"I certify that the work included in this portfolio is my own original work. Work included which was conducted as a part of a team or other group is indicated and attributed as such - the other team members are named and a true description of my role in the project is included."
2023-2024 EPEAS
This project explores how corporations can profit by addressing global challenges rather than contributing to them, focusing on net-positive impact, systems thinking, and organizational transformation. The goal was to create a framework that guides organizations toward sustainable and regenerative practices by leveraging service design tools and methodologies.
How might we guide people to effectively research and prioritize sustainable criteria when making their purchasing decision?
EPEAS is designed as an eco-friendly product comparison tool. It aims to promote conscious consumption and a circular economy by offering guidance to consumers who wish to purchase more sustainable electronics. It integrates the EPEAT® framework, the world’s leading ecolabel for technology. This tool helps users make more eco-conscious consumer decisions, prioritizing environmental impact and resource efficiency. Unique in its approach, it combines in-store and digital engagements, promoting long-term sustainability.
Learn more: kuoweilee.design/epeas
EPEAS Team: Kuo-Wei Lee and Ruoyi Liu Advisor: Prof. Florian
Vollmer
Course: ID6216 Service Design, Brand, and Value Creation
2023-2024 EPEAS
Milan, Italy
Georgia Tech’s Service Design course project, EPEAS, supervised by Prof. Florian Vollmer, addressed UN SDG 13 (Climate Action) through user-centered design. This work won the iF Design Student Award 2024 in Milan, Italy, one of 76 winners out of more than 7,000 submissions, and promoted sustainable electronics consumption and environmental awareness.
EPEAS is designed as an eco-friendly product comparison tool. It aims to promote conscious consumption and a circular economy by offering guidance to consumers who wish to purchase more sustainable electronics. It integrates the EPEAT® framework, the world’s leading ecolabel for technology. This tool helps users make more eco-conscious consumer decisions, prioritizing environmental impact and resource efficiency. Unique in its approach, it combines in-store and digital engagements, promoting long-term sustainability.
Learn more: ifdesign.com/en/winner-ranking/project/epeas/638308
EPEAS Team: Kuo-Wei Lee and Ruoyi Liu Advisor: Prof. Florian Vollmer Course: ID6216 Service Design, Brand, and Value Creation
Design
2021-2024 Health Time Machine
Toyota Motor North America
Aperio Insights
UX Designer Winter 2021
Freedom to travel by automobile will continue to be an important factor to maintain personal independence and mental health. As a result, we need a rigorous/strict way to assess drivers in order to decrease accidents and prevent dangerous driving.
Conduct design thinking workshops to explore key process steps from consumers and experts that yield a more refined proof-of-concept of driving assessment for seniors including:
• Outline potential approaches to conduct driving assessments
• Identify optimal process flows and specific functions for each step
• Mockup screens that depict these process flows & functions
• Convert select mockup screens into a 1-minute explainer video
Learn more:
Project Lead: Mike Courtney, Principal at Aperio Insights
Design Lead: Cassini Nazir, Assistant Professor at The University of North Texas
Things you CAN measure:
• Informational
• Experimental
• Sensory
Things you CANNOT measure:
• Informational
• Experimental
• Sensory
Outline potential approaches to conduct driving assessments
Interaction Design | Product Development
2021-2024 Health Time Machine
Toyota Motor North America
Aperio Insights
UI/UX Designer Spring 2022
We explored consumer interest in a driving assessment & wellness-centric service. This project focused on developing a mock-up assessment app (smartphone and kiosk) to measure driving behaviors and provide personalized guidance based on assessment results via a clickable prototype.
Develop low- and hi-fidelity prototypes for drivers’ health checkups that can later be used for user testing.`
App scope – Would include 3 major sections:
• Wellness Assessment
• Quiz-type assessment that looks at driver health and wellness
• Prompts user for recommendations, discounts and rewards
• Driving Assessment and
• Simulate data being transmitted to/from app/vehicle
• Simulate usage of driver patterns over time
• Prompts user for recommendations, discounts and rewards
• Brain Training
• Based off of brain health assessment apps
• Prompts user for recommendations, discounts and rewards Learn more: kuoweilee.design/health-checkup-prototype
Interaction Design | Product Development | Ethnography | Consumer Analysis
2021-2024 Health Time Machine
Toyota Motor North America Aperio Insights
UI/UX Designer Summer 2022
A self-serve, informational kiosk was deployed at two Toyota dealership locations in North Texas to validate proof-of-concept of driving assessment for seniors. I assisted in conducting over 20 intercepts to understand attraction and expectations. Kiosk screens were refined based on consumer feedback.
