I am part of the Enterprise Design Group (EDG) –a group of UX/Interaction & Visual Designers who along with a number of Usability Specialists and Software engineers help create and maintain the software that controls and manages all sorts of aspects of enterprise-related hardware: servers, racks, storage controllers…etc.

Enterprise software is not well known for being the most “user friendly” and it’s generally conceived by engineers, for IT professional without much regard of user-centered design. At the same time, Dell is widely known as a “hardware” company, not for making “software”.

Dell wants to change all of this. With Enterprise solutions accounting for most of the company’s revenue, this is an area in which Dell aims to excel. This is where EDG comes in.

Since I joined Dell, I have worked mostly on a product called OpenManage Power Center. This is a web application that allows IT professionals to control and manage energy consumption of Dell data centers.

At the time I came into this project, the application already existed and it was in the middle of a long redesign process. My involvement started with a deep exploration of the tool, followed by the redesign of the task flows for some of the most important features of Power Center, such as physical/logical group management and device discovery. This was followed by the creation of high fidelity wireframes that served as discussion points between me, usability engineers and developers.

In order to see if these designs were on the right track, I’ve crafted scripts based on a number of scenarios and built clickable HTML prototypes around them to be used during usability tests with IT professionals. Along with usability engineers, I’ve helped conduct these studies that brought back valuable information back to the Power Center team and allowed for improvements with each iteration.

Unfortunately, the design work I’ve created for OpenManage Power Center has not been launched yet, and for this reason I can’t share it here at this moment. This is true for everything I’ve done at Dell so far. 

If you are interested in seeing some of the sketches I’ve created for this and other Dell Enterprise products, take a look at some of the photos in the Flickr slider at the bottom of this page –or look at the photo set directly on Flickr.

Along with the Power Center efforts, I worked on the redesign of the main installed for Boomi: Dell’s premier  cloud integration tool. The process here was similar to that of Power Center in terms of my deliverables: a task flow followed by a couple of low-fidelity wireframes to vet with the Boomi team before implementation.

These projects have been taking place at the same time other designers and I work in defining and curating an all-encompassing pattern library to be applied across all of Dell’s enterprise offerings.

For the most part of 2012, the landscape of my work has changed considerably. I’m currently involved in redesigning the entire pre-OS experience for some of Dell Update Packages; explorations around finding an optimal “out of the box” first-time setup experience across the entire portfolio of Dell enterprise applications; as well as working along with members of Dell Storage and Open Manage Server Administrator teams in the inclusion of caching technology utilizing solid state hard drives in direct-attached storage and storage area networks.

If you have any questions or comments regarding my work at Dell, feel free to reach out to me on the Contact page of this web site.

Sketching is usually what I spend the most time doing (when I’m not creating wireframes on Adobe Fireworks, Microsoft Visio, Expression Blend or OmniGraffle on my iPad). Here’s a collection of some of the latest sketches I have done as part of my constant design process at Dell. Explore the slideshow below (requires Flash Player) or visit the photo set directly on Flickr.

It was my first design job at a digital agency. This is an environment I felt compelled to experience after being an in-house designer at a big company for nearly 4 years.

During my time at Roundarch, I had the opportunity to work directly with mobile applications (something I had not done for before –professionally).

Disclaimer: due to contractual reasons, I am not able to post any images or mention the name of the clients I worked with during my time at Roundarch on this site.

I worked in designing the iPad application for an American multinational banking and financial services corporation. The application needed to support the liquidity and investment services that the corporation offered.

The process involved in designing this application started with a deep exploration and competitive analysis of other financial applications for iPad, as well as the creation of various personas involved in finance and needing to access their liquidity accounts in a mobile context. It was also necessary to become knowledgeable-enough with client’s appearance, actions and behaviours in their current liquidity-related web site.

The first steps in this project were to create an interaction model and a number of task flows tailored specifically for a financial application on the iPad. This was followed by a number of low-fidelity annotated wireframes that were vetted with the client, as well as other Roundarch designers. Finally, after a number of iterations, high fidelity wireframes were presented to the client before implementation. The app was finally released utilizing native iOS components and Sencha Touch mobile web app framework.

This was an interesting challenge fot the same reason any design project for mobile is: finding the most optimal solution taking into account screen real estate constraints whilst allowing the user to perform the most important actions quickly and clearly. In this case, users didn’t need to have complete access to all of the liquidity-related features, but mainly access their account information and activity on their portfolios. A Dashboard view was also designed as the app’s “home” view portraying these features, as well as allowing the user to quickly view alerts, perform trades and transfers between accounts.

Also at Roundarch, I collaborated with another user experience designer in maintaining ongoing changes on the redesign of various sections of the web portal for  a company specializing in inspection, verification, testing and certification services. This was done by dividing the work among different sections of the site (Client Vs. Public views) and putting it all together via annotated wireframes made primarily on Adobe Indesign. Working on this project with this client allowed me to work on the biggest consumer site I’ve ever been involved it, at the same time I became more familiar with Indesign: a tool I didn’t have much experience with given my constant use of Adobe Fireworks and OmniGraffle.

