Since graduating from Carnegie Mellon with a master's degree in Human Computer Interaction, I've worked on usabilitity projects at , , and . I have industry and research experience doing the following: heuristic evaluations, contextual inquiries in the user's environment, managing remote user groups, conducting focus group sessions, creating and using paper prototypes, conducting think aloud studies in the lab and in the user's environment, form factor design, creating personas, creating and using technology probes, and evaluating assistive technologies.
Verizon Labs: User Centered Design Group
While at Verizon Labs, I worked as a usability consultant on DSL and FiOS networking projects as well as Verizon Wireless products and services. I evaluated both hardware and software. My responsibilities included setting up and conducting usability studies (both in customer's homes and in the lab), designing and creating prototypes, recruiting participants, and managing a nation-wide user group.
CSIRO Network Technologies Group
Jogging the Distance
Have you ever wanted to go jogging with a friend but it was impossible for you two to meet? While working at CSIRO, my team researched how joggers could have a shared jogging experience when apart. Our initial investigations used a simple mono-audio connection between two joggers. We recruited volunteers from a local jogging club, and a total of 18 joggers participated in the study.
Publications
O'Brien, S., Thorogood, A., Mueller, F. Jogging the Distance . CHI 2007, San Jose.
Presentations
I presented my team's work on Jogging the Distance at CHI 2007, San Jose.
In-Situ Re-Tasking Robotic Interface
For my master's degree in HCI from Carnegie Mellon, I completed a 8 month project at NASA-Ames. Working on a team of six, I took part in researching, designing, and developing an interface for in-situ re-tasking of non-colocated robots. In other words, the interface allows the operator to interupt a robot's current task and command it to do something else. The future goal of the interface is to allow astronauts on manned-missions on Mars command the rovers.
One of the challenges that my team and I faced was deciding on participants for our contextual inquiry studies. Since there currently aren't astronauts on Mars re-tasking the rovers, we had to look elsewhere for data. Our aim was to analyze how people re-task. We chose to conduct research with CMU's many robotic teams including Red Team, Tekkotsu, and Robo-Soccer. In addition, we visited a hospital and talked to the charge nurse of the operating room ward. We gained insightful knowledge of how she scheduled and re-tasked the doctors and nurses. We also interviewed a manager at Baja Fresh to see how she re-tasked employees. A paper describing my team's unique approach and process to empirical research was presented in a workshop at Middlesex University's Interaction Design Centre.
Publications
Kobayashi, M., O'Brien, S., Pyrzak, G., Ratterman, C., Wong, K., Vassallo, G., Vera, A., Connor, C., McCurdy, M. Informing the Design of In-Situ Re-Tasking Interfaces. In-Use, In-Situ: Extending Fields Research Methdods 2005. BCS London.
NASA-Ames Independent Study: Project K-9
I and two teamates worked on the . Our objective was to design and test different ways to visualize changes and compare activity plans for the K9 robot. We showed the necessity of our re-designs with supporting data from usability analysis and literature reviews.
CMU: Assistive Technology
Exploration of Grid and Audio: Building a Usable Interface for the Blind
In my Assistive Technology course at CMU, I worked on developing an interface builder for programmers with visual impairments. I focused on determining the amount of audio feedback an interface builder would need in order to be usable. I conducted six think-aloud usability tests, and analyzed what audio feedback was useful and what feedback was requested. In order to conduct the evaluation, I developed an application called AUI Builder: an accessible user interface builder, in Java. My professor for this class was
CMU: Privacy Bird
Redesign of Privacy Bird. Client: Lorrie Cranor: AT&T
As part of my HCI methods course at Carnegie Mellon, one of my class projects was to re-design the interface of . Working in a team of four, this project gave me and my teammates a chance to apply multiple HCI methods to a pre-existing product, and to get direct feedback from our advisor and our client Lorrie Cranor, a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon who is the product lead of Privacy Bird. Through our usability studies, my team and I were able to give supporting evidence to the problems of the existing design. Our deliverable was a prototpe that overcame these problems.
