In late 2023, I managed the creation and assembly of a business and technical modernization strategy proposal, and shortly after winning the engagement, led a 6-person effort (among a 20+ person team) over a 15-week timeframe focused on understanding and documenting the participating business, identifying pain points, and sharing corresponding business, operational, and technical recommendations.
Shown here is a comprehensive participant 40+ page "Contributor Guide" I created that detailed our approach to conducting a repeatable business and UX modernization assessment, and gave team members a clear understanding of project objectives.
Also shown here is a 130-page Business Assessment Report describing numerous aspects and divisions of the participating business.
Via the creation of these deliverables, the organization now has a foundational understanding of the client's business. This knowledge base can be reused in other modernization initiatives permitting a greater degree of critical thinking.
In the summer of 2023, I created a 5-chapter short course on artificial intelligence with the goal of educating colleagues in this subject area.
It has been said that if you want to truly understand a topic, try to explain it to someone else. This was the underlying belief behind the creation of this learning material, and I learned a lot during its creation.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2023
Over a period of nearly two years, I took concrete steps to promote Emids’ data expertise and intellectual properties.
Partnering with two other SMEs within the company, I created three reusable sales presentations (80+ slides in total) focusing on data science, data intelligence, and human-centered analytics.
These presentations were used to drive several client sales conversations and also led to the creation of an AI Foundations course.
Categories: Creativity, AI, Product, Healthcare
In January 2021, I completed Udacity’s AI Product Manager Nanodegree program. In this program, I gained additional PM experience, completed several projects, and obtained hands-on experience using Google Cloud and the Appen platform. The images that are shown here reflect some of my submissions.
Here is an excerpt from my final project, entitled “Improving Patient Nourishment with AI.”
The phrase “hospital food” frequently conjures up imagery of unappetizing trays of cold, bland dishes that are often set aside rather than consumed. Unfortunately, this is the sad reality for many patients whose need for protein and calories is much greater than when they are healthy.
Unfortunately, “…most hospitals are cash-strapped and see treating patients, rather than feeding them, as a priority. Hospitals devote about one percent of their total budget to food, which breaks down to an average of $8 per patient a day.” (CBC.CA) And with ~30% of this food being discarded, the problem is further magnified.
Yet studies have shown that if you give patients high-quality food that aligns with their exact needs (diet, preferences, and schedule), they will recover faster and will have fewer overall complications.
Thus, this presents a real challenge that needs to be addressed and can likely be solved with the use of AI/ML.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2023
Categories: Creativity, Storytelling, Strategy
In November of 2020, I decided that it was time to take inventory of the many things I had learned in my career over the past several years and create a series of short presentations to reflect this education and new direction.
Completed in early 2021, and entitled “New Foundation,” this multi-part presentation gives an authentic view of who I am and what is important to me in terms of problem-solving, design process, and leadership. It also shares a few unique and diverse projects from my portfolio.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: User Experience, Interface Design, Problem Definition, Design Strategy, Interface Analysis, Research
Working in partnership with developers and other stakeholders, I was asked to drive UX improvements to Unity’s search experience.
Given the increasing importance and multi-faceted nature of search, I focused initially on creating a solution framework to visually integrate previous search efforts, identify key touchpoints, further define the problem space, and allow room for growth via a phased approach. A product framing document was also created to further articulate the challenge and define appropriate outcomes.
In addition, I invested time in the following areas:
• Conducted numerous interviews with in-house technical artists and stakeholders
• Created an inventory of user scenarios to help focus the design exercise
• Solicited and captured search-related feedback from Unity customers via the Unity Forum
• Created additional framing visuals for discussion or inclusion in future design presentations
• Created low-fidelity design visuals to illustrate search improvements within the Unity “project browser"
While the team was focused primarily on the design and implementation of a visual search tool, through the aforementioned contributions, the team now has a solid UX foundation upon which to further advance the design effort beyond this particular feature.
Note: The visuals shown here are excerpts from a larger design exercise, and are partially reflective of my design and thought process.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: User Experience, Interface Design, Problem Definition, Frameworks, Interface Analysis, Research
This project focuses on Unity's new asset import pipeline, a process that can be extremely time-consuming for designers and developers working on large Unity projects. This was an interesting project as it gave me an opportunity to learn a great deal about the pipeline and try new research and design techniques.
Although this project was temporarily put on hold, the design effort exposed a wide range of ideas that will aid in its completion in 2021.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: User Experience, Interface Design, Research
I joined Unity in February of 2019 as the lead designer for the “Packaging & Distribution” department. At the time, a team of ~30 persons was responsible for several key Unity services including Package Manager, Unity Hub, and Licensing. I was responsible for designing user experiences for all three services.
Upon joining, I was asked to lead the design to enable visibility and access to Asset Store assets from within the Package Manager application. Prior to these changes, users managed assets in two different locations, resulting in a less than ideal user experience.