Setup the mock kiosk and messaging posters at locations and observe its ability to attract consumers. Intercept select individuals and inquire as to what prompted them to approach the kiosk. Also intercept those who saw but did NOT approach the mock kiosk to understand why they passed it by. The focus of this project is to better understand:
• Attraction: How might TMNA attract consumers to take the health and driving checkups via a kiosk?
• Experience: In what ways does the kiosk experience with its health and driving checkups change their minds about driving safety?
Learn more: kuoweilee.design/HTM-Kiosk-Clinic-Study
Project Lead: Mike Courtney, Principal at Aperio Insights
Design Lead: Cassini Nazir, Assistant Professor at The University of North Texas
Utilize MURAL, an online collaboration platform, to keep stakeholders posted in real time
Interaction Design | Product Development | Ethnography | Consumer Analysis
2021-2024 Health Time Machine
The academic value derived from the Health Time Machine project has been distilled into an article published in the proceedings of HCI International. The publication demonstrates my commitment to translating industry insights into scholarly contributions, advancing the fields of HCI.
This paper presents an ongoing research project aimed at extending the driving years of older drivers. It introduces the Inviting Curiosity framework, used to create interactive mobile and tablet prototypes tested with consumers, showing how technology and innovative approaches can improve the driving experience for aging individuals.
“People desire a longer life and want to live it with purpose, delight, and respect”
Joseph Coughlin, MIT AgeLab
How might we help seniors drivers maintain freedom of mobility to support personal independence?
Cassini Nazir, Kuo-Wei Lee, and Mike Courtney. (2024). Leveraging Curiosity to Care for an Aging Population. In proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Human Aspects of IT for the Aged Population (ITAP 2024), held as part of the 26th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCI International 2024 (HCII 2024), Washington, DC
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-61546-7_14
2023-2024 Foresight 2033: ReadySetFuture_
Toyota Motor North America Aperio Insights
UX Designer Summer 2023
The Foresight 2033 project aims to cultivate Toyota’s executive team’s curiosity and foster innovative futures thinking. It empowers participants to generate creative solutions that balance user needs, technological feasibility, and strategic constraints.
Through engaging workshops and thought-provoking exercises, the tool we designed, ReadySetFuture , facilitates the ideation of new features and the evolution of existing ones toward a “surprise and delight” state.
• Inspire Curiosity and Innovation
• Engage executives in creative exploration of future consumer needs.
• Foster curiosity about alternative futures through diverse exercises.
• Generate Creative Solutions
• Develop innovative ideas that address user needs.
• Explore high-level concepts and practical implementation strategies.
• Enhance Futures Thinking with Generative AI Piloting
• Integrate generative AI tools to explore diverse futures scenarios and spark innovative solutions.
• Leverage AI to support creativity, uncover alternative possibilities, and streamline scenario generation.
Learn more: dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-031-61353-1_23
Project Lead: Mike Courtney, Principal at Aperio Insights
Project Lead: Cassini Nazir, Assistant Professor at The University of North Texas
Design Lead: Kuo-Wei Lee
A 2019 card-based brainstorming exercise and predecessor of ReadySetFuture
In the year 2030, what are ways [Type of Technology] would help achieve [Consumer Desires and Demands] when in [Scenario] with [Driving Forces]
Timeless Needs and Driving Forces cards interact with factors shaping the consumer experience.
Prompts highlight experiences, needs, and feelings tied to the cards in play.
AI-generated thought starters offer detailed descriptions for each card.
