Harman

2012 - 2014
Senior Manager, User Experience

Aha Radio

I joined Harman as a Visual Design Manager and immediately began a rebranding effort with the marketing team. By the end of 2012, I was promoted to the Senior Manager, User Experience and expanded the team internationally. Being a small team, my day to day comprised of managing as well as designing our mobile apps (iOS and Android), vehicle integrations, marketing materials, photoshoots and conceptual work for annual auto shows.

Vehicle integrations

Aha Radio is an application that unifies audio types and sources into a single interface available on iOS and Android phones and in-vehicle integrations with manufacturers like Porsche, Ferrari, Chrysler, Subaru, and Honda.

I worked with HMI designers from these manufacturers to understand their design systems and define how our app architecture best fits into their HMI.

Honda Europe: Android Interface Concept

Honda approached us to create an application that would work seamlessly with their prototype Android head unit. We had an aggressive timeline to design, develop and implement our application into their system which had yet to be finalized in a total of two months. Design time was 5 days with 2 for iteration.

I started the process by understanding our constraints - what display size, touch capability (capacitive or resistive display), design system - joined that with insights gained from feedback on our mobile apps and experience with OEM HMI.

Engineering made clear the inability to implement all “standard” pages for our app in the first release so I defined a phased release and ironed out the details with Engineering and Product leads. I took our page architecture and highlighted which pages would be designed and implemented in phase one (which we named minimal Aha) and phase two (Full Aha).

I researched our competitor's tablet landscape interfaces, as none of them had produced one for Android head units. The interactions and styles were interesting, however they would not be NHTSA compliant and would pose issues for page load.

I began iterating on wire frames and interactions while collaborating with our Engineer and Product leads on feasibility. Project lead time, hardware capabilities, internet connectivity, NHTSA compliance and driver distraction concerns were strongly considered. Below is the wireframe for Featured, Presets and Nearby panels along with screen flow for selecting a nearby point of interest.

*Wireframes of the Featured, Presets and Nearby panels*

I kept the styling very close to the mobile app for the sense of continuity when moving between in-vehicle integration and mobile app.

App Visual refresh

When I joined the team, my first big project was to give the app a visual refresh but that quickly turned into a re-branding effort. It took a lot to resist making UX tweaks, but after two months of scheduling and work with Platform and Client Engineers, we successfully launched the designs. We gained much support internally as well as externally from our content and OEM partners.

The guidance provided was limited :

“make it more youthful - less old tech guy”
“the current designs don’t appeal to women. it’s so dark”
the app feels too serious - this is about entertainment during your ride in the car

*Refresh of the “add a station” section*

Add a Station refresh

With over 250,000 pieces of content, discovering content was difficult for users to do, especially when our catalog was mainly displayed in a list format. I got buy-in from our Product manager to work on a product enhancement feature that was much needed. During this process, I functioned as the designer and the Product manager. I was able to create these designs and get approvals from my manager, our General Manager, Group Product Manager and Engineering leads in a matter of weeks. I departed from Harman shortly after handing off specs and assets and wasn't able to ensure implementation was completed to spec.

Visual explorations

There are days where I take a mental break and consider the possibilities of how our app can grow. Being a hybrid designer is great because I can often tackle both visual and UX designs at once, however when presenting to stakeholders as a concept, I much rather prefer to keep it to simple wire frames so they don't get wrapped up in other details.

Marketing

Aside from the Aha apps and OEM integrations, I also worked on all marketing collateral. I support the Marketing team with their initiatives whether it be, placement in automaker brochures, social media, website updates or pull-up banners

*I photographed this image (featuring my left hand holding a phone) which ended up in 2014 NY Auto show for Scion’s tC reveal*