DESIGN AGENT - SKY ORTIZ

ROLE - DESIGN LEAD FOR IOS

I was asked to take over as Design Lead for Hangouts on iOS last January. I joined a team of talented yet discouraged individuals given the ratings for the app had fallen from 4 to 3 stars after it's recent release to a somewhat frustrated user base. The decline in ratings was mostly due to unfortunate crashing issues caused by a recent iOS update and some newly introduced confusing interaction patterns.

I decided that my highest priority as the new Design Lead would be to rally the engineering team by involving them straight away as equal partners in the creative thinking contributing to the vision of achieving product excellence in the next version of Hangouts.

My design process started by performing a complete design audit on the current version of Hangouts in order to identify and provide guidance on confusing user pain points. After presenting the audit findings to leadership, I set about creating documents with our project managers that clearly communicated strategic product planning for our next release to the entire Hangouts team.

All of Google branded apps were moving to Material design standards, even on iOS. With this in mind I chose to work closely with the Material team in order to overhaul the entire application interface, while paying careful attention to adhere to iOS platform specific learned behaviors where possible.

Implementing a thorough design process was key in the production of valuable project assets such as detailed visual specs, easy to follow user flows, and working prototypes for complex interactions.

This was definitely my most challenging project yet. The payoff of forming strong team relationships around a focused design goal came to fruition in the delivery of a far superior version of the product. The launch of Hangouts 4.0 has been the highest rated version of the app to date, maintaining an app store rating of 4.5 stars. I can't say enough about how proud and fortunate it has been to work with such passionate human beings on this achievement. 

DESIGN AGENT - SKY ORTIZ

ROLE - LEAD VISUAL DESIGNER / PROTOTYPER

Bobsled was my second big project at T-Mobile. I was asked to work with a stealth team that was in the process of creating the next version of a potentially disruptive messaging application. Code named "Bobsled" the app focused on streamlining communication across devices and social networks. 

The project came with some big challenges. The small product team was working with two different 3rd party development agencies that were not communicating well. Also with only one UX designer focused on features, there was no cycles given to updating an outdated style guide.  

My role as Visual Design lead was to work with the team to translate detailed interaction wireframes into high fidelity specs that could be realistically implemented on both iOS and Android platforms. In the process we created an entire new visual language in order to align ui consistency across platforms and better support the brand palette.

I also assisted in several key user studies by building interactive prototypes that could be used to better validate some of our more difficult design decisions. 

DESIGN AGENTS - SKY & TASHIA ORTIZ

We were honored to be chosen to design promotion for this fantastic benefit party with all proceeds donated to Japan after the tsunami disaster. 

Our designs services we donated free of charge and to date its one of our favorite projects we have had the pleasure to work on. 

DESIGN AGENT - SKY ORTIZ

ROLE - LEAD UX & VISUAL DESIGNER / PROTOTYPER

The design team was asked to conceptualize a new design direction for the entire suite of T-Mobile branded apps and services. I was appointed as one of three design leads to be locked away and focused on delivering new concepts to be presented at an executive brief to T-Mobile VPS later that month.

Design Challenges:

- Design language must create a unified experience across all apps

- Inject brand thoughtfully were possible

- Forced to work with the limited brand palette

- Future proof the solution in order to survive pending brand updates

Faced with these challenges we generated a set of core design principles:

- Look for opportunities wherever possible to personalize the experience

- Reinforce brand playfully in happy rewarding "moments"

- Use images and contextual photos to inject color in the limited palette

- Future proof the UI by making it transparent without losing contrast

Designing a transparent flexible design system ( prior to iOS ) was well received but came with some scrutiny. In order to demonstrate the "Glass" UI could be done. I worked privately with an Android expert to build a working configurable prototype that was used during the presentation to our VPs and Stakeholders. 

Our director and VPs were thrilled with the direction and we were cleared to move forward in generating a comprehensive style guide.

DESIGN AGENT - SKY ORTIZ

Promotion designs for the Mark Farina world tour. The Uniting Souls crew are dear friends to me and it was important that the design reflected how special this event was for Seattle. 

This was a extremely challenging layout due to the large amount of copy requirements from Mark's agency and the venue. I was extremely happy with the final deliverable, which was admittedly a bit over the top, but turned out beautiful.