ReadySetFuture_ Web-based UI Research, Redesign, and Digitize
Workshop
Gathered Insights and 100+ Scenarios
Educational Technology | Human-Computer Interaction | Co-Creation | Curiosity
2023-2024 Foresight 2033: ReadySetFuture_
The academic value derived from the Foresight 2033 project has been distilled into an article published in the proceedings of HCI International. The publication demonstrates my commitment to translating industry insights into scholarly contributions, advancing the fields of HCI.
This research explores how our tool helped a major automotive maker understand future consumer values and their impact on vehicle features. We contrasted the TINA mindset with the TAMA approach, emphasizing the importance of cultivating curiosity about future possibilities. The success of ReadySetFuture_ in generating over 100 scenarios across workshops demonstrates its effectiveness in encouraging diverse perspectives on potential futures.
There
Is No Alternative
versus
There Are Many Alternatives TINA TAMA
Cassini Nazir, Mike Courtney, and Kuo-Wei Lee. (2024). Becoming More Curious About the Future: ReadySetFuture_. In proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Design, User Experience, and Usability (DUXU 2024), held as part of the 26th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCII 2024), Washington, DC
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-61353-1_23
2019-2022
Creating a distinctive and powerful brand is essential for fostering connections with clients. An effective branding plan can increase customer loyalty, boost brand recognition, generate repeat purchases, and stimulate word-of-mouth promotion and recommendations.
At Departure Thailand, I achieved a range of design projects as Manager, Design from Nov. 2019 to Jul. 2022.
These included
• leading branding workshops for repositioning and localization in Thailand,
• devising Brand Guidelines for team members to adhere to and ensure visual brand consistency,
• working with the Marketing team to develop sales campaigns, pinpointing Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs) to guide us in creating campaigns for the right audiences,
• developing an e-commerce website for the business in Southeast Asia
• establishing a seamless online-to-offline(O2O) omnichannel strategy,
• designing Departure’s first UX-oriented store overseas, and
• constructing a strong packaging and unboxing strategy and allowing the experience to leave a strong impression on consumers.
Brand Style Guidelines: bit.ly/Departure_Brand_Guidelines
Omnichannel Strategy with ConnectPOS: bit.ly/Departure-ConnectPost
Design Sharing: bit.ly/D_Design_Sharing
E-commerce Website: departure.co.th
Departure style guide ensures a consistent brand experience for customers across channels.
Design system
Branding workshop
Competitor analysis/mapping
2019-2022
Worked with a Japanese interior design team, we designed Departure’s first UX-oriented store overseas.
Compared with regular travel retail, Departure focuses on the “traveler experience”, Departure Thong Lo is a store dedicated to customers who have a chance to experience and interact with products deeply. As we live in an era of advanced technology, the online-shopping experience is very important to Departure as well. We provide leisure and roomy space and an omnichannel sales allowing customers to connect their digital and physical world, which make them browse the color variations at a glance easily and quickly on iPad, and then experience the real product in person in order to help them make the right and suitable decision.
The store offers exquisite pavement slope, size guide and the luggage breakdown for the sake of allowing customers to explore the product they are interested, and Departure’s philosophy With us, you can go anywhere. comprehensively.
Traveler Experience Design: bit.ly/TL13_Design
Store Walk-through: bit.ly/DTL-TWExcellencePCHOME
Diagonal Composition represents a balanced composition of dynamically intersecting and crossing parallel and diagonal lines. Diagonal lines suggest movement and action to create dynamic and lively vibes
Master’s Thesis| Design Research| Interaction Design
2017-2018
Supervisor: Cassini Nazir, Clinical Associate Professor
School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication
The University of Texas at Dallas
Public art creates a sense of pride and community identity. It represents the public history of cities, enriches the culture, and reflects public thinking in society. Public art can create meaningful relationships between cities and their citizens.
ArtSide, is a mobile prototype that connects individuals to public art and provides a social platform to interact with others about the pieces.
Ultimately, my thesis was awarded a HASTAC scholarship, and as a Lead Presenter, I was selected to present at two conferences: the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (a2ru) and the ResearchArt-Writing Conference at UT Dallas.
Learn more about the design process at kuoweilee.design/artside-design-process
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Cassini Nazir, Roger Malina, Greg Metz, Vic Simon, Joyce Hong, Shruthy Sreepathy, Yusra Khan, the faculty of The University of Texas at Dallas, and the members of ArtSciLab
2017-2018
Interactive and participatory design workshops engaged people to provide opinions, experiences, and stories.
