Torry Guo : 785.312.4421

Or: torryster@gmail.com



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2011: Ready for a new journey

After presented my thesis project, I'm graduating in May. It's time to start a new journey, and I'm ready!!

2010:a IxD grad student at KU

Life in KU was quite in surface, but challenging underneath. We were trying to solving real-life problems, some of which were extremely complex and difficult. Good thing to be in school was:no fear to fail, you always have time to try, to abandon and try again.

2009: Some dreams came true

A year of huge changes. I quited my job and went to US for an iinteraction design MA program. For the first timeI realized the true range and power of design could be, and how important communication was.

2008:so called UI designer

Titled user INTERFACE designer, most of the time I was doing GRAPHIC design indeed. What's the difference? Everyone's talking about fancy words such as UX and IxD, what are these honestly? Websites and books were not enough for my curiosity.

2007:Intern UI designer

My career began as I switch to the world of design. It was lucky to find something combines my background and interests, I was called the interface designer.

Before 2007: a CS student at BUPT

Self-finding I: I knew c++ would not be my future life, and I tried to explore life as much as I could during different internships: web developer, news photo editor, HR, animator...

NextGen PC OS Design

 

This project was for the 2005 NextGen PC OS Design Competition. Cell-circle UI includes: a holographic 3D screen and a Bee-pen that provides sound, light, touch, and smell, making it convenient for all users.

To view the PDF brochure please click here.

IIT Chinese Website

 

This project aimed to give a local character to the basic design of the U.S. site. Content needed to be arranged in a logical manner and web function usability was paramount. www.iit.org.cn

My E-book

 

This project used a graphic ebook to present my feelings and thoughts on life in my 3rd year of university. The style is casual and tries to give a pencil and watercolor effect. Click here to view more graphic books I created during my university years.

Days at ChinaFotoPress

 

During my internship at CFP, I created the CITY EXPRESSION photo collection and sitemap. I also built an internal wiki system on the company server.www.chinafotopress.com

Logo Design

 

The company required to design a brand name and logo for their new perfume. It needed to be simple and gracefully French. The design include the text, font, and image.

Banner Design

 

Corel Painter is a great tool for computer graphics. I picked up my pen again after all these years being a science student. Instead on paper, I did the drawing directly on the computer with the Wacom tablet.

Piece of Freshsky

 

It was a flash project when I was in freshsky studio(www.freshsky.net). Our team developed a story based on all the services the Gototel provided. It was showed in a big telecoms exhibition.

Click here to view the flash comercial.

Jazz I OS UI

 

C2 Microsystems is a TV box chips design house. They are looking for the new graphic user interface for their key-product PVR.

Mino Landing Page

 

This project aimed to give prominence to product advantages and promotional information, while allowing prompt feedback via a simple form for users to fill in.

Mino New Site

 

This project aimed to emphasize a website design that was both professional and in line with the company's own high-tech style. MiNO is an American telecommunications company and international mobile VoIP operator; its customer base is composed of various international corporations and groups.

M-call Branding

 

The project aimed to design a unique logo for the M-Call brand and a multi-page brand introduction, including cover, product intro, company intro, etc. M-Call is a new mobile service and the design is in line with its modern, high-tech style.

Poster Design

 

The project aimed to create hand-drawn cartoon posters to illustrate, simply and clearly, the main concept and principal advantages of the roaming project. These posters were to be used for the marketing and sales plan. The cartoon needed to be laid-back and lively, but not overly simple like a children's cartoon.

Mino Banner

 

This project required strict maintenance of image resolution and banner size. The challenge was to attract maximum users and create consumer awareness within these constraints.

Graduate Thesis Project

 

This project was part of my Bachelor's thesis. The design makes use of a "plug-in/framework" concept. The "frame" is only a base support while other parts "plug-in" for specific services, allowing users to customize their own service.

T-shirt Design

 

This project won 2nd prize in the BYR forum T-shirt contest for the forum's 4 year anniversary. It uses the homophone pair '4ever' and 'forever' to celebrate the anniversary. Boys' and girls' shirts are different colors.

Mino for Windows Mobile 5

 

This project aimed to design the MiNO GUI for the Windows Mobile 5 platform while improving some aspects of the UI flow. This software is used for making calls, including the main functions of CALL, CALL LOG, ACCOUNT SETTING, etc.

