UX Portfolio

Portfolio Carla Saad

Imagining a new experience ...

For Students with disabilities

For Citizens in Emergency

For Passengers at Security Screening

For Researchers Studying brain activity

For Airplane Passengers with motion sickness

Harvard’s Test Center Pilot

NODE

Flux

EEG-Decisions

Syncsense

Hi, I am Carla, designer & architect.

I am always excited about designing for impact and building more intuitive experiences for people to interact with their physical and digital environments.

After my graduation from the Master in Design Engineering program at Harvard University, a joint degree between the Graduate School of Design and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, I’ve been working at the intersection of UX and visual design for an enhanced human experience.

An Experience for: Students with Disabilities

Harvard’s Accessible Education Office The Test Center Pilot During the academic year 2019-2020, the Accessible Education Office (AEO) at Harvard College ran a pilot project with the aim of centralizing the administration of midterm exams for students with disabilities in one testing facility.

This new service design emerged from the necessity of providing students with the best environment perform at their best while taking their tests in addition to helping the faculty by taking off the load of coordinating individual accommodations per student.

Within a professional cross-functional team including the assistant director, the technology coordinator and myself as a design engineer, we worked on conducting user research and journey mapping to identify efficient workflows in addition to designing setups and intuitive interfaces targeting personas who experience physical and cognitive barriers.

After thorough research and surveys targeting both faculty and students, we focused on combining between assistive technology and universal design for learning as frameworks for the service. As a result of the first iteration, the test center pilot received high satisfaction rates from faculty and students and the office was nominated for the 2020 Team Dean’s Distinction.

ON-BOARDING USER-FLOW DIAGRAM

Keywords

Education | Disability | Accommodations | User Research | Testing | Digital Design

Challenge

how might we secure individualized accommodations for disabled students efficiently?

A STEP TOWARDS ADOPTING UNIVERSAL DESIGN WITHIN THE SERVICE

ACCOMMODATIONS IN CATEGORIES

We worked first on studying our user group and define the various accommodations by grouping them into categories to help us craft the service accordingly

Universal Design is the design and composition of an environment so that it can be accessed, understood and used to the greatest extent possible by all people regardless of their age, size, ability or disability http://universaldesign.ie/What-is-Universal-Design/

An Experience for: Students with Disabilities The first iteration of the pilot used a spreadsheet to transfer the needed information of students from AIM (the managment system) to be able to prepare the accommodations accordingly.

Working from there, I proposed a digital system design that can sync with AIM and show the needed information with the plan of the space so proctors would be able to locate each student while taking their tests.

Using this system, the staff will be also able to track the students who checked in, those who are in the process of taking their tests and the students who are already done.

SPREADSHEET USED DURING THE FALL 2019

INFORMATION FLOW DIAGRAM

After an accommodations administrators enter the data in the system, the transfer of information from the management system to the spreadsheet happens manually which creates a painpoint for the Test Center Staff specially that changes could not be tracked automatically

PROPOSED DESIGN INTERFACE SHOWING THE STUDENT LIST AND THEIR SEATS’ LOCATION

An Experience for: Students with Disabilities

SURVEYS WERE DESIGNED TO TAKE THE OPINION OF FACULTY AND STUDENTS ABOUT THE FIRST ITERATION OF THE TEST CENTER PILOT

At the end of Fall 2019, and after the implementation of the first iteration of the service, the Test Center Team designed surveys targetting both faculty and students to integrate their feedback within the changes of the Spring semester.

STUDIES OF PERSONAS AND BARRIERS

What digital tools are used as management system for students’ accommodations ?

The survey included questions about every phase of the use of the service in addition to the possible ways of enhancing it based on the user feedback.

We also conducted several interviews with other Higher Education institutions to assess the effort that is being done within this space and to capture some of other schools’ lessons learnt .

