My experience spans communications, tech research, web design, marketing, multimedia production, ethnography, and mobile UX. I hold degrees in Anthropology (BA, Smith College) and Comparative Media Studies (MS, MIT). I love to understand how people experience technology – how they harness it for personal expression, activism, or productivity – and how that experience can translate into better design.

AUDUBONDOUGHERTY

@pazonada

audubon@alum.mit.edu

tapioca.tv/ux

UX PORTFOLIO

career trajectoryBrandingMarketing, PRUser engagementDigital strategyContent management

EthnographyQual. researchFieldworkInterviewsAffinity analysis

Mobile UX designUser research

Video productionPhotography

97-02

03-08

09-11

Writing at Emerson CollegeAnthro BA at Smith CollegeMarketing & web content for startupsRights-based communications positionsFreelance multimedia productionComparative Media Studies MS at MITResearch & teaching at MITVisiting Scientist at Deutsche Telekom Innovation Labs, BerlinDigital Director at Adult Swim OriginalsSenior UX Designer at Mobients (agency)

To me, “users” do not represent a theoretical, homogenous audience. Users are human beings living in a global economy at a particular cultural moment.

In all my jobs, I’ve sought to understand and improve people’s experience. I entered the workforce during the dot-com boom and have straddled tech and media ever since. I love documenting stories and deconstructing behaviors to figure out how digital services and platforms can be more effective for actual human beings.

For many years, I’ve used video as a tool in this process, design and writing as another. These days I am designing web and mobile prototypes (sometimes through code), running usability tests and guerrilla research, and turning those insights into meaningful digital products.

12-14

Mobile apps

AAGO: for media capture & narrative storytelling

AGENCY WORK: Second screen & retail experiences

RENKU: Collaborative poetry game for creative writers

AAgoROLE: Supervised 6 students from concept through prototype development (under PM). Led and documented features development and weekly usability testing sessions with 5 community groups of target users. Created a concept video for conferences, including Sesame Workshop.

PROCESS: Participatory design methodology & iterative UI and backend development.Interns ran a contextual inquiry of target users. Team met weekly for 9 months, refining feature sets progressively. All development was informed by user testing (lab and field).

Wireframes for web portal

Initial prototype

OUTCOME: High-fidelity prototype used in demo sessions. Major brands interested.Deliverables: final report on design process; software development documentation; wireframes for related web interface. Project required further bug-fixing for commercial release; code remains in an open repository to be used by other developers.

AAgo

PROCESS: Market and consumer research, persona development, feature prioritization, wireframe design.For the TV client, I looked at market research to understand trends in second screen experiences, and developed a service blueprint based on a user journey for the target audience. For the retail client, I led guerrilla research using surveys and brief interviews (17 respondents at two locations) to learn more about consumer attitudes regarding mobile use in-store, and conducted market research to forecast trends in mobile retail experiences.

ROLE: UX strategy, research, design.Conceptualized a responsive companion experience for a cable TV show, and conceived roadmap improvements for a Top 50 mobile retailer, focusing on in-store features. I also helped lead an internal rebranding project.

AGENCY WORK

OUTCOME: Decks for clients (co-wrote & edited), including documentation, research & wireframes. For the TV client: Service blueprint, wireframes and process flows for tablet experience. For the retail client: Customer journey and wireframes. Recommendations for feature prioritization and wireframes showcasing new MVPs for iPhone. For internal rebranding project: I wrote all the website content, taught myself Bootstrap, then worked with another person to design the site infrastructure using HTML/CSS/JS.

AGENCY WORK

renku

UI mockups for online prototype (me)

Final UI screens (designer)

PROCESS: Project conceived with a developer during a coffee break at a tech workshop. I planned functionality & designed UI, he gave feedback. Timeframe was 4 months. Designer made the final screens under the guidance of the developer and me.

ROLE: Concept, research, usability testing, UI, online prototype.Conducted interviews with target demographic via snowball sampling. Outlined features, functions, flows. Created UI mockups, paper prototype, online prototype. Conducted all usability testing.

