Alex Kan, Researcher
Research
Research · Design · Presentation
Mixed Reality Stories
In my largest project to date, I researched the user experience of running with fictional mixed reality stories. This alternative approach to mixed realities allows creation of cheaper, yet fulfilling experiences that don't require bulky hardware.
Role: I was solely responsible for planning and time-management, designing and conducting the studies, recruiting participants and receiving approvals from the ethics committee, presenting the findings, bringing the project to completion.
Impact: the main contribution of the project was defining a framework for understanding and designing better mixed reality experiences for running.
academic research, user research, interviews, workshops, diaries, questionnaires, recruiting, ux design, prototyping, competitor analysis, literature review
For the Record
A service for logging board game sessions. Problem: Existing solutions for board game logging provide a lot of stats, but do not capture fun aspects of the hobby and can also seem intimidating for more amateur players.
Role: I'm the sole designer on the project working together with a full-stack developer. The project is a work in progress.
user research, interviews, prototyping, visual design, ux design, ui design, visual design,
Design
Research · Design · Presentation
Interactive Textbook
Problem: The experience of reading digital books is subpar. The design goal for this project was to make scrolling a digital book feel like turning pages of Edward Tufte's magnificent paper books. The business aim was to make the design scalable, so that my client could launch other books in the same format.
Role: I was the sole UX/UI designer on the project, working together with an art director, a layout designer, a photographer, and two developers.
Impact: the book gained more than 3000 paid subscribers in less than three years and earned more than £64K (4.5M roubles) during that time; my client was able to launch more than a dozen of other interactive books based on the same format.
ux design, ui design, prototyping, visual design, business strategy
Engaging Technology
I have been long fascinated with the use of 'entertaining' mechanics in 'serious' software. Here are just some examples.
ux design, ui design, design concepts
WWWorkshops
Inktrap's Wonderful Weekly Workshop (WWWorkshop) is a design exercise for bolstering creativity. The rules are simple: there is a design prompt and 30 minutes for completion. I decided to challenge myself with three of their past WWWorkshops.
ux design, ui design, design challenges
Presentation
Research · Design · Presentation
I got used to presenting my work regularly and to different audiences: clients, academic researchers, designers, engineers, industry professionals etc.
The poster I made for Melbourne's Computing & Information Systems doctoral colloquium earned an honorary mention for best design:
I had two papers accepted to the Australian largest academic UX conference OzCHI.
My research findings inspired me to give a talk at UX Australia – the country's largest UX conference that brings together academics and industry professionals alike. The talk was rated second best on the conference app and received an overwhelmingly positive feedback.