COLLECTING INSIGHTS FROM INTERVIEWS DONE WITH SEVERAL ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS TO ASSESS THE EFFORT DONE IN HIGHER EDUCATION

An Experience for: Students with Disabilities

JOURNEY MAPPING OF THE DIFFERENT STAKEHOLDERS

Checking students in before the test was one of the main painpoints for both proctors and students since it created a bottleneck which led to delayed start time of the test. Many students have extended time within their accommodations, with a delayed start time, they risk missing any other scheduled class after their midterm.

Our solution proposes an automated check in to help students get the information needed to confirm their identity and get to their seats in a more efficient way by leveraging the use of their own devices where each student has already their own personalized settings

STUDENT CHECK-IN SCREENS

The design takes into account the barriers of students and leverages the use of their own devices. The solution allows text-to-speech and speech-to-text to provide a more accessible flow for users

An Experience : For Citizens during Emergency

NODE

www.carlasaad.com/node Team: Carla Saad | Architect Humberto Ceballos | Economist & strategic consultant Jenny Fan |Economist & designer

Natural disasters and other large-scale emergencies are impacting city-dwellers more than ever.

When these situations arise, official 911 emergency operation centers (EOCs) play a critical role in communicating and coordinating relief efforts and medical assistance. Despite this, EOCs rely on aging infrastructure built in the 1960s, a world with landlines, printed manuals, and radio frequency communication, but no mobile phones, cloud databases, or Internet Protocol-based communication.

From Hurricane Harvey to Irma to Maria, cities are not equipped to deal with the scale of disaster response required by recent 21st century storms. When official services like local police and FEMA (the US Federal Emergency Management Agency) are overwhelmed, civilians rely on neighbors and spontaneously organized groups like the Cajun Navy, which consists entirely of volunteer dispatchers and boat rescuers. But, the paradox of emergent groups is they cannot scale from the bottom-up without eventually compromising in effectiveness or safety, while official top-down services have difficulties reaching the victims on the ground efficiently.

CALL FLOW | 911

When 911 receives an emergency call, the call-taker logs the details in the Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system and the dispatcher then assigns the case to a 1st responder (Police, EMT, firefighters) depending on the need. In a disaster, whenever there is an overflow of calls, the caller will be put on hold until either the call-taker or dispatcher is available which affects the speed of care to which the victim can have access to.

Node is a smart, comprehensive emergency response system built on resilient wireless routers and leveraging community engagement to reimagine the future of urban disaster preparedness. A distress call app transmits relevant data about a caller’s location, medical history, and urgency. An AI agent triages for first responders or nearby volunteers depending on system load. In cases of extreme infrastructure damage, users can also connect to the LoRaWAN-based wireless mesh network nodes for backup connectivity.

A Spatial analysis using ArcGIS ArcMap was done to determine the number of nodes for coverage in the city of Cambridge.

CALL FLOW | CAJUN NAVY

The Cajun Navy is a Louisiana ad-hoc volunteer group consisting of dispatchers and boat rescuers who were formed in the aftermath of hurricane Katerina. They use the zello walkie -talkie app and platform to receive rescue calls and redirect them to a first responder.

Keywords

People | 911 | Cajun Navy | Emergency | Disaster | Healthcare | Resilient Cities |Technology

NODE SYSTEM COMPONENTS

NODE SYSTEM DESIGN PROPOSED TO HELP TRIAGE CALLS AND INTEGRATE VOLUNTEER GROUPS WITHIN THE 911 SYSTEM.

An Experience : For Citizens during Emergency

NODE SOLUTION AND INTEGRATION

NODE 911 SCREEN DESIGN LIVE MAPPING THE EMERGENCY CALLS’ LOCATION

NODE ‘S SYSTEM DUAL MODE

NODE DIGITAL FLOW OF THE APP AS SEEN BY EMERGENCY CALLERS

911 CURRENT CAD SYSTEM

NODE DIGITAL FLOW OF THE SCREENS AS SEEN BY 911 OPERATIONS CENTER

NODE NEW 911 SCREEN DESIGN

An Experience : For Citizens during Emergency

20

NODES

PILOT STUDY | CITY OF CAMBRIDGE

PILOT APPLIED TO THE CITY OF CAMBRIDGE NODES LOCATED ON UTILITY POLES

PILOT STUDY | mapping utility poles in the city of Cambridge

NODE PHYSICAL PROTOTYPE

circles show the extent of the radius covered by each node. as a resilient mesh-network relies on the overlapping coverage between the multiple units around the city

