New way to Shop on eBay
I helped drive forward a program of user experience changes to our search products during 2005. The first of which launched in May 2005 as the alpha test for a "New way to Shop on eBay". In addition to general simplification of the Finding UI, it introduced the following improvements:
- Multi-faceted browsing (e.g. search by bed size OR brand OR product type)
- Matching buyer and seller language (e.g. CK = Calvin Klein)
- Multiple selection of concepts (e.g. see all the size 8.0 & 8.5 shoes)
Sharing Best Practices
Increasingly, organizations are looking for ways to use technology to document and share information in order to increase effectiveness and foster a sense of community. As one example of a “community of practice”, I led the eBay User Experience & Design group's recent creation of a knowledge management system known as the Playbook to enable the eBay design community to share design best practices and other information. I also published a paper on this topic with my colleague Jeff Herman for the SIGCHI 2005 Conference.
Paper: "Creating a System to Share User Experience Best Practices at eBay"
Improving eBay's Search
Led the User Interface design for a series of improvements
to eBay's search offering over the course of 2004. The product improved
discoverability of search features (category selection, filtering)
and clearly defined the different item list views. Also improved the
surfacing of search inteligence features. The conversion rate of the
page increased with each set of changes the product team made. My
success on these improvement have enabled me to shape the Finding
Strategy and now lead a team of UI designers in the Finding area.
See details...
Reputation Information on eBay
eBay's Feedback System plays a critical in the community's
ability to trust one another. However we found in the spring of 2003
that too many buyers were confused with how reputation information
was displayed. I redesigned the UI by unifying all member information
onto a Member Profile page, creating understandable visualizations
of the data, and introducing the feedback iconography. We also invovled
the community in the design process in order to manage the reaction
to this sensitive information. Finally our innovations on this project
enabled myself and the product manager to file a patent on the subject
[Patent Pending: "Method and system for presenting feedback information
in a network-based transaction facility"]
See details...
Message Phone Design Exercise
Designed a smart telephone that incorporates a visual
interface for managing voice mail. The interface is displayed on a
built-in, 4- by 5-inch, color LCD scree. The goal was to create a
believable, compelling design for the MessagePhone while utilitizing
interaction design processes.
See details...
Internet Explorer for the Mac
Developed several ideas to create a value proposition for users to download a a future version of Internet Explorer for the Macintosh. Also improved backend implementations where necessary and contributed to long-term product planning.
Specifically, one challenge was to investigate and design improvements to how Preferences were changed and stored in IE.
MSN Messenger for the Mac
Managed and drove design and product specs for the
second release of MSN Messenger Service for the Macintosh while I
was at Microsoft. I eliminated a number of the usability issues present
in the 1.0 product, added user requested features, and brought the
software's architecture on par with its Windows sibling.
See details...