The problem we've got is that journal is an app feature where user can write about their experience with public art, add images/videos and share it with others. This feature was design in the conventional way how most social media platforms provide. We wanted to come out of this conventional way of hash tag, image gallery and selfies. We’d like to build a space where sharing their experience with public art itself becomes an experience and an opportunity to think and write creatively. Three one-hour interactive workshops allowed participants to share their personal insights into public art and perspectives about how technology can be used to enhance the experience of public art. I gathered the artifacts produced during the workshops to provoke creative possibilities for ArtSide - VizPoem.
Learn more about the workshops at kuoweilee.design/design-workshops
Acknowledgements
Workshop Co-hosts: Shruthy Sreepathy, Yusra Khan
Visual Poetry Feature derived from the workshops
VizPoem, the conceptual media expression presented at TAICHI 2024 in Taiwan, received an honorable mention for its creative approach to combining visual poetry with public art experiences. This research demonstrates the potential of innovative technologies in enhancing public engagement with art and urban spaces, fostering community-oriented dialogues among artists, residents, and urban planning stakeholders. My ongoing research in this area—including presenting the VizPoem concept at a peer-reviewed panel at SECAC 2024 in Atlanta where I engaged with researchers and educators at SUNY Buffalo and the University of North Texas reflects a commitment to collaborative, community-centered design approaches.
Kuo-Wei Lee and Cassini Nazir. (2024). Enhancing Public Art Experiences through Visual Poetry. In proceedings of the 10th Annual Conference of Taiwanese Association of Human-Computer Interaction (TAICHI 2024), Tainan, Taiwan, Honorable Mention Award.
80th Annual Conference devoted to education and research in the visual arts
Kuo-Wei Lee. (2024). Navigating the Unseen: A Socio-Technological Exploration with VizPoem for Enhanced Engagement in Public Art. The 80th SECAC Conference (SECAC 2024), Atlanta, GA
Rebranding and designing a website for a Certified ServiceDisabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB)—
D’Amico Communications allows them to effectively represent the business and helps it succeed in the digital world.
Here are steps I took to approach this project:
1. Research the business and its target audience
2. Define the project scope and objectives
3. Redesign the corporate identity
4. Develop a style guide
5. Wireframe the website
6. Develop the website
Website: damicoconsulting.com
Develop a corporate identity system and design a website for AlphaMedTec, a consulting firm providing services based on practical experiences for the medical device industry.
Here are steps I took to approach this project:
1. Research the business and its target audience
2. Define the project scope and objectives
3. Design the corporate identity
4. Develop a corporate identity system (CIS)
5. Wireframe the website
6. Develop the website Website: alphamedtec.com
Avesta Integrative Medicine
In 2018, Avesta Medicine started providing telemedicine consultations in lifestyle, functional and Integrative medicine. The client would like to use website to attract/absorb more customers through online.
Avesta Medicine needs to set itself apart from competitors while maintaining a coherent message. Avesta Medicine website should be nimble, and passionate about telemedicine services / medical consultation and we need that to be at our core.
See more details: kuoweilee.design/avesta
2 Months
Topline Reports
Client Role Timeframe
The University of Texas at Dallas Design and Development 1.5 Months
Bonnie Pitman
The former Director of The Dallas Museum of Art
Distinguished Scholar in Residence for The Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History Director Art-Brain Innovations, Center for BrainHealth
Distinguished Scholar in Residence for The School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication The University of Texas at Dallas
Design 3 slide deck templates for Bonnie’s presentations (workshops, lectures, and courses) to accommodate her three areas of research:
• Do Something NEWTM
• Power of ObservationTM
• Art + Medicine
Develop identity that covers all research areas in consistent typefaces, colors, layouts. Do Something NEW invites the exploration of an ordinary day and making it extraordinary. The practice helps with the simple interactions of the day giving a focus for being grateful, creative and mindful. I’ve gone through over 2,000 Bonnie's experiences and developed the color system.
