Christopher Kai Wong, MS

1. Christopher Kai Wong, MS Usability Expert, UX Designer

2. Outline • Who am I • Design Philosophy • Primary projects • Telestration • SEER*EXPLORER • Advance Designation • Additional Projects

3. Who am I?

4. What is my design philosophy?

5. Primary projects • Telestration, or “How to improve communication within laparoscopic surgery with a touchless interface.” • SEER*EXPLORER, or “How to expand a cancer research tool to the general public without access to users.” • Advance Designation, or “How to incorporate UX into a two-week Agile sprint.”

6. Telestration

7. Telestration Background • Question “How to improve communication within laparoscopic cholecystectomy (Lapchole) with a touchless interface.”  • Minimally invasive surgery. • Reduces the length of operation, recovery time, and risk of infection. • Requires a specialized skillset that is difficult for new surgeons to learn. • My goal was to design a system to annotate live laparoscopic video • Will have immediate use in training • Later use within the actual surgical procedures

8. Telestration Context • Telestration consists of junior and senior surgeon working together • Junior surgeon maneuvers camera and tool while senior surgeon advises and prevents errors • If communication breakdowns occur, surgery will be stopped • Currently, surgeons are forced to move in un-ergonomic positions to address this

9. Our solution • System was built to support both resident and instructor so that annotation could occur on live laparoscopic video • Reduce fatigue, improve training of surgeons • System would be low-maintenance, and rarely used • Focus is to correct and prevent errors rather than constant communication

10. My roles • Data analyst • “What gestures are the easiest for the surgeon to support?” • UX Researcher • “When communication breakdowns occur, is it due to conversation or task? • UX Designer • “How to incorporate voice activation and gestures into a low-maintenance system?” • Project Manager • “How to make efficient use of Surgeon’s time?”

11. Lessons learned • Adoption of several roles • Setting up parallel research studies to support system design • Identifying a problem within a surgical setting and then building an evidence-based plan to address it • Creating user documents of design requirements in order to examine methods of implementation

12. SEER*EXPLORER

13. SEER*EXPLORER background • “How to expand a cancer research tool to the general public without access to users.” • National Cancer institute, branch of National Institutes of Health (NIH) • Research focused organization but making efforts towards general public • Usability Fellow, UX lead

14. SEER*EXPLORER context • Goal: Redesign SEER*EXPLORER, an existing cancer research tool, to incorporate additional user’s needs • Cancer statistics across several demographics • Mapping out key variables Incidence, Mortality Survival • Individual and Macro level views

15. SEER*EXPLORER challenges • Unable to talk directly with targeted users • Contractor would be coding/developing website

16. SEER*EXPLORER Design Process

17. Raising the question Planning • Identifying problems with the current process • Usability • User needs • Highlighting the problem into an overarching question to ask with stakeholders • Buy-in, recognition as an issue

18. SEER*EXPLORER Design Process Analyze • User research through multiple methods to get clear understanding • Interviews with stakeholders • Literature Review • In-House survey and tools • Usability evaluation of existing tool • Building personas based on research and validating them with stakeholders

19. Design: Paper Sketching

20. Test and Refine: Recommendations • Provided low-effort and substantial change design recommendations for the coding team • Made prototypes to serve as a guide for the recommendations on a larger scale

21. Result/Lessons learned • Positive feedback on addressing the problems • While not all design recommendations were implemented in the way that was drawn, got enough stakeholder buy-in to address all of the mentioned problems • Learned how to use multiple research methods to build user profiles and design for them • Learned how to defend my design decisions to stakeholders with different background

22. Advance designation

23. Advance Designation • “How to incorporate UX into a two-week Agile sprint.” • UX project lead and co-lead • UX specialist supporting Social Security Administration • Asked to take charge of a specific application (contact designees) and deliver prototype within 2 week sprint

24. Design process • User testing with paper prototypes • Continuous requirements gathering with updated paper sketches or Axure wireframes by end of day • Defending design decisions while incorporating further user suggestions

