oren kravetz
user experience designer
Greetings & Salutations, visitor from the Internet.
I humbly welcome you to my simple website. I am a user experience designer with a special interest in typography and graphic identity. I aim to bridge the gap between engineers and the end users, creating a satisfying experience for the users interacting with my software.
For a further study of my work, click here. If you want it all summarized on one page, look below for my résumé. On my blog, &c., you can find updates on projects with which I am currenlty occupied, links to websites that have piqued my interest, as well as my thoughts on subjects ranging from exploring the secrets of the Universe to finding jobs in Atlantis; from the eating habits of Eastern European dragons to weather prediction for 21 December, 2012; and from recordings of the sound of the Earth rotating around the Sun to my attempts to see the colour of magic. Lastly, if you are impressed by what you've seen here, if you want more information, or if you just want to say "Hello!", feel free to drop me a line.
I thank you for visiting my website and I hope you enjoy your stay. Ciao!
about
I am a user experience designer with a special interest in typography and graphic identity. I aim to bridge the gap between engineers and the end users, creating a satisfying experience for the users interacting with my software. My past experience in website design and development ranges from freelance projects to an internship with Yahoo!, Inc. While working on my Masters in Human-Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon University, I had the privilege to participate in a research project in cooperation with General Dynamics Viz. My team and I designed a system using Viz's CoMotion platform to help first responders plan for large-scale incidents events.
Bookish
Bookish is an application that lets book collectors manage their collections and interact with other collectors. During this project I learned to apply the various methods of Human-Computer Interaction and user-centered design. We designed interactions around adding a book to the collection, exploring the collection, and interacting with other collectors.
Chirp
The goal of this project was to design a mobile application to encourage health and fitness in the context of elder exercise groups. Our approach was to consider the exercise group as a crucial motivator of exercise. Thus, we felt that we could leverage this motivation in the form of a competitive group game centered on bird watching, a popular activity for our user group. In addition, we felt that our design had the potential to encourage fellowship in the group. We needed to account for reduced vision among the elderly and a lesser comfort with technology.
My personal contributions to the project included participation during the ideation and brainstorming phase, drawing the second round of paper prototypes, and developing the final Flash-based walkthrough.
The process website that we submitted, which contains more information about the project, can be found here.
The final solution, in Flash, can be found here.
First Responder
This is the research project I worked on with Carnegie Mellon University and General Dynamics Viz. My team and I are designing a system based on Viz's CoMotion to coordinate efforts in emergencies and performing contextual research with the police officers, firefighters, EMTs and other first responders. We have decided to focus on developing a tool that will improve event planning for large-scale events, such as Fourth of July celebrations, a visit from the President of the United States, or a bomb threat.
I am the Design Lead for the team and am in charge of designing all the visual elements of our prototypes, designing our reports, and designing and developing our process website.
H.E.R.B.
This was the research project I was involved with in cooperation with Carnegie Mellon University and Intel, Inc. We worked with Intel's Home Exploring Robot Butler (H.E.R.B.), a robot designed to assist the elderly and mobility-impaired with performing tasks around the house. It is made up primarily of a Segway base and one or two robotic arms, and navigates with the use of cameras and lasers. Our task was to design a device and interface for interacting with H.E.R.B. This included a device for commanding H.E.R.B. to perform a number of preset tasks as well as an interface through which H.E.R.B. could communicate his state back to the user.
My personal contribution to this project included performing contextual interviews with the elderly, participating in the research, brainstorming, and prototyping phases, and designing parts of the interaction the user has with H.E.R.B.
H.E.R.B. in the News:
• Popular Science wrote about H.E.R.B. and a variety of other "helpful machines" being developed in the United States (26 July 2010).
• H.E.R.B., now equipped with two arms, was featured in an article on Fast Company which was reposted by Engadget (1 July 2010).
• I was featured in an article with H.E.R.B. in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (31 November 2009).
Hillman Library Full-O-Meter
The goal of this project was to activate an environment by providing some sort of interaction via displays and sensors to the people who normally use that space. Our team chose to focus on the façade of the University of Pittsburgh's Hillman Library. The display here would inform patrons of the library of the occupancy level of a given floor at a glance. There are colored bars corresponding to each floor; the bars use length and color to communicate how full its floor is. Motion sensors located at the entrances to each floor are responsible for gathering this data. Additionally, there is a multi-touch, interactive display located near each floor's entrance that provides access to historical and trending data.