Mino for BlackBerry

 

This project aimed to design the MiNO GUI for the BlackBerry platform while optimizing UI flow to increase usability. This software is used for making calls, including the main functions of CALL, CALL LOG, ACCOUNT SETTING, etc.

Style Research

 

This project is an experiment in frosted glass style, part of the popular UI material research project.

Icons-DPF, NMP, PVR

 

Icon design was one of the most important part of my job as an interface designer. Meanwhile that was why I called myself UI designer titled graphic designer. But there were usability issues to concern when design different icon sets: visibility, mapping, consistency and feedback.

Jazz I OS UI

 

C2 Microsystems is a TV box chips design house. Among 3 alternative provided, this was their final choice, including icons.

DTV GUI

 

As an important component of the Jazz I chip OS, the user interface development of DTV was set as a individual project other than NMP, DPF or PVR. Instead of using qt-based element, DTV could use bmp format images since it has a fixed screen resolution.

Digital Photo Frame UI

 

DPF(digital photo frame) project was the first project that I was completely enrolled to the team as a UI designer from developing phase day 1. We followed the traditional process: start a meeting regard to marketing requirement, and start design the frame, when goes to detailed interface design, I worked with engineers seamlessly and making necessary iterate improvement while developing.

User Interaction Flow

 

Other than design single interfaces, I carried out an user experience improvement research, and the interaction flow analysis was part of it. Here I compared and analyized the user operation flow of C2's current products and the competitors' such as apple and Tivo. The research finnally generated a comphrehesive report, which provideed a powerful reference to the further improvements on user using the current product.

User Interview

 

This was a part of the user experience improvement research. The interview was designed to observe the beginner, intermedia and expert user's task-oriented operations. Certain questions were asked during the observation. The interview reports provided important reference data to the whole plan and it was a base for the Jazz II OS R & D.

Icons-DPF, NMP, PVR

 

Icon design was one of the most important part of my job as an interface designer. Meanwhile that was why I called myself UI designer titled graphic designer. But there were usability issues to concern when design different icon sets: visibility, mapping, consistency and feedback.

My2book

 

My2book is an information platform for the used book industry. It was my classmate's concept for his personal start-up. I was helping with the strategy development, user interaction flow and the prototype.

Yiyo UI

 

The design process including the user anaylize, user flow design and the final interface design. Yiyo was a service system conceptual product that especially designed for roamming users, including phone number booking and other special services, such as weather forcast and language translation.

Color and the Style

 

Trying and exploring are endless for designers.I tried to use color and flower patterns to convey the model's temperament. Photos were processed first, then patterns and text were added.

Huanlezhu Site

 

Huanlezhu wanted the site to present the fairground's character of rich entertainment contents. The color patterns should be bright in color and fashion, meeting the taste of children and teenagers. Meanwhile, it required to organise the content effective so that the contents looked rich but not crowded.

Brochure for IIC

 

The marketing manager came to me to create a clear and professional product brochure. He requested it to be in line with C2'shigh-tech style and to draft a high-quality overall product diagram and first-class flowchart. I saw it as an experience of printing design.(don't ask again if it is a UI designer's job) This brochure was widely delivered at the IIC event.

C2 Company Portfolio

 

Don't ask me whether if it was part of an UI designer's job, check it out at OK/Cancel. As I said, I was just a graphic designer most at that time. So the marketing people wanted me to create a PDF format company portfolio for C2. It should show the company character and style, and using the logo blue as the mian color.

Jazz II OS

 

Jazz II was C2's new chip with more features. Current Jazz I OS would no longer support the expending thus a new R&D program was carried out. As the UI designer in the application team, I built the 2 prototypes based on user's behaviors from former interview and observation.

E-style Banner

 

I designed some fashion banners to put on blog for a friend. Since the blog theme was blue, I tried using different blues to create an old-fashion style.

Banner for New Website

 

Since I was in charge of the website project, I created this illustration that has the company slogan "break media format boundaries", with the cc1100 chip in center (the main product of the company). As a multimedia processor, the powerful decode-encode ability is the highlight of this chip.

