GoPro Hero Sessions
GoPro was my first foray into UX. Here are some tidbits of work from those early days!
Background
I was lucky enough to get started in UX at a hot company like GoPro. I was attending San Jose State University at the time, getting my Masters in Human Factors and Ergonomics, and landed a summer internship with them. After the three months, I was brought in for a year-long contract a Jr UX Designer.
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I got involved in variety of projects. I was originally a visual designer but transitioned into an interaction designer role after. The main product that I worked on during my stay was the Hero Sessions. This camera had a very unique and minimalist form factor, and boasted all of the same functions and features as the main Hero cameras. This camera was inherently waterproof and had a single button (actually, two) design that was truly designed to do one thing: capture the moment.
Interaction Design Specs
Going into Hardware design as the first UX job was so interesting and I'm so grateful that I got to experience it. Here are some example pages from the specs that I worked on.
The main challenge with designing the interaction was how to make it as user friendly as possible when you have a the tiny screen and hard hardware limitations. When you only have one main function button and a secondary button (for wi-fi), you're forced to get creative. However, on the flip side, you have to make sure to not get too creative, making it impossible for the user to discover, learn and remember the controls.
We played with beeps (audio), blinks (LED lights), button placements, and timing, and tested it repeatedly in many situations and circumstances (in the snow, in the woods, in the sky, under water, with children or pets, etc.).
User Research
I also took on user research projects. When coming up with new product concepts or improving our current line of products, I went out to conduct in-person interviews with our users to get their feedback. By talking to our real users, we were able to support or disspell assumptions that people internally had, and create real improvements.
One particular project I worked on was studying how people dealt with their footage after using their GoPros to record them. GoPro was committed to working on their entire product journey - not just the recording / shooting part. GoPro has a lightweight video editing software, but we found many people using other applications. I asked the question - why is that? how can we make it better? - and presented these findings to the product team so that they can come up with a new project plan to address these pain points.
GoPro User Journey
Other Bits & Pieces
In between user research and hardware interaction design, I did get to do some wireframing and light visual design work for ancillary products and features. Here are some snippets from that:
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