OUTCOME: High-fidelity prototype (online only).Developer had to finish his PhD; this otherwise-completed app has not yet been coded. Alas.

renku

fieldwork

RURAL PERU: Evaluating internet entrepreneurship initiative

GERMANY: Interviewing residents in former East Berlin

SOUTHEAST ASIA: Documenting stories of displaced populations

peruROLE: Concept, fieldwork, video production, analysis.Pitched idea to MIT Entrepreneurship Center. Completed research, field interviews, analysis, film, articles.

PROCESS: Spent a summer visiting over 40 villages. Conducted 50+ semi-structured interviews. In the field, I was chaperoned by project managers from Rural Telecom and a field translator. I recruited volunteers to help with film translations.

OUTCOME: Produced short documentary. Published key findings.Debuted film at a workshop at the National Association for Media Literacy Education. Published article (MIT) and conference paper (Int’l Journal of Technology, Knowledge & Society) summarizing key issues. Proposed a follow-up project with 5 pilot villages.

ROLE: Documentation of tsunami & conflict survivors (Indonesia) and Burmese migrants (Thailand). Led by my colleague. I documented her interviews.

PROCESS: Visited 6+ partner orgs. Wrote summaries of daily interviews, with photos. Posted as summaries on our organizational blog and used in print material for fundraising.

OUTCOME: Produced articles and photos for print and web, which helped raise funds for humanitarian assistance.Posters, newsletters, web content produced. Resulted in increased donations from members.

southeast asia

germanyROLE: Planned and filmed field interviews. Edited and coded footage. Supervised designer to plan UI for web portal.Initiative for MIT Hyperstudio. I worked with a team of five researchers under the PM.

PROCESS: Two months of collaborative planning. Ten days of interviews with 20+ people. Footage was coded by me.Interview data was intended to be accessible as video clips on a planned web interface for a historical archive of the neighborhood. I planned the web UI and supervised a designer to create assets and interaction flows.

OUTCOME: Video interviews; concept for web UI; mixed media presentations.The project was paused due to funding limitations after initial design specifications were completed, but I finished short videos and promotional presentations about the project.

germany

Visual assets (designer)Interaction flow (me & designer)

Web UI (designer)

ux research and teaching

MOBILE VIDEO: quant + qual analysis of production trends

MICROSPOTS: Surveying ideas about urban spaces

TEACHING at MIT & elsewhere

mobile video

ROLE: Conceived and carried out full study.Explored overall trends in the production of live-streaming mobile video from producers on Qik.com. Summarized motivations and practices surrounding the production of civic content.

OUTCOME: Master’s thesis (2010) and conference paper (Mobile HCI ‘11). Presented findings in Stockholm.Summarized findings and recommended design improvements for streaming video mobile applications.

PROCESS: Five months of research. Textual analysis of 1,000 videos from 79 countries. Interviews with 7 active producers. Four months of analysis.Quantitative analysis of 1,000 videos and qualitative interviews with frequent producers to understand the motivations behind production of civic content. Affinity analysis of texts, grounded theory analysis of interviews.

microspots study

ROLE: Planned questions with two others; designed survey & analyzed results myself.Built on a study by my colleagues about how people understand, map, and value their cities.

PROCESS: Reviewed prior research; composed survey questions; solicited responses via snowball sampling; affinity analysis of results.We ran a wide survey on peoples’ emotional ties to “microspots”, or small places in their urban environment, based on 12 criteria for design of pedestrian landscapes by architect Jan Gehl.

OUTCOME: Received 112 responses from 11 countries, with media submissions.Planned to turn findings into a conference paper and mobile app.

microspots

teachingCommunicating with Mobile Technology (MIT)Teaching assistant in 2010, 2011 & 2014 (EdX) for this class on mobile HCI and UX methods.

Promoting the Arts Through Design (MIT)Sole instructor of this class in 2009, teaching students how to produce artistic products for clients. The class completed a promotional video to support fundraising efforts for the MIT Glass Lab.

Digital Poetry (MIT)Teaching assistant (2010)

Introduction to Digital Media (MIT)Guest lecturer (2010 & 11)

M-Generations: 6-month mobile filmmaking workshop with Kenyan groupConceived and led in 2010, based on ethnographic research. I built relationships with community members and introduced the project as an accessible means of entry-level filmmaking. The intergenerational group produced a collaborative film from over 200 individual clips. I also built project website.

Thanks for your attention!

Audubon Dougherty @pAzonAdA // Audubon@ALUM.MIT.EDU // TAPIOCA.TV