New Company Website

 

C2 marketing needed a website design that was in line with the company's own high-tech style. As a user interface designer I was in charge of the whole project with a limited time. The visual effect was more emphasized than the interaction with visitors in this case since the function of the site was simple. Web URL:www.c2micro.com(design changed in 2009 after I left)

Redesign an Online Flower Shop

 

It is a challenge to manage the colors for this kind of project: they're just too many. And they were looking for a website redesign that both attractive and best presented the comfortable flower shop style. Meanwhile, design details should be carefully handled. And must keep the colors harmonious while containing rich texts and photos contents.

iWish

 

We are trying to turn money spenders to money savers. This handy application aims to help people fulfill their wishes in a planned, effective and economical way. As the leader of this design team, I managed the project in a way to maximize everyone's talents. From the initial sketches to the demo flash of the application, we showed our ability to work under time pressure with people from different cultures and backgrounds.

To view the detailed introducion of this idea, please click to continue.
To view the online prototype please click here. To view the PDF version concept map. To view the user task anaylse sample.

Concept of saving

 

To demonstrate the concept of saving, water tap here is to metro the process.

It's about money

 

This map is a life circle of how man interact with money. As one step of the money saving tool design process, it is interesting to step one step back to see the big images. In this circle, we create a personal that's a typical non-saver.

Click here to view a larger version of the picture .

User Interviews-insights

 

We spent 80% of time and energy on design research, methods matrix and touch-points finding, the final design only took the rest 20%, including iterated testing and re-design.That was unusual to me, I used MS Word more than Adobe Photoshop in the process. But it turns out that too hurry to the form does not mean efficiency at all.

To view more user observation and interview, click here.

Interaction Evaluation

 

How to evaluate the design was one of the questions I wanted to be answered in the master program. In this case, a electronic dictionary as an interactive device was evaluated. Different aspects to be judged including Norman's framework.

To view the presentation please click here.

Using the Card Key:SIP to DCC

 

It was a group work with Brook Granham and Zoe Beach. We started with the SIP study, using Norman's 6-point framework to analyze the situation. Later Brook and I developed a testable flash prototype for a new card-key door system design, which focus on the display-control compatibility.

To view our interactive presentation on Prezi, click here.

What to do with Human Factor

 

This is the final presentation for the class. Brook Granham and I built this prezi project to show all the non-linear human factor knowledge we had for this class. We used diagrams to indicate the contents. You can see a progress there moving from traditional human factor cognition to the newest understanding; from SIP(Symbol Information Processing) to DCC(Display Control Compatibility) to SIT(Situativity)

To view our interactive presentation on Prezi, click here.

Presenting a situation

 

How to represent a situation so that we can have a better understanding of the design context? Professor Richard Branham showed us a really conperahensive way: AEIOU(activity, environment,individual, object- understanding).

Click here to view the PDF document.

Using the Card Key:SIP to DCC

 

It was a group work with Brook Granham and Zoe Beach. We started with the SIP study, using Norman's 6-point framework to analyze the situation. Brook and I developed a testable flash prototype for a new card-key door system design, which focus on the display-control compatibility.

To view an interactive demo of this design, click here.

Design Problem in Chinese input method

 

Chinese input methods on mobile devices are massive and complicated. No design is perfect in this case. But by using Norman's framework, we can explore this sepcific problem in a design way beyond technique aspect.

To view the presentation please click here.

Lekan TV-box UI Design

 

Lekan is a sub-brand of China Unicom. They were using C2's Jazz I chip for the network TV. New UI design is required for customized functions, such as BT download and search.

View more UI screens please click here.

KU Graduate Student Orientation Website

 

The community decided to provide the accepted new graduate student an online orientation program, which is in form of a website. I was enrolled to this program as a interaction designer and web developer. Daryl Dance, an doctoral student was working with me together on this program. After carrying out several student interviews and hearing department comments, we organized the information in a way that easy to find and be understood. It was highly compliets and gained a considerable high hitting rate.

Click here to visit the site.

Cindy's story

 

This is an interesting project working with Angel Stahl, creating a scenario introducing a new network management system. We tried to use a story of how Cindy solve the problem using the new tech. In this case, she using it to fix a overloaded server without interrupting the users. She was able to find the optimistic path to switch by using the interactive visualized data traffic map. To view the scenario animation, click here.

Want to rent a DVD?

