We have designed products and web sites spanning
a large breadth of domain areas and interactive media. Here
are the projects Philip has been involved in since the founding
of Obvious Design way back in February 1997:
|
Client
|
Product & Domain |
Services |
|
|
|
LUNAbar.com,
Berkeley, CA
12/08 - 4/09 |
Rearchitected web presence for LUNA Bar, in conjunction with number9 design. |
• Product vision, information architecure, information design, interaction design |
PlumKeeper, Mountain View, CA
7/08 - 12/08
|
Designed a blogging application specially tailored to the needs of parents of young children. (Josh Hall) |
•Interactive Product Design
|
Big Tent Design
San Francisco, CA
1/08 - 6/08
|
Redesigned highly scalable & tailored onboarding process to allow community groups to set up their online communications and coordination tools. |
• Interactive Product Design |
Alight Planning
Diamond Springs, CA
4/08 - 7/08
|
Designing a sophisticated new, unnanounced feature for medium- and enterprise-scale financial planning and analytics software product. (Josh) |
•Interactive Product Design
|
Autodesk
San Francisco, CA
2007 |
Dragonfly browser-based home remodeling Rich Internet App (Josh Hall + Philip) |
• Product vision
• Prototyping + User Experience Architecture +
Interactive product design |
Stone Design
Santa Fe, NM
2006-2008 |
Spot design and consulting on several features of Stone Create v14, a great graphics and page layout tool (that we happen to use for all our design drawings). |
• Interactive product design
|
Intuit (Digital Insight) Quicken Online
Mountain View, CA
5/07 |
Consulted on a future product involved with personal finance, small business and online banking |
• Product vision & strategy |
Intuit MyCorp.com
Calabasas, CA
5/06 - 3/07 |
Redesigned the complicated UI to help small businesses incorporate. Modeled and streamlined internal fulfillment process to improve customer response, reduce costs and increase scalability. |
• User Experience Architecture + Interaction Design
• Product Vision & Strategy
• Process improvement |
Sorensen Media
Salt Lake City, UT
7/06 - 9/06 |
Not-yet-disclosed initiative in the realm of digital video. |
• Spot consulting retainer in User Experience Architecture |
Intuit ExpensePro
San Diego, CA
1/06 - 10/06 |
Designed ExpensePro product from scratch. ExpensePro vastly simplifies taxes for micro-businesses. It collects business transactions from multiple bank accounts and lets the user quickly categorize them, making tax reporting much easier. |
• User Experience Architecture + Interaction Design
• Product Vision & Strategy |
Steal This Idea
San Francisco, CA
11/05 - present |
Published StealThisIdea.com, a web magazine for Philip's articles about product vision, strategy and interactive product design. |
Created complete site based on WordPress: conception, information architecture, visual design, coding in HTML, CSS and PHP. Wrote many articles. |
Yahoo! Inc.
Mountain View, CA
10/05
|
Generated advanced concepts for the Yahoo! Toolbar that were later integrated into the product. |
- interactive product
design
- product vision consulting |
Autodesk
San Rafael, CA
7/05 - 9/05 |
Consulted on product strategy in the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and civil engineering domains. |
- Design strategy consulting |
Intuit Inc. (QuickBooks division)
Mountain View, CA
11/04 - 7/05 |
QuickBooks
2006 (accounting for small business). Designed central home page "super navigator" in this major release, released October 2005. Also designed parts of the setup user experience. |
- interactive product
design
- product vision consulting |
MyOwnBag.com
San Francisco, CA
11/04 |
Consulted on the design of myownbag.com.
(MyOwnBags are fashionable, high-capacity bags that substitute
for disposable grocery bags.) |
- spot consulting on information architecture, design
and marketing |
Intuit Inc.
Mountain View, CA
5/04 - 11/04 |
QuickBooks
Customer Manager v2.0 (CRM for small businesses) -
Designed various features. Product launched in November
2004. |
- interactive product
design |
Flytxt
London, UK
4/04 |
Flytxt
Direct v2 is a sophisticated hosted web application for
conducting marketing campaigns using SMS messages on mobile
phones. A year earlier
we architected version 1.0 from scratch,
on-site in London. This year we consulted with them on v.2.0.
(See this flash
demo.) |
- design coaching
- interactive product design |
Opsware
Sunnyvale, CA
3/04 - 5/04 |
Conducted on-site interviews with major customers to determine pain points and priorities. Synthesized
findings into a presentation to Mark Andreessen and the Opsware executive staff. |
- customer research |
Adobe
Systems
San Jose, CA
1/04 - 2/04 |
Functional redesign of the Adobe
Online Store, with particular emphasis on the approach
to up-sell and cross-selling. Went live 10/04. |
- information architecture & interaction
design |
ChineseOpera.com
Oakland, CA
12/03
|
- Pro bono web design and implementation for community Chinese
Opera theatre. |
- visual design, architecture & implementation |
PalmOne
Milpitas, CA
10/03 |
- Researched, analyzed and presented
roadmap for phasing in new capabilities (under NDA)
- Built presentation delivered by PalmOne's CEO at IX 2003
conference. |
- product vision & strategy
- speechwriting |
PalmOne
Milpitas, CA
5/03 - 7/03 |
- Consulted on product vision. Conducted new product brainstorming
session. Played out concepts for 17 new products.