To Explore the project, please follow this link: www.carlasaad.com/node

An Experience : for Passengers at Security Screening

Flux

Reimagining The passenger Experience at Security Independent Design Engineering Project

Air travel is a dreamy experience for many people around the world.

However, an in-depth look on data reveals that the average wait time exceeds the average flight time. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), 7.8 billion passengers are expected to travel by 2036, which is approximately double the number of passengers traveling in 2019. Efforts to improve airport’s efficiency focused on reimagining the passenger’s journey to provide a pleasant experience, including a smoother flow throughout the different phases that a traveler moves through in airports. None of these initiatives include the passenger’s experience at security as a component of the overall flow.

Throughout the research process, a survey examining the quality of the passenger’s experience in airports at each phase was conducted. 106 people responded to the survey and approximately 21% of the respondents expressed their discomfort at security screening. In order to understand the problem thoroughly, a question addressed what specifically is annoying people in the screening process and the highest ratios were scored by the long wait lines and the unpacking process.

Based on the data analysis and research, the thesis question focuses on how might we minimize the wait time and enhance the passenger’s experience at security?

After an overall research of the various stakeholders, a phone call with Mrs. Mara Winn, TSA (Transportation Security Administration) innovation task force manager, clarified that each stakeholder within that journey is searching for a specific type of information. For example, TSA’s mission being focused on detecting threats would require more physical engagement with the passenger as opposed to the role of CBP (US Customs & Border Control) who are supposed to look into the individual history of passengers and their legal status.

The project proposes a combination of a digital interface and unpacking experience to accelerate the flow of people on security screening.

a

new

Keywords

Passenger | Security | TSA | Screening | Airport | Safety | Wait time | Survey | Interviews

7.8 B

Passengers are expected to travel by air in 2036 Reference :https://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pages/2017-10-24-01.aspx

An Experience : for Passengers at Security Screening

A PASSENGER PASSES THROUGH MULTIPLE PHASES AT AN AIRPORT BEFORE DEPARTURE. RECOMMENDED AVERAGE TIME BEFORE A FLIGHT | 2-3 HOURS

PASSENGERS’ EMOTIONS THROUGHOUT THOSE PHASES DATA SOURCE : https://www.sita.aero/about-us/sita-worldwide/americas

PEOPLE BETWEEN NORMAL SCREENING AND EXPEDITED SCREENING DATA SOURCE : data collected through personal survey

MAJOR SOURCE OF DISCOURAGEMENT FOR TRAVELLING BY AIRPLANE DATA SOURCE : data collected through personal survey

TSA pre-check is a service provided by TSA to fast track screening for elligible passengers. It’s available for US Citizens, nationals and LPRs. it’s a 5 years, $85 membership where the screening would take approximately 10 minutes and the passenger won’t need to remove their shoes, laptops, liquids, belts and light jackets in the airport.

An Experience : for Passengers at Security Screening

PASSENGER’S JOURNEY MAP THROUGH SECURITY BETWEEN TSA PRE-CHECK AND NORMAL SECURITY CLEARANCE

“ One of every Seven

travelers have missed a flight because of long airport security lines

”

Reference: https://www.forbes.com/sites/garystoller/2018/06/26/one-of-every-seven-travelers-miss-their-flights-because-of-long-airport-security-lines/#5b3864d32e1d

MOST ANNOYING ASPECTS OF SECURITY SCREENING FOR PEOPLE DATA SOURCE : data collected through personal survey

An Experience : for Passengers at Security Screening

TSA pre-check preference

OVERALL FEELING THROUGH SECURITY DATA SOURCE : data collected through personal survey

An Experience : for Passengers at Security Screening

LOOKING AT THE AIRPORT INFRASTRUCUTRE, THE TSA SECURITY CHECKPOINT ARE USUALLY LOCATED AT THE INTERSECTION OF THE LANDSIDE AND AIRSIDE

FOR TSA, THOSE TWO AREAS ARE REFERRED TO AS STERILE AND NON-STERILE AREAS.