 

You can go to Redbox if you just have a sudden idea when you walk through a supermarket. You can drive to the blockbuster shop with your mum for a family movie. Or you can also enjoy something by yourself by clicks on Netflix. Comparing the front-stage back-stage of these services and observing the experience finally could become some insights of the touch-points.

To view the presentation, click here.

Mapping the user behavioral model

 

You can use the behavioral model methods on many places, other than traditional Architecture design.

Dirty-and-fast Prototypeing

 

Fatimah, Brook and I was using paper prototype to explore ideas on a health care portal website design.

To view more of this prototype, please click here.

Mapping the Customer Experience at Jade Mongolian BBQ

 

Thinking about being a busy mum, have full-time job and 2 kids to take care of, food shopping could be more easier to release her. Our group focus on the specific situation here trying to solve the problem. After all, mum is often the one in charge of the diet of the family, which is a significant part of family health care. All kinds of methods were implied in the process.

Click here to view the interactive presentation on Prezi.

CLW Website Design Competition

 

It is not a success to share, for the communication was very poor in this project. It is a competition of web design, or just the page design. Re-think about competitions: why do it and what is the goal? There should be the time to think about the traditional web design process: rather than through all content to a outsource, why not involve the designers from day 1?

Help Margo-My Health Network

 

Who's Margo? She is a mother, a housewife also a chronic disease patient. To help her, we designed the health network scenario that showing how a new disease-management system help Margo get healthier. It was the one of the best group works I ever have.

Click here to watch our scenario video.

Explore the food shopping

 

Thinking about being a busy mum, have full-time job and 2 kids to take care of, food shopping could be more easier to release her. Our group focus on the specific situation here trying to solve the problem. After all, mum is often the one in charge of the diet of the family, which is a significant part of family health care. All kinds of methods were implied in the process.

View our interactive presentation on Prezi.

Better Everyday

 

Better Everday is an application that help people manage their health, their time and their life. It is a plug-in for regular calendar programs with other function such as Balance, Budget and Health Reminders.

Watch our scenario about how Better Everday is used in Lily's daily life.

The Apply KU Experience

 

Mapping the current graduate school application experience helped us better understanding the gaps and the problems. From the initial paper prototype to the current online site, feedback were collected from students, departments and the application centers.

Storyboard of the apply experience User experience mapping document(PDF) The living link that is using now

The Visual Identity Project

 

From the traditional impression of being serious and a little bit boring, to a vivid and impressive big G, it was a way using design to change the visual communication.

Visit the VI site to see more.

Student resources: let's be easy to find

 

As the most important project in summer, I was helping the graduate school to redesign the student resources site. Personals and need matrix were applied to the design progress.

Visit the living site serving graduate students in KU. Check out the user need analysis file.(PDF)

E-locator: the shopping cart application

 

This was a project for new product management class. The team was formed mainly by students from business school, as the only one from design I contributed with not only the vivid graphics but also some fresh ideas.

The detailed design content is not available for business confidential purposes.

Homepage redesign

KU GS home

The new homepage made a huge difference about how information was categorized. It used to be staff-centered , different box related to each one's area. But now all content was re-organized to different web users.

Check out the new homepage.

SEO for graduate.edu

GS SEO

For every monthly website meeting, I reported the SEO progress of the site. Besides using diagrams, I tried many ways to let the data make sense.

The detailed content is not available for confidential purposes.

Global Service Jam

KU GS

Within 48 hours, with people didn't know before we together worked on a new service based on the theme this year: super hero. And we were trying to save the disappearing culture around the world. It was really a buzy and fun weekend gether together.

More details? Check out our project page.

Door hangers for graduate students

Door Hanner

How pain it is to be a graduate student doing research, writing or the thesis? Just add something functional working and fun.

The detailed design content is not available for confidential purposes.

Canect: Matching You the Best-fit Translation Service

Canect

This is my thesis project which I've been working on it for 9 months. Please check out the link to see more details about this new service.

Click here to go to the project page.

About Me

Torry Guo

I'm a graduating interaction design student now looking for a job as an ineraction designer :)

You can download my resume.

About My hobbies

Card making

I enjoy card making, jewery design and cooking, they bring me the sunshine on a gloomy day!

Check out my hobbies.

©2010-2011 Torry Guo