ITU 150 Mobile Application

As part of their communications strategy, they ran an anniversary campaign to commemorate and celebrate 150 years of innovation. My job was to design an engaging mobile application that showed anniversary-related events and its details, while keeping users informed of the history and work of ITU.

Discovery Phase
First, I had to identify who the users were going to be, and how they would use the application. The business requirements were quite broad in scope, which meant that there were many different types of users - each with goals of their own.

I sent around a survey and received 11 responses showing how people felt about similar event-based applications.

The results showed that most people wanted to download event-based mobile applications to help them stay informed and engaged throughout events.

I also conducted three sets of competitive analysis to see what similar applications looked like and how they behaved: Applications for specific events, applications for discovering events, and applications for anniversaries.

The most commonly found features in all three categories were: about us, contact us, calendar of events, news and stories, and a social component.

Additional to the common features found in event-based applications, the client wanted to add a game feature quizzing users on ITU related trivia in order to increase ITU's awareness and participation of its users.

Design Phase
I started designing the first iteration of wireframes in low fidelity. It was important to get the conceptual designs right by the client. As the project progressed, the quiz element became one of the more valued features.

Once I started designing the wireframes in higher fidelity, it was time to ask people for feedback. I conducted an A/B test on 5 people to see what navigation style made most sense to the participant. The majority of users chose option B, as the hamburger menu icon placement felt natural.

Results
The mobile application has been released for Android and iOS, and is publicly available for download. Also, visit the ITU 150 anniversary website to learn more.

Tracking Books

Quality materials are an essential ingredient to quality learning experiences. However, despite significant efforts by governments and the international community to produce and distribute learning resources, often times, students in many countries lack books and supplemental learning materials. Simply put, students and their teachers are not always receiving the materials they are supposed to have. All Children Reading launched the Tracking and Tracing Books prize competition. The competition called for innovations to track books destined to schools in developing countries, allowing stakeholders, ranging from parents to teachers and the Ministry of Education, to quickly and easily access tracking information. Experience in developing countries suggests that when communities know what books are to be delivered and when, they will advocate for on-time delivery. But they rarely have this information and even when they do, they are not able to track books while in transit. My goal was to design a centralized information system that allowed the management and monitoring of shipments while notifying communities on tracking details of book deliveries.

EGRA Mobile Application

The Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) is a toolkit designed to measure literacy levels of primary school children in developing countries. EGRA helps educators identify areas within reading instruction that need to be improved. Improving literacy in early grade students is important because students need to first learn to read so that they can read to learn. Existing applications that facilitate EGRA are out-dated and not easy to use. In fact, it takes quite a long time to plan an EGRA study, configure the application, collect data, and disseminate meaningful results. My goal of the project was to design an easier and more intuitive mobile application that would allow teachers to conduct EGRA with less effort, in a shorter amount of time.

Monster Character Design

Characters in digital media can be used as guides throughout the learning process, while facilitating a feeling of friendship and fun - critical in keeping children engaged. I designed these monsters to be part of an educational game application that helps improve literacy in young learners.

ITU 150 Mobile Application

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies. May 17, 2015 marked ITU's 150th anniversary since the signing of the first International Telegraph Convention and the creation of the International Telegraph Union. As part of their communications strategy, they ran an anniversary campaign to commemorate and celebrate 150 years of innovation. My job was to design an engaging mobile application that showed anniversary-related events and its details, while keeping users informed of the history and work of ITU.

The History of the Right to Love

United Nations Free & Equal, an initiative of the United Nations Human Rights Office, ran a campaign called, "The History of the Right to Love", showing the criminalization of same sex relations from 1799 to 2016. I designed a visualization that showed how different countries have criminalized, decriminalized, and even recriminalized being gay throughout history.

Mode of Transportation

A growing list of different modes of transportation captured around the world. Tip: view at 1080p, full screen, and sound on.