THE PROPOSED DESIGN SYSTEM FOR AN ENHANCED PASSENGER EXPERIENCE

FLUX IS A SYSTEM COMBINING A COMMUNICATION PLATFORM AND A MOVING SURFACE WHERE PEOPLE CAN UNPACK BEFORE LINING UP OR WHILE WAITING IN LINE

A DESIGN SYSTEM THAT WOULD HELP PASSENGERS RESERVE A SPOT IN THE SECURITY SCREENING VIRTUAL QUEUE WITHOUT HAVING TO WAIT IN LINES

An Experience : for Passengers at Security Screening

SIGN UP SYSTEM LOCATED IN AIRPORTS AT CHECK-IN

FLUX WILL WALK THE PASSENGER STEP BY STEP TO PREPARE THEM FOR SECURITY SCREENING AND HELP THEM REACH THE GATE ON TIME

An Experience : for Passengers at Security Screening

USABILITY TESTING FINDINGS

To Explore the project, please follow this link: www.carlasaad.com/flux

FLUX CART DESIGN ITERATIONS

To complement the digital system design, I worked on a design of a cart to help passengers unpack while in motion which would reduce the wait time at security. The design integrates the TSA bins allowing the user to unpack in them while waiting and to move them to the xray machine once they reach the divesting tables. The integration of such a design helps in reducing the time from an average of 2 minutes of uncpacking to 30 seconds to remove the bins from the cart to the xray machine.

An Experience : for Researchers

EEG Decisions

HUMAN DECISION BETWEEN EXPLOITATION & EXPLORATION

www.carlasaad.com/eegdecisions Team: Dianne Lee Phoebe Lin Carla Saad

| A.B Computer Science | Master in Design Studies, Technology | Master in Design Engineering

EEGDecisions is a novel visualization framework designed for detailed analysis of real-time neural activity in combination with decisions made in a naturalistic setting. Identifying specific waveforms and peaks in different EEG channels will be crucial for understanding the brain and how decisions are evaluated under various uncertainty levels.

However, the inherent complexity of behavioral decisions and completely novel form of data collection in the wild pose big challenges to existing techniques.

Fabrication techniques used: Digital prototyping | Sketch, JavaScript Library, Excel Keywords

EEG |GPS | Decisions | Research | Data | Interface | Usability

Electric activity in the human Brain data collected with a muse

Geolocation of the human body data collected with the phone GPS

A VISUALIZATION TO HELP CORRELATE THE BRAIN ACTIVITY WITH THE GEOLOCATION OF THE BODY

An Experience : for Researchers

PREVIOUS DESIGN OF THE INTERFACE

The original design of the interface shows multiple elements leading to information clutter which causes cognitive load; making it harder to correlate variations of the brain’s electric activity to the location.

Our approach focuses on two main elements the geolocation of the studied subject on the map and the visualization of the corresponding electrical signal in the brain caught with the use of a muse

An Experience : for Researchers

EEGDecisions offers a visualization framework that enables domain scientists to interactively pinpoint peaks and patterns within EEG activity in parallel with the GPS coordinates of the user. This method of analyzing neural activity in the wild will help revolutionize the way neuroscientists match EEG patterns to specific decisions and understand complex behavior in the brain. We describe and analyze the design of EEGDecisions based on an in-depth user study of our collaborators in computational neuroscience, and investigate its potential for visualizing decision making in the real world.

