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VANAGS.COM » PETER » PROFESSIONAL »
User Interface Design 1990-2006
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In all of its various forms, user interface design and implementation have formed the bulk of my professional career for the last 22 years.
Here's the history of my non-web user interface work, starting at Clement Mok Designs (now Studio Archetype) way back in 1990. To see my web site user interfaces, click here. |
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Year: 1990 An early interactive kiosk project, designed to run on a dozen or so Macintosh SE computers in the lobby of the TED conference in Monterey, CA. Kiosks contained biographical information about all attendees, conference schedule, local maps & restaurants, etc. |
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Year: 1990 My company was contracted by Apple Computer to develop a "Hands-On" interactive exhibit hall for the first Digital World conference. This was a demonstration room of over 40 early interactive multimedia products and technologies. We developed 20 hands-on activities for attendees to try, created animations, instructions and signage, and even composed music for some exhibits. |
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Year: 1991 I was hired to rescue this project and bring it to completion. The St. Louis Zoo Kiosk was a media browsing and automated video-editing tool for compiling custom video curricula from a library of 5 laserdiscs, and writing out edited video to VHS tape. |
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Year: 1991 At the dawn of the GPS era, we built a video presentation system for upstart Trimble Navigation based upon the St. Louis Zoo technologies. This time I got to design the user interface. |
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Year: 1992 Another example of early multimedia, a laserdisc production powered by a HyperCard user interface. This was a 4-laserdisc plus software setup that provided complete curriculum and support materials for junior high school computer science. The first full-color HyperCard product ever released (well before they built color capability into the program). |
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Year: 1993 One of the first multimedia CD-ROMs even published. Lauded by Bill Gates as the type of "killer app" that would sell multimedia. Initially released for DOS with a 16 color user interface (that's colors, not bits per pixel) and eventually ported to Macintosh, Windows, and 3DO gaming platforms. All programming is from-scratch on DOS, Mac and Windows, written in C++. 3DO engineering was outsourced. |
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Year: 1994 Multimedia CD-ROMs start to hit their stride, and we develop one on the history of flight. At this point, we can at least rely on having 256 colors! |
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Year: 1994 Another early CD-ROM / digital video production. The growing user interface group at Arnowitz Studios hitting our stride with slick user-interface elements overlaying beautiful watercolor illustrations of the undersea world. |
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Year: 1994 U dot I was contracted to design and prototype a new user interface for a video-on-demand application for interactive television. Our concept was based upon "actual agents" -- real personalities that provided weekly movie picks to the user, to assist in "filtering" the thousands of choices that would be available to interactive TV users. This was developed in addition to a set-top browsing/searching interface. Too bad all the ITV pilots were cancelled before they got off the ground. |
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Year: 1994 I was hired to redesign Ex Machina's entire line of wireless messaging products around a new "virtual device" user interface concept, and assist the engineering team in implementing tactile UI elements on Macintosh and Windows. I supplied custom C++ control definitions and other graphics code to the team. |
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Year: 1994 U dot I redesigned AirTouch's Sun/SmallTalk-based customer service application to clarify functionality and increase customer service representatives' productivity. A key component of the redesign was the floating "dashboard" that provided quick access to the most commonly used features. Consulted with the AirTouch development team about graphics implementation issues. |
 
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Year: 1995 The AMP CD-ROM disc was an Apple marketing piece designed to showcase Apple new media success stories. We developed a "blur/focus" user interface concept that dynamically brought elements into focus as the user browsed the screens. Implemented in Macromedia Director with custom-developed XObjects for an expanding/collapsing outline control. |
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Year: 1995 Apple hired U dot I to help redesign and restructure their on-line technical documentation library, including the information design of the content, the interface design of the electronic help viewer, and the instructional design of the library itself. |
 
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Year: 1995 U dot I was hired to protoype a series of geology-related touch-screen kiosks for installation in the newly remodeled Gem and Mineral Hall at the Smithsonian Institution. |
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Year: 1996-97 The HyperMedia Group contracted me to design the software architecture and lead the in-house and contractor programming team to implement a series of 10 highly interactive, animated CD-ROM discs that comprosed an entire middle school language arts curriculum. I also developed a series of Mac/Windows cross platform Xtras for Director to support extra functionality required by the project. |
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Year: 1997 Programmed and assisted in the design of the user interface for InterVista's VRML editing application. An early implementation of Microsoft's sliding and dockable "coolbar" classes that first appeared in Explorer 4. The user interface provided 3D tools, object hierarchy editor, object gallery, and hosted the core Java-based functionality of the editor. |
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Years: 1997-2005 In 1997 I started a company devoted to web application, component, service and framework development. Thin Air's primary business is to design and build customer web sites based around our core technologies. This includes systems for the web, touch-screen information kiosks, wireless networks and much more. |
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Years: 1998-2006 Designed the user interface and icon sets for Document Express, a Macintosh document- and contact-management tool. Created the original design for Mac OS 9 (1998), and a complete redesign for Mac OS X (2005-2006). |