Templates
Color calibration meeting
Visual identity design: color system exploration, wordmark design
Client Role
Tim Morgan, Consulting Futurist North Texas Foresight Institute (NTFI)
Design and Development
Designed Logos and visual identity systems for Tim’s Everyday Futurist & NTFI and developed a slide deck template for Tim’s presentations (workshops, lectures, and professional presentations) to accommodate his two brands:
• North Texas Foresight Institute a leading-edge source of long-range Business Intelligence for strategic insights & innovation development. Futures Thinking & Strategic Foresight are about making better decisions for today, ones that create future opportunities & anticipate future difficulties. Foresight is the art of winning the race before it starts.
• Everyday Futurist personal writing, lecture, & teaching brand for Tim.
Presentation Design
2016 - 2018
Supervisor: Cassini Nazir, Clinical Associate Professor School of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication
The University of Texas at Dallas
As a Junior UI/UX Designer at ArtSciLab, UT Dallas, mainly in charge of designing & improving the digital experience on the ARTECA platform, a curated space for essential content linking the arts, sciences, and technologies with alternative methods of peer review and monograph publishing, in collaboration with MIT Press & Leonardo Journal with over 100 subscribing institutions. Assisted with publishing the first Chinese journal article on the ARTECA in collaboration with Tsinghua University and Nanjing University. Co-hosted 4 user research workshops and discovered 7 feature issues & 12 design flaws. Identified 20+ design issues mostly related to navigation system and labeling system through heuristic evaluation which helped refine the content map and improve user flow.
Responsibilities
• Develop UI kit and maintain & improve UI components on the ARTECA platform.
• Create low to high fidelity prototypes for usability testing and demonstration.
• Utilize project management process to track and measure UX deliverables.
• Collaborate with web developers, project coordinators, faculty members and other stakeholders.
• Ability to facilitate usability testing and drive user research workshops.
See more details: kuoweilee.design/arteca
2019 - 2020
Self-initiated coding projects can be a valuable way for me, a designer, to better understand the thinking and perspective of developers and engineers. By working on a coding project, designers can gain a deeper understanding of the technical constraints and considerations that developers must take into account when building a product. This can be especially valuable for designers who are interested in working closely with development teams and want to be able to speak the same language and understand the challenges and opportunities that developers face.
Self-initiated coding projects can also help me develop a greater appreciation for the time and effort that goes into building a product, which can inform their design decisions and help me create more practical and feasible designs.
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kuoweilee.design/ the-abcs-of-helvetica
kuoweilee.design/ interactive-piano
the abc's of Helvetica
Responsive Web Design Project with Typography, Visual Design.
HTML & CSS / JavaScript / RWD / Typography
Interactive Virtual Piano
AJAX imports external data and Vue.js manages/edits data in real-time.
HTML & CSS / Vue.js / Ajax
2019 - 2020
Self-initiated coding projects can be a valuable way for me, a designer, to better understand the thinking and perspective of developers and engineers. By working on a coding project, designers can gain a deeper understanding of the technical constraints and considerations that developers must take into account when building a product. This can be especially valuable for designers who are interested in working closely with development teams and want to be able to speak the same language and understand the challenges and opportunities that developers face.
Self-initiated coding projects can also help me develop a greater appreciation for the time and effort that goes into building a product, which can inform their design decisions and help me create more practical and feasible designs.
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kuoweilee.design/ interactive-iphone-models-demo
kuoweilee.design/ interactivenamecard
Using jQuery to toggle and/or change CSS classes
jQuery / JavaScript / HTML & CSS
Interactive Name Card
HTML & CSS Exercise
HTML & CSS / Animation
A variety of design projects completed during undergraduate studies, ranging from product design, graphic design, and photography.
With a Bachelor of Engineering background at National Taiwan Normal University has prepared me well with a strong foundation in industrial design and engineering technical skills. These skills likely include a thorough understanding of engineering principles and techniques, as well as the ability to apply this knowledge to the design and development of various products and systems. The education at NTNU has likely prepared me to work in a variety of engineering and design-related fields, and well-equipped me to tackle complex design challenges and solve realworld problems in the future.
Portfolio: kuoweilee.design/productdesign