The process website that we submitted, which contains more information about the project, can be found here.
A video sketch of the final solution can be found here.
Toaster Control Redesign
The assignment for this project was to take an everyday object that has a poor interaction and design an improvement for it. I chose a toaster oven that had too many knobs and not enough space between settings on the knobs to allow for enough variation in toasting. Other problems included one knob only having an effect if one turned the second knob to a specific setting.
My solution provides a simple, systematic interface that eliminates the ambiguity found in the original design. The toaster always displays the current state of the toaster using an LED and allows users to cancel their operation with the touch of a button — functionality that was lacking in the original design.
What Happened Last Night?
For this project, the assignment was to create a website that would display and organize a collection. We decided to create a collection of shared experiences — a place where people could share a story of what happened to them the night before and add to their friends' stories. After a party or event, people visit the website to relate their experience, and then allow others to tell the story from their perspective, enriching the story. Stories are ranked by the users and can be searched by location or venue.
I participated in the entire life cycle of the project, from brainstorming and research to prototyping and design. More specifically, I designed the first few prototypes as well as the process website, available below.
The process website that we submitted, which contains more information about the project, can be found here.
The final solution can be found here.
Post-It Note Parade
View gallery here on Flickr.
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
For this project, the researchers of the Department of Invertebrate Zoology of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CMNH), AKA the "Bug Guys," approached us, wanting a poster. The poster was to communicate the vast amount of data they had on their bug collection, including the number of bugs by species and the number of times they loaned insects to other research institutions. The audience could be anyone from the museums visitors to its administrators.
I designed an information graphic aimed at children trying to express the number of insects in the museum's collection by comparing stacks of them to some of the tallest structures in the world.
Delta Blues Museum
The goal of this project was to redesign the identity of the Delta Blues Museum of Clarksdale, MI. The identity needed to be new and fresh, while maintaining the authenticity of the museum. Many of the greatest Delta Blues singers grew up in the area around the museum, and it was important to express elements of city as if they were part of the museum. The final design stems from the historical landmark of "The Crossroads," the junction of Highway 61 and Highway 49, where, according to legend, Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for mastery of the blues.
Papirprodukter Selskap
This project focused on creating a fictional company based on a pre-designed logo, and then designing the rest of the identity for the corporation. I created Papirprodukter Selskap ASA (The Paper Products Company) an independent wholesale paper distributor in Oslo, Norway. They service the industrial packing, sanitary maintenance, and institutional foodservices markets in Scandinavia. An increased focus on sustainability in Scandinavia over the past decade has led to paper overproduction and a decrease in overall demand. As a result, Papirprodukter Selskap has had to lay off many employees recently. Additionally, controversy surrounding some illegal logging in Brazil has garnered the company some bad press. They would like to refocus the company in light of the new attitude towards paper in Scandinavia, as well as distance themselves from the illegal logging incident.
Brody Photography
BrodyPhotography.com is the portfolio website for Washington, D.C.-based photographer David Brody. I designed, developed, and maintained the first two versions of the website as well as the custom content management system.
I am no longer the website's webmaster, and the project has been taken over by another web developer.
Kol HaLev
KolHaLev.com is the homepage for the World-Wide Jewish-Israeli Radio, based in Aventura, FL. I designed, developed, and maintained the website for a number of years. I also built a preliminary, custom content management system.
I am no longer the website's webmaster, and the project has been taken over by another web developer.
Yahoo!, Inc.
I designed and developed the frontend for the Capacity Planning database. This database holds information about all the data centers that Yahoo! owns around the world and the computers it keeps inside them. The internal site created graphs and visualizations on the fly based on the data in the database and replaced a previous system based on 2GB of spreadsheets.
Fun Fact: The image to left was drawn by me in my cube at Yahoo! using only dry-erase markers. And yes, I'm aware I spelled "corral" incorrectly.
résumé
Download my résumé here. (57.4 KB)
Download my print portfolio here. (37.6 MB)
