designing the human experience
The impact of recent technological innovations on our lives has been well documented, from smart watches that alert you to exercise, to making poop emojis with our faces, to self-driving cars, and many more to come. However, what often gets overlooked amidst the excitement is the people that these innovations are for.
Our emotions are what differentiate us from machines and your "smart whatevers." They're what allow us to enjoy a summer picnic with our friends, and they're what make us cranky after a stressful day at work. If more and more facets of our lives are becoming digital, shouldn't they feel human?
And that's why I strive to make digital more human:
by designing a digital world built for the people.
It is a daunting endeavor for sure. But combine empathy (to identify the human need behind a problem), a design strategy (to build a plan to solve it), and a strong team (to execute the plan), and you get a recipe for successful innovation.
WORK
NANTUM by Prescriptive Data
NANTUM® is a first-of-its-kind, cloud-based building operating system that integrates into any built space to optimize energy consumption and increase tenant comfort, while providing cost savings.
As the only designer, I currently oversee the maintenance of the existing product, advocate for low-effort-high-impact usability improvements, and guide the holistic design strategy.
Conductor Searchlight
Conductor is a content intelligence platform that works with leading brands to measure and improve their SEO and content marketing efforts.
At Conductor, I owned the design of 4 different features within the core product, Searchlight, from concept design to maintenance.
Team Axon
Team Axon is a team of 5 interdisciplinary Carnegie Mellon MHCI students that worked with Cisco as a part of their Master's capstone project.
By the end of the 8 month project, the team successfully delivered a visionary solution that has guided Cisco's product strategy to this day.
SlickDeals Redesign
SlickDeals is a crowd-sourced deals aggregation site that saved users collectively over $4 billion since 1999.
As both a casual fan and a UX designer, I saw opportunities for improvements in the user experience and explored a quick redesign for increasing adoption among casual users.
Other Projects
Trace
A mobile app that extends the photo-sharing experience outside of the device and into the physical world.
First Person Scanner
A mobile game concept aimed to recreate an age-old game, but with a technological twist.
Photography
Selected work of favorite moments, views, and emotions captured
ABOUT
Work Hard
Play Hard
Hi! I'm Sean, and I'm a user experience designer that believes in the power of design to drive real-world impact.
As humans' lives become increasingly digitized, businesses of all shapes and sizes are scrambling to adapt. These business challenges are inherently design-based, meaning it takes a more holistic human-centered design approach than "just making a website" for businesses to succeed in this digital frontier. Those who embraced the holistic design approach have patiently invested in design and are reaping rewards. According to the Design Management Institute, "design-driven companies outperform the S&P 500 by 219%."
I currently work at Prescriptive Data, a smart building automation company based in New York, by helping the business identify its customers' needs through research and designing sustainable, scalable, and monetizable ways to address those customer needs.
When I'm not delivering value to businesses by helping them improving people's digital experience, I'm likely out in the city with my camera, watching hoops, or crushing my friends in Mario Party 2 on my still-functional N64.
P.S. Contrary to popular belief, I am not Sean Ro, the korean hip-hop legend.
let's chat!
I'm always happy to chat over some brew (coffee or beer both welcome).