FAMtablet

FAMtablet is the most affordable tablet computer made specifically for older seniors

Idea

We know how hard it is to stay in touch with our loved ones, especially the older seniors among them. We live lives among Facebook shares, Instagram photos, Skype calls and tweets. Our grandparents live their lives through their grandchildren and long to know what they are up to.

User

• Older senior 75+, typically a woman with no computer experience
• Grandson/Granddaughter/Son/Daughter (customer)

Reponsibilities

As product manager and general manager, I am responsible for setting the product strategy based on user and market validation. I am also responsible for coordination of hardware and software design and marketing efforts.

Status

In 6 months we have built and evaluated several prototypes and are looking for partners to allow us to scale.

OhMyCause!

OhMyCause is a storytelling web platform that increases volunteer engagement by turning volunteers into superheroes.

Idea

From our own experience, as well as our friends' we have noticed that:

• Non-profits struggle with volunteer engagement - the number of volunteer hours in the US has decreased, and 1/3 of people who volunteer their time once do not go back to do any volunteer work the next year.
• University students and young graduates struggle to differentiate themselves in the marketplace.
• Employers, expecially in the government and non-profit sector prefer candidates with volunteer and community leadership experience.
• There is no current platform that would provide a vivid picture of an individual's volunteer impact.

User

• University student or fresh graduate
• Student volunteer organization
• Non-profit or government organization

Reponsibilities

As co-founder, product, I am responsible for setting the product roadmap, designing and evaluating features, and defining success criteria. I am also responsible for the overall design direction.

Status

OhMyCause is currently finalist in the BigIdeas@Berkeley competition. We are pilot-testing individual features and always seeking mentorship from volunteer leaders, volunteer organizations, and non-profits. If you would like to be involved, please let us know at ohmycause.org.

DNAnexus

DNAnexus is a platform for the management, analysis, and visualization of genomic data.

Through user research we have discovered, that users typically divide their data into "projects," corresponding to a grant or to a research study. Thus, one of the major innovations of the DNAnexus product was analogous division of user's data and analyses.

Users

• Bioinformaticists
• Bench Biologists
• DNA sequencing providers

Desired Functionality

• Manage data for private, shared, and public research projects or clinical trials
• Configure and launch analysis on the data
• Evaluate results in a graphical way

Reponsibilities

As lead designer, I was responsible for defining the direction of a brand new flagship product, from concept to succesful beta shipment.
DNAnexus had a distributed product management role between the CEO, Engineering, Science, and UX, and I was responsible for bringing customer insights and industry trend findings to the table.
I was working closely with the front-end development team to implement features, verify feasibility, or to coin standards.
Additionally, I would take on light development to the order of visual modifications and bug fixes to front-end, and wiki and wordpress editing.

Within each project, users have the option to manage their datasets (same way they would do in Dropbox, for example), launch and monitor data analyses, and visualize results.

The visualization feature consisted of reports and a custom canvas-based genome browser (pictured). I was responsible for the design and usability testing of this innovative visualization.

VMware Zimbra

Zimbra is an open-source email and collaboration suite acquired by VMware from Yahoo.

Post-acquisition, I was tasked to redesign the administration interface for 1/ better scalability and 2/ alignment with the standard visual and interaction theme. Home Page.

Task

• Create a more pleasant first user experience
• Address scale problem of left hand navigation
• Address scale problem of tabs
• Align with standard visual and interaction theme

User

Application administrator

Zimbra Administration page re-design. General settings page.

Original Zimbra administration UI with multiple scalability problems.

Animated Scatterplot for Problem Triage and Root Cause Analysis

Inspired by Hans Rosling's Gapminder. Patent pending.

Animated Scatterplot for Datacenter Monitoring (Patent pending) from Martin Bednar on Vimeo.

Task

Design a clear and scalable visualization of problems in a virtualized datacenter including

• Problem priority (based on severity, number of affected nodes, duration)
• Datacenter object type
• Problem root cause

User

Datacenter administrator

VMware vCenter Operations Dashboard

vCenter Operations is a core VMware offering for datacenter monitoring, troubleshooting, and capacity management.

The administration dashboard combines operations (Alerts), provisioning (Environment), and optimization (Waste) features.

Task

• Improve usability and scalability of an acquired monitoring product
• Integrate capacity management features

User

Datacenter Admistrator

Desired Functionality

• See overview of datacenter health state
• Identify current problems
• Get overview of datacenter assets
• Assess optimization options

User

Datacenter administrator

In order to identify problem root cause, the dashboard visualization features relationships among objects. Details of the problem are shown in the highlighted row of the alert table.

The original vCenterOperations UI with multiple cognitive and scalability problems.