EEG DECISIONS’ MAIN FEATURES EEG DECISION | THE BUILT PLATFORM PRIORITIZING THE LOCATION OF THE STUDIED SUBJECT ON THE MAP WITH THE RELEVANT EEG DATA

EEG DECISION INTERFACE DESIGN| GOING FROM LOW RESOLUTION WIREFRAMING TO HIGH- RESOLUTION PROTOTYPING

An Experience : for Researchers

EEG DECISIONS | DESIGN AFTER USER TESTING

To Explore the project, please follow this link: www.carlasaad.com/eegdecisions

An Experience for: Passengers With Motion Sickness

SYNCSENSE Team: Arjun Menon | Mechanical Engineer Carla Saad | Architect Erin McLean | Human factor designer

Syncsense is a motion sickness intervervention system designed to be implemented on airplanes.

Motion sickness is caused by the dichotomy between the events perceived by the human vestibular system and the actual movement that the body feels. Thus experiencing motion sickness results from movements we feel without being able to perceive with our eyes (ie: reading on a plane or a car).

After thorough research focusing on the cause behind the different scenarios where people experience motion sickness, we decided to design an intervention for airplanes since it’s one of the transportation medium where people have the least control while in the air.

After an interview with Dr. Charles M. Oman, a domain expert in motion sickness, we proposed Syncsense as a multi-step process that rescues the user from nausea by disrupting the brain’s emetic response and then provides relief by uniting the vestibular and ocular senses.

The intervention tracks the location of the passenger using the phone’s GPS and projects the horizon line on a kinetic screen for people traveling on a business class within a spatial immersive experience or through virtual reality glasses which are part of a relief kit handed to the economy class passengers.

My Tasks: -Collaboration on designing an intervention for motion sickness -Design of the kinetic screen and the spatial experience -Building a small scale prototype, and 1/1 scale partial prototype of the deployable screen mechanism -Documentation of the prototypes Fabrication Techniques used: Physical Prototyping | Laser cutting , metal threading Digital Prototyping | Rhinoceros , Unity , Sketch

SENSING MOTION SICKNESS

SCREEN DEPLOYS

PROJECTION OF THE HORIZON LINE ON THE DEPLOYED SCREEN

An Experience for: Passengers With Motion Sickness

SENSING MOTION SICKNESS Through the handle of the airplane seat, vital signs can be tracked and reflected on the IPad screen located on the handle

MOTION SICKNESS DETECTED THROUGH THE ARM REST

An Experience for: Passengers With Motion Sickness

SENSING MOTION SICKNESS Syncsense guides the passenger step by step to overcome motion sickness during a flight.

An Experience for: Passengers With Motion Sickness

SENSING MOTION SICKNESS By pressing their hand on the IPad screen, the passenger makes sure they have their wrist located on the P6 pressure applicator

An Experience for: Passengers With Motion Sickness

DEPLOYABLE SCREEN MECHANISM FOR BUSINESS CLASS

DEPLOYABLE SCREEN MODEL MECHANISM TESTING : CLOSED SCREEN

DEPLOYABLE SCREEN MODEL MECHANISM TESTING : OPENED SCREEN

DEPLOYABLE SCREEN MODEL MECHANISM TESTING ON 1:1 SCALE

An Experience for: Passengers With Motion Sickness

VIRTUAL HORIZON LINE Personal smartphone gyroscope sensor harnessed to map personal motion

An Experience for: Passengers With Motion Sickness

VIRTUAL HORIZON LINE Changes can captured and projected on the screen so it can be seen to the passenger, thus unifying what the passenger sees with what they feel in their bodies

An Experience for: Passengers With Motion Sickness

VIRTUAL HORIZON LINE The Screen can be used to read or watch movies while having the horizon line in the background

An Experience for: Passengers With Motion Sickness

To Explore the project, please follow this link: https://www.carlasaad.com/syncsense

SYNCSENSE PROTOTYPE A minimum viable product was built to test the different components of the system together.

An on demand VR kit can be given to economy class, while the business class can have an immersive experience with a deployable screen

Portfolio Carla Saad email | carla.m.saad@gmail.com website | www.carlasaad.com