Finally, I had the chance to work on the redesign of the corporate awards program web site for a car rental company. This was a short but interesting optimization exercise in which the goal was to make signing up to the corporate awards program more inviting and appealing to small & medium-sized business customers.

Sketching was a crucial part of this project. It allowed me to explore various visual treatments attempting to highlight the benefits of this awards program. These benefits were hidden under links that, if clicked, took users to a different page and out of the sing-up context they were originally in.

The flow of this experience didn’t need to change drastically from the way it originally was. What needed to change was the way users were introduced to the information on this page. For this reason, it was easy to go from sketching directly to a set of annotated wireframes to be presented to the client.

Then, before I had the chance to be part of these concepts’ evaluation by Avis, I decided to accept an offer from Dell to join their Enterprise Design Group at their headquarters in Austin, TX

My experience at a digital agency (and in New York City in general) was indeed short-live, but nevertheless vastly enriching. I’m happy to see myself bringing most what I learned during this period of time into my current work.

Here’s a collection of some sketches I drew on my notebook during my time at Roundarch (requires Flash Player) –or visit see this photo set directly on Flickr.

Those of you who have never been to this beautiful country and/or don’t know what IxDA‘s Interaction conference is: I’ll let the images speak for themselves….

I would say running a marathon accounts for all of these.

I am very proud to say I’ve recently finished my very first marathon: the LIVESTRONG Austin Marathon 2012.

So… why?

I wouldn’t consider myself a “runner”. I’ve only started running regularly a couple of years ago. In fact, I recall not really liking running very much growing up –I blame Bogotá’s altitude.

I found running to be the kind of exercise that pushes the very limits of what you can do with your body. It’s also a rather healthy practice that help balancing the rest of the stuff that your life is composed of. It certainly keeps a healthy mind in a healthy body.

With running, also comes a certain culture that I was very organically introduced to as I started training with a clear purpose in mind: running 5 miles, 8 miles, 10 miles, a half-marathon…. and eventually a full marathon. The people you meet, the lingo you incorporate in your conversations, your routine before-and-after running, your eating habits… etc. Everything changes for the better when you become a runner…

…well, for the most part.

Training for a marathon can also lead to all sorts of injuries. For starters, running is just about *the* worst sport you can engage in when it comes to the least stable joints in your body: your knees. Contrary to no-impact exercises like swimming or cycling, running will essentially grind your knees away in time if you don’t incorporate good training practices whilst running.

Or… you could suffer from a partially-torn tendon in your groin. Like Me.

Whilst training in Bogotá during the holidays, i started noticing a pain in my right groin and near my right hip that only got worse by the day. Upon returning to Austin, I started going to physical therapy to try and ease the pain i was going through. I had 26 miles to run in a matter of weeks from that point before the 19th of February, when the marathon was taking place.

Going to therapy whilst still trying to train for a marathon = not a good combination. Without taking the necessary time without running to heal from a lesion like that, recovery never takes place.

I properly trained for a total of 2 months, out of which I hardly ran at all for 2 weeks prior to the race due to my injury. That is not at all enough time to train for a full marathon –but I was determined to run my first marathon on the year I turned 30 years old. So I did.

I was nervous about how this would all unfold. Up until that day, the longest I had ever ran had been 18 miles. I only remember being utterly exhausted and thinking “there’s no way I can run past this distance”.

But with the help and encouragement of friends that trained with me, who also ran that day with me (some the half, some the full marathon), I made it to the starting line, determined to finish under 4 hours. Partially because it would make sense to finish in that time –given the times I had previously completed 2 half-marathons; partially because I needed to finish before 3 hours, 59 minutes: the time Sarah Palin took to finish a marathon.

I was not going to go down in history as running my first marathon more slowly than a lady who thinks she can see Russia from her home in Alaska.

Curiously enough, this really served as a great motivator –injury and all.

Once I saw this sign one of my friends made on mile 9, I kept on pushing harder to keep a steady pace. (Thank you, Shelly!)

The Austin Marathon is known for being hilly –and sure enough, some of those hill were *killer*, specially during mile 12 and mile 18.

I kept ahead of the 3:25 pacers all the way until mile 18 for a couple of reasons: it was one of the hilliest parts of the race and, mentally, I wasn’t 100% sure what would happen past 18 miles. I had never gone past that distance ever before.

I noticed I started to stop for water more, and slowing down my pace considerably. I also noticed how the 3:25 pacers passed me… followed by the 3:30 pacers… at mile 20 and the 3:35 pacers…at mile 22…

But it was at mile 23 when I hit the infamous “wall” runners talk about so much. I stopped to drink some water then and started walking as I drank the same way I did every time I needed to hydrate –only this time, once I finished my much needed cup of water and tried to start running again, my left leg (the one with no groin/hip-related injuries) completely locked up and wouldn’t move. I almost fell trying to get back into running form. I thought “shit –what if I can’t finish? WHAT IF I DON’T BEAT SARAH PALIN?”

