Facebook Portal
Early Concept UX Design Lead
In 2016 I lead the UX design for an internal Facebook team looking to define how the company could enter the newly emerging in-home smart device market and compete with Amazon Alexa, and the upcoming Apple HomePod. A large part of the team concentrated on the mechanical and electrical engineering challenges. Meanwhile I partnered with the UX researcher on the team to iteratively design and test UX feature sets and define potential product strategy, design ethos and UX frameworks.
2016
Key Methods: Experience Prototyping. UX Frameworks. Product Strategy
Switch to manually disconnect camera and mic for added privacy. One of the early features we identified and pushed to be included.
The two concept directions we pitched to management for the product to be developed towards, all stemming from our overall brand concept.
Linking technologically simple interactions (ie send message, read message, add to calendar) created complex and desirable multi-chain interactions.
Project Information
Our project culminated in a Stop/Go presentation to upper management where they would either kill the project or take our concept work and move it to one of the in house development teams. I delivered a brand concept, two UX frameworks with accompanying feature sets and product strategy pathways, all validated with potential users. We pitched these two potential product strategies as part of our teams successful presentation. Department heads chose one and the product was green lit to move into development. In 2018 the project launched as the Facebook Portal. One notable feature that was created in these early designs is the hardware off switch to disconnect the camera for privacy reasons.
