050 9th street
layered interface
heading north
12 min to destination
1,33
golden arrow darkside
psychic album
left onto market 300 yrds
12 min
4
left onto market
1050 9th street
300 yrds
heading north
12 min to destination
1,33
golden arrow
12 min
darkside
psychic album
4
Audi Car Re-Design This short project was an exercise in redesigning an interface I thought was suffering from the ‘feature explosion’ that has been brought about by connectivity and flashy UI design. My redesign of the Audi/Android partnership launched at CES in 2014 is aimed at creating clear hierarchies of information.
The design uses the kinds of ui movements and shapes we are used to seeing in cars throughout history put strips them of their skeuomorphic and excessive detail. I also used an exercise in applying blurs to see how quickly information can be understood, a key aspect in designing an interface for the operator of a moving vehicle.
Interface Research Work from a study as an interaction design researcher whilst at Stanford. Chosen to show research and UI/UX design skills.
Interface Preference Study I designed and conducted an experiment looking at peoples preference when it comes to automated car interfaces. I created a series of axis by which to do comparisons (series of 6 2X2’s seen on left) which allowed us to test variables such as ‘amount of data’, ‘type of data’, ‘language of interface’ etc. This study is the first stepping stone towards building a better knowledge and set of design principles for designers when creating automated car interfaces.
Interface Preference Study Above shows a breakdown of one of the 6 2X2’s we used to design our prototypes around. This one compares less information to more information and prescriptive information to descriptive information. The testing showed a huge preference for more information to be shown in a more descriptive fashion. This was contrasted against a concept that had descriptive information but much less of it, which tested very poorly. Below that is the concept that tested well.
Interface Preference Study Above is an example of one of the videos participants were shown. Each question featured two of these videos following which they were asked which one they preferred. No participant saw more than two prototypes from each 2X2 as to avoid cross contamination.
Interface Preference Study I ran some data analysis breaking down the data by demographic and found some interesting differences in gender, age and driving experience. Interesting finds include how older, more experienced drivers preferred the presentation of more technical information.
More Info Website: www.mynameishamish.com Email: ht@mynameishamish.com Call: (+1) 415 767 8322
I’m not thinking about this pen when I’m writing with it. Rather, it’s when you least think about it that the pen can be held most naturally.
-Naoto Fukasawa