During this ~10 month engagement, I performed the following tasks:
• Created high-level design visuals to communicate current and future state
• Worked closely with product, technical, and design team members to design the best possible experience for our users
• Created design & analytical documentation to drive design & technical planning sessions
• Conducted design reviews to continuously improve the user experience
• Worked closely with development team members to implement required changes
• Involved QA throughout the design process to identify and address potential issues
As of the 2020.1 release, users now have the ability to access, sort, and filter their assets within Package Manager. You can read more about this here.
Note: The visuals included here were created at the beginning of the engagement, and represent a small subset of design materials created for this feature.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: Design Strategy, Problem Definition, Design Process
A design sprint is a time-constrained, five-phase process that uses design thinking with the aim of reducing the risk when bringing a new product, service, or feature to market. Sprints give team members a chance to learn whether they're on the right track with their ideas before investing considerable time and effort.
I decided to create this presentation as we were faced with two complex and important design initiatives with an aggressive deadline, and I felt that a design sprint would be a useful way to address both, and set a precedent for similar initiatives.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: User Experience, Interface Design, Research
In this design project, I worked closely with the licensing team at Unity to design a web-based interface for a new enterprise license installation application. Up until this point, companies were struggling to configure Unity in their environment due to a manual configuration process.
I decided to design an easy-to-follow, multi-step UX flow that would allow users the ability to go forward and backward in the configuration process. The flow would also offer appropriate help messaging where necessary, as shown here.
Because the team lacked the necessary JavaScript expertise at the time, they decided to leverage this design in a command-line-based implementation instead.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: User Experience, Interface Design, Research
In this project, the client, a temporary staffing firm, was finding it increasingly difficult to manage staff and clients using the Microsoft Access-based application they had built several years prior. They hired RTS Labs (of which I was a subcontractor) to design and implement a better solution.
After meeting with the client, it was clear they needed a web-based solution to receive employment applications, and they also needed an administrative interface to manage the incoming volume. The visuals shown here reflect both experiences.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: Branding, Publication Design
In a desire to win more business, the Director of Business Development at RTS Labs asked that I design a marketing booklet that could be sent electronically or in printed form. The ask was expanded to include new ideas of thinking about the company's brand and style guide.
I enjoyed this assignment as it provided me with numerous opportunities to problem solve in a creative space.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: Course Design & Development, Research
This project focused on the design and implementation of an instructor-led, two-semester course on advanced interface design and application development.
Over the course of three months, I developed over 120 pages of course materials and a video to provide instruction over a ten-week timeframe. This project was extremely challenging as it required creative thinking and the careful assembly of numerous technologies, including Figma, Gatsby, and React.js.
I’m proud of this effort because it represents a unique opportunity to share my knowledge with a broader audience. The university continues to offer this course today.
Upon completion of the second course, students will be able to:
• Gain additional interface design experience using Figma.
• Learn how to transform a visual design into working code using Bootstrap and Zeplin.
• Understand the differences between SPAs and PWAs.
• Gain valuable technical experience using Gatsby.js, a popular static site generator.
• Manage their codebase using GitHub.
• Store and manage content using Contentful.
• Deploy and manage their application using Netlify.
• Gain design and development experience using Google’s Material Design System.
• Create their own design system.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: User Experience, Interface Design, Branding
These are visuals created from my company’s brand and website design exercise.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: User Experience, Interface Design
The visuals shown here reflect some UX design work I did for St. Joseph’s Villa, a non-sectarian nonprofit organization dedicated to helping children and youth reach their potential.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: User Experience, Interface Design, Research
In this project, the client desired usability improvements to credit reporting and accounts receivable monitoring products. The client was also interested in the design and implementation of a dashboard that would be presented to the user upon login. While the existing interfaces were functional, their lack of modularity and interactivity had a perceived negative impact on future revenue.
I started the engagement by analyzing the existing application to identify gaps. After identifying 30+ areas for improvement, I designed new interface concepts to improve the user experience. This improvement effort encapsulated general user experience updates, aesthetic enhancements, and new capabilities.
The client was pleased with the revised design, and core aspects of the solution have since been launched in production.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: Course Design & Development, Tools
These are a few visuals I created for the Digital Imaging class at ECPI University.
Designing and developing materials such as this helps my students get the most of the learning experience and is a great way to continuously expand my creative and thinking abilities.
Student Feedback:
"Mr. Daniels has been amazing. I have honestly learned more about photoshop in this class than I could ever imagine. There was no information that he did not cover out of the book as far as how to run photoshop. We had much work but I like the challenge, and hope to continue having him as a teacher. He is so respectable, and professional."
"I won’t lie with both class the work load required a strong commitment, it wasn't just a breeze through course it took persistence, and it took every thing I had to get the assignments turned in. For those who aren't as familiar, I can imagine it would be overwhelming."
