• Graphics
  • Systems
  • Research
Systems
  • Frame Anatomy
    REALU Otherland™ ( 2012 )

    REALU_frame anatomy

  • Tool Cursor
    SERIOUS BUSINESS Candy Kingdom ( 2010 )
    The chart documents how the mouse cursor should behave in response to tool browsing and selection.

  • Farming Mode
    SERIOUS BUSINESS Candy Kingdom ( 2010 )
    Assets for tools and tokens were provided to me by the art team at Serious Business. Their detailed concept work and well organized Adobe Illustrator files made it easy to come up with a complementary visual design for this game interface.

  • Heads-up display prototype
    NIHILISTIC SOFTWARE Internal Gameplay Framework ( 2009 )
    Providing my engineer with a working model of the things I wanted to do on the PlayStation helped keep the UI pipeline simple and efficient.

  • Select multiple agents
    SERIOUS BUSINESS The Hierarchy ( 2009 )
    This diagram shows how making selections (of secret agents) from a list can build a histogram that represents both the number of selections and the ranking of each selection. This provided a way to show the merit of each selected agent relative to all previously selected agents.

  • UI Audit For Alpha Build
    NIHILISTIC SOFTWARE Zombie Apocalypse ( 2008 )
    I used this chart to audit the working interface and to track progress while the UI team worked on an alpha build submission

  • Edit Town (user stories)
    EA-SIMS The Sims™ 3 ( 2008 )
    I categorized 12 critical narratives for the game's neighborhood management feature and described how they would be supported by the user interface. I ranked each of them by the number of steps it would take to complete a task. This functional map provided the basis for wireframing the feature.


  • Game Entry (feature design)
    EA-SIMS The Sims™ 3 ( 2008 )
    This feature enabled users to launch the game and was also used as a hub for importing content into an existing game. New users can start playing quickly, intermediate and expert users are provided access to additional configurations.

    Millions of new players were introduced to the game using the onboarding experience I designed. For many it was the first computer game they’d ever purchased.

    ARCHITECTURE. This diagram describes how characters and property pass through the application framework.

    FLOW. I specified conditions a player must satisfy in order to move things into and out of the game.

    WIREFRAME. I used a method of progressive disclosure to request player input in stages.

    PROTOTYPE. I made prototypes in Flash. They revealed that finding a home is based on perceived value not immediate satisfaction. I had wanted to reduce time spent in Game Entry by providing default choices at each stage of user input. However, during informal testing this mechanism was shown to misdirect users who in fact spent more time exploring possible configurations than expected.

    PRODUCT. The Sims 3 was an immediate success, selling 1.4 million copies in the week for its release for Windows/OS X and 5 million copies overall. New users are able to start playing quickly while intermediate and expert users are free to explore additional configurations.

  • Edit Town (workflow)
    EA-SIMS The Sims™ 3 ( 2008 )
    These diagrams were used to compare interactions across the critical use cases for the feature. By removing visual detail from the wireframes and leaving only silhouettes I was able to point out relationships between different tasks. The design patterns emerged from conversations with the UI group and were reviewed with the rest of the UI team where they were evaluated and prototyped in Flash.

  • Visual Design Mindmap
    LUCASARTS Star Wars: The Force Unleashed ( 2006 )
    I created this mind map to collate notes from my conversations with the art director and executive producer about the design direction for the project. I used this document as a starting point for interface concepts and mockups.

  • Targeting System Use Cases
    LUCASARTS Star Wars: The Force Unleashed ( 2006 )
    Use cases for in-game targeting system

  • Menu System
    EA-SPORTS EA Sports Style Guide ( 2004 )
    Excerpt from the 2005 style guide detailing placement and styling of a three-tiered front end menu system.

  • Visual Language
    EA-SPORTS EA Sports Style Guide ( 2004 )
    This design vocabulary overview shows widget usage and placement for a common list-based screen type.