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I served as the lead interaction designer on this branding and e-commerce site for Ports 1961, a high-end fashion line. One of challenges on this project was integrating the Flash based branding sections, with HTML based e-commerce section, which launched at a later date. Some of my favorite features are the PUI with embedded video, and the simple, but very effective Chronicles section. I also love that we kept the top level navigation is so simple, even though the site is quite robust.

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Anyone who has worked in Interaction Design, or any form of design for that matter, can tell you how important sketching is. Bill Buxton even wrote a book about it. I find it to be the quickest, easiest way to map out ideas. Sometimes, I even give my sketches to the visual designers to work off of instead of a proper wireframe. I don’t see any reason why not. I actually think they look quite nice. These are sketches from various projects that I have worked on.

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The concept behind the CK One site is a grid that allows users to zoom in and out of the various sections of the site. The result is a very fluid, pageless interface. We also created a feature on this site called “We Are One”, a photo sharing application that allows users to upload photos of things they are passionate about. For this project, I defined requirements and executed all the information architecture and interaction design.

The “We Are One” feature is slated to launch February 2009.

We were asked to develop an e-commerce and online community site for St. John Knits. I handled all the information architecture and interaction design for the project. Because Neiman Marcus does the fulfillment for the e-commerce site, there were specific requirements that needed to be adhered to. Part of my job was to make sure we followed the Neiman Marcus technical requirements, while still pushing the envelope and creating a great site.

The clients felt that a community site would be a perfect way for their fanatical customers to interact with one another. During the research phase, I spoke with the clients at length about their brand, customers, and their ideas for the site. I used this, as well as other research about social networking sites, to develop the feature set for the Community. I also spoke frequently with our development team about the community software platform that we were using to build this portion of the site, to ensure that all technical requirements were taken into account.

Currently, only the brand site is live. The e-commerce and community sections are set to launch in March 2009.

For the Fendi.com redesign, I championed the idea of using the Papervision 3D library for Flash, something that had not previously been used at createthegroup. I think we came up with a really cool piece that fits the brand and uses the technology quite well. The idea is that the entire site exists as different panels in a kind of virtual space. Panels float in and out of view as links are clicked. I especially like the idea of a “visual breadcrumb”, meaning that parent sections are still visible (and clickable) in the distance, giving users a more guided experience. I handled all the interaction design for this project.

Recently I’ve been noticing a lot of subway billboards like the one above, where the built up remnants of various posters are exposed. This is the result of years of posters being stuck on top of each other. I have also noticed a new type of vandalism/urban intervention where people will actually rip off the poster on purpose, exposing previous layers underneath. In both instances, the resulting images are unique collages and juxtapositions of various advertisements over time.

Watch The Video (1.4 MB Quicktime)

Still image from demo movie

Layers is a software patch based on these subway collages. Every time the user clicks, a new image becomes their brush, so to speak. As they move the mouse around to different grid squares, a portion of the image populates the square. If they click again, they get a different image. The result is a unique interactive collage based on a set of images.

Box 2007 Mixed media. © 2007 Jason Lee

How long does it take for one to thoroughly “experience” a piece of art? Some spend a few seconds, others much longer. Music, movies, and performances have a finite time, but with gallery art, the amount of time is entirely up to the viewer. Box is a timed interaction. When a user stands in front of the piece for a short duration, the piece commences, revealing a pure white light. After a short time, the light slowly dims out. The experience is now over for that viewer. For those that pass by the piece casually, they will never fully experience the piece. Only when the viewer has “committed” to the piece, does it reveal itself.

Watch the video (Quicktime 3MB)

Stretch is a interactive video experiment I made using Jitter. It distorts a live video based on mouse location. Ideally, it would be connected to a touch screen plasma so that the user could directly manipulate their image by touching the screen. I find these simple “one to one” (one input to one output) interactions to be quite interesting if done right. I see this project as an updated version of a funhouse mirror, which I found to be infinitely entertaining as a kid. Hopefully I’ll be installing this in a public space in the future so that I can get some user feedback. In the meantime, the demo video starring yours truly will have to suffice.