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: Web Development, Project Management, Interface Design, User Experience, DevOps, Technology
In this effort, I led the design and development of a mobile application and website specializing in personalized gift-giving. This project was unique in that it required me to rapidly learn various technologies for use in this effort, including Heroku, Node.js, and Stripe.
Over the course of nearly two years, I contributed in numerous roles, including UX design, solution architecture, project management, and back-end development. I also laid the foundation to support a culture of "continuous integration" and automated code reviews.
This application is no longer in production.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: Digital Strategy, Digital Marketing, Platforms, Technology
In late 2015, I was asked to provide a recommendation for a marketing automation platform for my employer.
Instead of providing a simple comparison among products, I decided to rate each marketing automation area (e.g., email marketing, landing pages, etc.) based upon historical company performance, and outline a “vision for the future” for each. In this way, decision-makers would be able to increase their awareness before making any strategic platform decisions.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: Digital Strategy, Technology
This is an excerpt from a strategic presentation I created in September 2015.
Aspects of this strategy include the adoption of a decentralized resourcing plan, the introduction of operational and project-centric principles, and the creation of new strategic maps.
This presentation also introduces the use of the text Immunity to Change to enable the team to move beyond their fears and realize their true potential.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: User Experience, Interface Design, Project Management
I led the UX design and implementation of a wayfinding website for the UCI Road World Championships, a cycling event that attracted more than 645,000 visitors to the Richmond area over the course of 9 days.
The agency I worked for at the time was hired by Richmond 2015 (the committee responsible for organizing the UCI Road World Championships) to be the agency of record for the three years leading up to the race. The team created logos, collateral, two websites, signage, and digital and social media campaigns.
Richmond 2015 asked us to design and develop a navigational website that was simple and easy to use. The website would serve as a guide for race participants, local residents, and tourists to explore multiple aspects of the elite event.
“You can’t imagine the complexity behind building what appears to be a simple website – which is a testament to West Cary Group’s digital and creative skillset. They designed a marvelous product for our organization, for the community, and for the world.” - Wilson Flohr, CEO of Richmond 2015
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: Design Strategy, User Experience, Interface Design, Conceptual Design
I served as the lead designer to improve the user experience and provide a new look for Capital One’s Commercial Banking CreditPath application. These efforts ultimately established a design roadmap for this critical application.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: Technical Proposal
These are a few visual examples from a website redesign RFP. Given the need to accept content from various external sources, and the need to support a mobile app, I recommended the use of a cloud-based content management service and upstream "worker" applications responsible for data import.
Unfortunately, we did not win this contract but it was a good learning experience as my response should have been increasingly oriented towards their exact needs and less on an "ideal" approach.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: Digital Strategy, Technology
"Digital City" is a strategic framework centered upon a comprehensive value chain assessment embedded within an "evolution-based" mindset. The original concept is based upon Simon Worley's talk entitled "Introduction to Value Chain Mapping" given at OSCON 2014.
This framework was designed to address a few pertinent challenges my team was facing at the time:
Challenge #1: Improvement efforts across departments resulted in many "false starts" which kept teams (and individual performers) "stuck" in outdated procedures and work styles.
Challenge #2: We were collectively lacking a clear definition of digital and creative services, and how those services should evolve over time.
Challenge #3: We needed a way to go beyond a basic service definition and move towards a model that would give us greater visibility into operational improvements and keep an eye on new opportunities that could alter this service definition.
The visuals shown here are a select few taken from this presentation.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: Requirements Analysis, User Experience, Interface Design, Design Strategy
The client, a large retailer, had a number of marketing products and services that targeted a variety of business customers.
To improve this complex user experience, strengthen the value proposition, and simplify the underlying marketing message, the client opted to combine the products and services into a single marketing portal for advertising goods and services.
My former employer, West Cary Group, was hired to provide interface design assistance. As the lead designer on this project, I provided a turnkey UX solution, including sitemaps, (navigation) decision trees, wireframes, sitemap/wireframe hybrids, and various interface design options.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: User Research, User Experience, Interface Design
From April through September 2014, I worked as a lead design consultant for Capital One Financial on a multi-year application redesign initiative.
The 700-member business unit of Capital One’s Commercial Bank used an online CRM application called Siebel. The user interface and experience fragmented as the application’s usage expanded, resulting in poor user adoption.
Given both the target application’s importance to the bottom line and the associated UX challenges faced by its user community, the Capital One Commercial Bank unit and its IT team dedicated resources to redesign the interface and improve the user experience. The first step was to conduct formal interviews with the user community to understand the pain points; this process ultimately generated 700+ comments.
Next, I established a macro-level strategy for the redesign effort that would assist in evolving the application to increase user adoption and long-term usage. Once I created and socialized the strategy, I worked closely with members of the IT team to understand how the application was being used. This knowledge helped me and my team to advance the design from a “flat” information/navigation hierarchy to one that was more “guided” in its approach.