25. Rapid paper prototyping with users

26. Continuous requirements gathering • What information should we present them with: • Design elements on the screen • What can they do on this screen: • Tasks to accomplish and Interactions • User Needs (based on feedback): • Findings from speaking with end-users • Business Goals: • What needs to be accomplished from business end • Goal is make sure business goals are being met while also trying to address as many user needs as possible

27. Live prototyping and sketching • Adjusted existing Axure wireframes in meeting • Defended design decisions using UX best principles and design knowledge

28. Other design projects Additional Projects

29. Sensory Morning Goal for this project: Develop a mobile app that allows children on the Autism Spectrum to interact with art exhibits in a local Baltimore art museum program (Sensory Morning) Challenges for this project: Understanding how children on the Autism Spectrum think and interact with the world Making paintings and exhibits more tactile-friendly through a mobile screen My role in this Project: UX Designer and Researcher. • Interviewed disability experts, caretakers, and parents to learn about needs of children on the Autism Spectrum • Talked with museum curators to understand current activities that are being used for Sensory Morning • Designed and created a mobile application which incorporated current activities and extended them to be more interactive experience. • Tested the mobile application with users at the Sensory Morning events Length of project:  4 months Project Type:  Research Project done as part of my degree

30. Selective Mutism Goal for this project: • Develop a mobile application to help children with selective mutism practice habits which would lead to better health outcomes Challenges for this project: • Engaging children to perform and maintain healthy habits with gamification My role in this Project: Usability tester and UX researcher. • Researching current treatments for selective mutism and understanding how some of these exercises can be incorporated into a serious game • Incorporating habits into gamified application and testing with users Length of project:  • 4 months Project Type:  • Project at paid research position

31. Walk in my Shoes Goal for this project: Develop a simulation that instructs pre- and post-deployment soldiers on resources for mental health Challenges for this project: Providing mental health resources to an audience who may be unwilling to engage High fidelity and long amount of time means difficulty with testing My role in this Project: Usability tester, UX researcher and designer. • Figure out the major issues that soldiers encounter both before and after deployment • Developed methods for addressing these issues through the use of serious games, and tested this with military officers Length of project:  4 months Project Type:  • Project at paid research position

32. Baltimore Electric Vehicle Initiative Goal for this project: Develop a website to serve as a resource for all of Maryland Electric Vehicle information and resources Challenges for this project: Adjusting to new domain, obtaining information from stakeholders across the city of Baltimore My role in this Project: UX Designer • Gathered requirements, conducted interviews with stakeholders, designed and iterated on pevious Length of project:  4 months Project Type:  • Project at paid research position

33. Icon Set Goal for this project: • Create an icon set for a training video for NCI Challenges for this project: • Consistent icon design My role in this Project: UX designer. • Extensive research of user groups through triangulation and multiple research methods • Extensive usability testing of tool to understand the current usability problems Length of project:  • 2 weeks Project Type:  • Project at NCI usability fellowship

34. SEER*DMS portal Goal for this project: • Re-arrange information on the page to be more welcoming to be catered for the in-house audience Challenges for this project: • Understanding how the projects could be incorporated into existing category • Re-arranging existing information based on expected user needs My role in this Project: • Content Strategist, usability expert. • Card sorting and other categorization to understand how information should be sorted together • Extensive usability testing of tool to understand the current usability problems Length of project:  • 2 months Project Type:  • Project at NCI usability fellowship

35. Advance Designation Goal for this project: • Create an application from scratch to allow users to designate representatives to manage their benefits Challenges for this project: • Understanding SSA and how policy or other legal issues may affect the policy • Interpreting legal documentation into user needs My role in this Project: UX Design lead, co-lead, and Requirements Analyst • Gathered requirements in an Agile setting from multiple stakeholders • Did usability testing both remotely and in-person with both the public and Field Office workers • Went from Paper sketches and prototyping and high fidelity Agile wireframes Length of project:  • 5 months Project Type:  • UX Specialist at Northrop Grumman