- Scripted
and produced Flash-based scenarios of a day in the life of
several personas using envisioned new products. |
- product vision & strategy
- needs analysis
- storyboarding of envisioned scenarios |
Flytxt
London, UK
4/03, 7/03 |
- Designed Flytxt
Direct v1.0 from scratch. This is a web-based app used
by print, TV and radio organizations and advertisers to administer
SMS text message marketing campaigns to mobile phone users. |
- product architecture & design |
PalmOne
Milpitas, CA
10/02 - 3/03 |
- Designed various features for PalmOne's
PIM apps, including a new To-Do app that accommodates different
styles and patterns of planning. |
- product design |
PalmOne (was Palm
Computing) &
PalmSource
Santa Clara, CA
10/00 - 2/02 |
PalmOS
5:
- Applications and operating system for PDAs, cellphones and
other hand-held devices.
-Includes the status area and active input
area designs found on the high-end Sony
Clie NX and NZ and Tungsten
T3 line of PDAs with more
to come. |
- needs analysis
- product vision & strategy
- product management
- comprehensive product design
|
Sonapse
San Francisco, CA
10/00 - 2/02 |
Custom-tailored music over the Internet. Gave
design review, guidance. |
- product vision & strategy
- process consulting |
|
OffTheGround
Palo Alto, CA
6/00
|
Business-to-Business Procurement
system exploiting XML. |
-
design process coaching
- sub-contracted interaction design
|
|
Network24 (acquired by Akamai Technologies)
Cupertino, CA
6/99 - 10/00
|
Qcast/Akamai Forum
- Hosted web application for composing live and on-demand
interactive streaming media programs.
|
- needs analysis
- product vision
- comprehensive product design
|
|
Gap,
Inc
San Francisco, CA
7/98-6/99 |
www.gap.com
www.babygap.com www.gapkids.com
web sites
- apparel e-commerce. Did the information architecture for
Gap.com web store that persists to this day and which was
featured in Steven Krug's popular
book on common-sense design, Don't
Make Me Think. Designed several core features of the
online store. |
- product vision & strategy
- information architecture
- technology evaluation
- interaction design
- concept prototyping
|
|
Alibris
(formerly Interloc)
Berkeley, CA
4/98 |
www.alibris.com
- e-commerce web site for used and out-of-print books. Consulted
on the initial web store.
|
- interaction design
- information architecture |
|
NTT
Data
Tokyo, Japan
1/98 |
Interactive TV
- research into fundamental needs and future vision of ITV
(This project foretold the future of IP-delivered TV and devices such as the Apple TV.) |
- needs analysis
- technology evaluation
- product vision
- concept prototyping
|
|
Filemaker,
Inc
(formerly Claris Corp.)
Santa Clara, CA
12/97
|
FileMaker
Pro
- database application software for Macintosh and Windows
|
- needs analysis
- interaction design |
|
Icarian
Inc. (acquired 5/2002 by WorkStream)
Mountain View, CA
11/97
|
Icarian
Employee Acquisition
- hosted web application for managing staffing.
- Turned
a product idea into a functional prototype which became
the design of the first version of the product; designed
from scratch. |
- product vision
- interaction design
- concept prototyping
|
|
Asterix
Technology
Berkeley, CA
10/97
|
Web-based Business-to-business procurement system |
- needs analysis
- product vision |
|
Broderbund,
Inc.
(now Mattel)
Novato, CA
9/97
|
PrintShop
5.0
- digital photography features for Windows consumer application
software
|
- interaction design |
|
Broderbund,
Inc.
(now Mattel)
Novato, CA
6/97
|
PressWriter
2.0
- desktop publishing software for consumers (Windows, Macintosh)
|
- interaction design |
|
Matsushita
(Panasonic)
Tokyo, Japan
9/97
|
Interactive TV
- Analysis of future of ITV applications and product design
|
- needs analysis
- product vision |
|
GTE
5/97 |
SuperPages
Best Buys
- consumer electronics buying guide web site
|
- interaction design
- information architecture
|
GTE
2/97
|
SuperPages
Auto Guide
- car buying guide web site |
- interaction design
- information architecture
|
Obvious Design
2/97 - present |
Philip founds Obvious Design in San Francisco, CA. |
|
Claris Corp.
1994 - 1997 |
Prior to founding Obvious Design, Philip worked at Claris Corporation, the erstwhile software division of Apple Computer, where he was the lead interaction designer |
|
GO Corp.
1991 - 1994 |
Philip was a software engineer designing and coding new UIs for pen-based computers and the PenPoint operating system. |
- software engineering
- interaction design
|
Microsoft Corp
1998-1999
|
As a software engineer, worked on Microsoft Word 5.5, the last DOS-based version of MS Word. Converted UI from old UI to character-based windows UI.
As a product manager, researched real-world usage of MS Word using an instrumented version of the product.
Designed a number of UI's for Word for Windows v2.0. |
- software engineering
- interaction design
- program management |