With time, the design effort transformed into a full-scale development effort, and my recommendations were implemented into a new release of the application.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: User Experience, Conceptual Design
Included here is a selection of images from a design exercise involving a consumer health and beverage company. In a desire to win the business, I used The Foundry’s Modo's "Splash Kit" to contribute new content for both the website and branding exercise. The visuals shown here are test renders from this exploration.
I also shared initial ideas about design constraints and themes that I believed were aligned with their business goals.
While this engagement did not materialize beyond these concepts, it allowed me to gain additional experience using Modo and creating design proposals.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: User Experience, Interface Design
Our objective in this project was to help companies understand the benefits of relocating to the White Oak Technology Park. In this engagement, I was responsible for building a solution framework that encapsulated core objectives, competitor research, a content inventory, and design proposals. I also took responsibility for investigating digital mapping options, including the use of the Mapbox platform.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: User Experience, Interface Design
The collection of visuals shown here reflect UX design for a large, touch screen display that was to be installed at a local banking branch. By drawing interest using unique and engaging content, the resulting "buzz" had the potential to increase business from the shoppers who were already present at the location.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: Technical Proposal
These are a few slides from a mobile application technical proposal. While the project never materialized, I gained a lot from the design process and was able to build from this foundation in a future engagement.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: Digital Strategy, Technology
These are a few slides from a strategic presentation that I created in July 2013. The title of the presentation is called "Resilience" given the challenges the team had faced over the previous 6-8 months including a reduction in full-time staff.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: Analytics, Corporate Communications
These are slides from an analytics presentation I designed for a corporate client providing visibility into their paid media, social, web, and event campaigns. I was fortunate to have considerable creative freedom for this project.
This presentation was created using InDesign, Photoshop, and the FF Chartwell typeface. It was eventually recreated using PowerPoint.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: Analytics, Corporate Communications
These are two early design concepts for a corporate communications project. All numeric values are fabricated.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: Digital Strategy, Technology
These images were taken from a digital strategy presentation I designed and presented in the summer of 2012. It was the sixth presentation of its kind since I joined West Cary Group, the agency where I worked from 2011 to 2016.
This presentation reflects the explicit tracking of historical progress, the use of a strategic framework, the concept of "strategic destinations," and a comprehensive inventory of challenges that the team faced at the time.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: Digital Strategy, Technology
The Digital Application Framework (DAF) was a core component to the 2012 digital strategy for the agency in which I was employed. It was an early attempt to mobilize the department around a collection of design and technical artifacts and approaches to ultimately enable the creation of mobile and web applications.
As technology is constantly evolving, the approaches shared via this presentation have evolved as well.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: Information Design
This is a one-page explanatory diagram that I created for a friend who was in medical sales.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: Branding, Website Design
For this project, I formulated new designs to replace the existing web presence for a local builder. However, I wanted to step beyond the graphic design need to obtain a true understanding of the client’s long-term business vision and then work backward to make the web presence reflect that vision.
Prior to this engagement, I had read Marty Neumeier’s Zag book series, which highlights the need for organizations to truly differentiate themselves in order to achieve long-term success. I took aspects of Neumeier’s work and combined them with my own ideas to map out a high-level strategy for Ransone Builders. This strategy was centralized around a forward-looking client testimonial and worked backward from that point to define the message: In essence, what do we (collectively) need to do to ensure the client is satisfied?
Once the testimonial was defined, I then proceeded to call out words that described not only the Ransone customer but also Ransone Builders by asking, “What are the themes that resonate across both players?” This combined exploration allowed me to think about the emotional element that the brand design needed to convey.
Once the themes were defined, I then proceeded with the graphic design. Since the builder had shared photographs of past work, I combined these in a unique but modern way to show that he and his team possessed valuable experience while also permitting visitors to click on each image to see each project's results.
Unfortunately, the builder was ultimately unable to pursue the project. Still, I learned several key principles from this engagement. Solid graphic design can come from unexpected places, and understanding business strategy and direction is central to developing an effective brand strategy.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: Branding, Graphic Design
These are visuals from a branding redesign effort I led for the Omicron Delta Kappa honor society. In this project I leveraged guidance from Marty Neumeier's “Zag” text.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: Branding, Graphic Design
Big Generator was the name of my first company which was to focus in information design. These are visuals from a website design exercise.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
Categories: Corporate Communications, Process Management
In 2009, I was responsible for divisional responsibility for an enterprise business process management (BPM) initiative. This is a presentation I designed to communicate progress and to set the direction for my team.
While I was able to share this presentation with divisional participants, I was unable to share this with a broader audience within the organization since it conflicted with brand standards at the time.
Copyright © Adrian Daniels, 2004-2021
