Beginning in 2011 I joined Facebook where I worked for three years before joining Dropbox and then Public Studio. Below are some highlights from those years as well as some side projects I’m working on.

Facebook, Product Designer (2018 - Present)

Returned in the Summer of 2018.

Public Studio, Generalist (2015 – 2018)

Public Studio was an opportunity to work with Aaron Sittig and Justin Shaffer to build new independent companies around sustainable ideas. I helped think through product ideas and build the initial implementations of the clients and services needed to grow the companies. Over three years we produced two companies:

Relay was an attempt to build a modern version of the communities we experienced during the early days of the internet. We took inspiration from IRC, Usenet and forums to build something where people could feel comfortable within new groups of people with familiar interests. The experience was meant to feel like a mobile browser where you could search and browse rooms of all types, swiping between rooms helped make browsing feel effortless and kinda fun.

Precap is a daily journaling experience with close friends. Everyone writes about their plans or experiences throughout the day. Close friends can see each other’s days and send messages to each other until the next day when every resets. History is private unless you had a conversation with someone else about a specific day.

Dropbox, Product Designer (2014 – 2015)

Shortly after I joined Dropbox, a small research and development team formed to investigate new products to compliment the main storage and syncing offering. I helped focus efforts around improving team communication between people using shared folders. We designed and prototyped a number of potential products, eventually launching an internal communication tool just before I left in 2015. Below are some screenshots of one of the desktop prototypes.

Patents

• Shared Workspaces with Selective Content Item Synchronization (US10001913B2)
• Aggregating and presenting recent activities for synchronized online content management systems (US9866508B2)

Facebook, Product Designer (2011 – 2014)

Primarily worked on new and existing mobile products. Played an active role in recruiting for the design team and helped broaden the technical skills of other designers.

In 2011 I helped overhaul the sharing experience within the mobile app which had a meaningful impact on what and how people shared. Around the same time I helped add the Subscribe button to profiles so public figures could reach fans without having a separate Page.

Joined the Messenger team in 2012 to help grow the native experiences and compete with other messaging services. While there, kick-started the Poke app which had been something I was originally developing as a means to learn Objective-C.

Became the Product Design Manager for the Photos team in 2013. Helped come up with some of the early ideas behind the Moments app to make it easier for friends attending events to share photos with one another.

Patents

• Sharing Location Information During a Communication Session (US8787888B2)
• Messaging Interface Based on Caller of an Incoming Call (US9055421B2)

Side projects

Lately I’ve been interested in self-sufficient client-side tools for iOS, applications that don’t require a server for sharing information or backup.

Logger is a little tool for taking notes (because the world needs yet another notes app 🙃). I was kinda surprised something like this didn’t exit. The UI uses a single message thread idiom to make it feel as though you’re sending messages to yourself. There’s no need to think about hierarchy or organization, just a focused experience around taking notes. Download from the App Store.

The screen recording demonstrates how notes are added and tagged. Pressing spacebar when the textfield is empty triggers a search mode where you can search across all your notes. Tapping hashtags filters notes and long-pressing any note lets you open a Google search or an “I’m Feeling Lucky” Wikipedia search.

Podster solves an problem I had with Apple’s Podcasts app. They appear to be fetching RSS feeds on the main thread which causes the app to lock-up when you’re subscribed to a lot of podcasts. I wanted something very basic and fast with no extraneous features. After getting the app in a place where I could depend on it, I started experimenting with a clip creation tool to share favorite moments to Instagram Stories.

Education

Interaction Design, The University of Kansas 2010 – 2011

Studied Interaction Design and Design Management while teaching mobile interface design to undergraduate students in the Graphic Design program.

Electronic Arts, Missouri State University 1998 – 2003

Studied within the Media, Journalism & Film Department’s interdisciplinary program for New Media focusing on 3D animation, cinematography and interface design. Discovered the University’s unique Design program and began taking as many classes as I could before graduating.