At this point, the 3:40 pacers passed me. All I wanted at that point was to at least finish ahead the 3:45 pacers.

Eventually the leg regained mobility and I kept going as fast as I could –which wasn’t extremely fast at that point. I knew I couldn’t stop any more in order to prevent a situation like the one I had just experienced. I had 3 more miles to go and I had to do everything but walk throughout that distance… otherwise, I was most likely going to collapse again and possibly not finish. At all. At that point, I stopped worrying about beating Sarah Palin and started thinking that all costs, I needed to at least finish in a decent time.

I distinctively remember these last 3 miles being absolutely eternal. I also remember not feeling out of breath at any point (aerobically tired, so to speak) yet feeling unable to move my legs beyond the point of a light jog. But I continued.

And then, at mere 800 metres before the finish line, the 3:45 pacers passed me. Slowly. I ultimately finished right behind them, and managed to cross the line at 3:47:15 (official time).

Watch me cross the finish line (in visibly weird running form), here:

I did it. I managed to finish a full marathon. In less than 4 hours. WITH an injury –and before Sarah Palin!

All I can say after having reached this personal goal of mine is that you really are not the same person you were before you started that race. It may sound silly or painfully obvious, but what I mean is: you get to test your body and your mind to an extent that you ultimately end up learning a lot about them in a way you otherwise couldn’t have. You also feel an incredible sense of accomplishment that you only get by crossing that finish line full of people cheering you on.

I’m also not the same because as a result of running this marathon on the type of injury I had, I only made exponentially worse by subjecting it to such torture. To this day I continue to go to therapy twice a week in a process that it seems it’s going to take a long, long time.

Yet, all I can say is that it was worth it. All the training, all the physical therapy sessions done to date and those to come –even the oversized t-shirt I received as part of my packet.

All I can say is that I’m now (patiently) waiting for a full recovery so I can properly train and run another marathon.

One could say the “bug” has indeed bitten me.

This time, the clan of UX/IxD/IA enthusiasts converged in the beautiful city of Dublin. Not only I don’t need an excuse to go to the *one* conference I won’t miss for anything –but once you add traveling to one of the coolest cities in Europe… it can hardly get any better. Despite the typical Irish weather. During Winter.

My Ireland experience started when I hired a car with my friend Joshua (only a couple of hours after landing) and simply starting driving west. Going wherever the road took us, we managed to hit Limerick, Galway, Waterford and Cork. It was great to explore most of the country in a record 3 days.

Once back in Dublin, it was all Interaction, all the time. To me now it’s like coming to that pub where ” everybody knows your name” –except it never takes place on the same location, and your pub mates are all incredibly admirable, crazy-smart people.

And then there’s all the new friends you make, as well.

Interaction 12 was composed of a whole day of awesome workshops (from which I took 2 whole sessions of prototyping in Axure thanks to Fred Beecher & Jeff Harrison from Evantage), 6 keynotes, a total of 80 speakers with all sorts of events happening around Dublin –debates, networking gatherings, and the first (ever) Interaction Awards: an incredibly well-organized event with the glamour and elegance of any academy awards ceremony. And Guinness.

Most talks lasted 45 minutes, with long breaks in between, which I really liked for a particular reason (besides the coffee being served during such breaks): it allowed for conversation amongst fellow designers. Bouncing ideas off of each other, comparing perceptions from the different talks, and even sharing information from talks other didn’t get the chance to attend –this is what made being there worthwhile. After all, all the sessions were video-recorded and will be available online sometime soon… but the learning done from talking, sharing and comparing right there and then can’t be replicated.

Some of the most noticeable talks I had the chance to attend were:

• Luke Williams‘ “The Disruptive Age: Thriving in an Era of Constant Change”, in which he invited designers to disrupt cliches, products and theories; think of just about everything as “interfaces”, and have “provocation” always present when we design.
• Giles Colborne‘s “Artificial Intelligence: Designing Interaction for Emotional Awareness”, in which we learned that the same way people can “read other people” when interacting with them, we as designer can (and should) also pay attention to being “emotionally aware” with our work. Engaging in active listening, empathy and being positive but not eager to please should be accounted for in our designs.
• Maggie Breslin‘s “Designing For The Unknown”, where we were reminded that design is about solving problem, but most importantly, about conversation. She also mentioned that no matter what tool or medium we use, good design starts with just pen & paper. Taking all these things into account allowed her to design an interesting set of charts to communicate with cancer patients at a hospital.
• Rachel Hinman‘s “The Mobile Frontier”, in which she reminded us that mobile products and applications are sympathetic to contexts; GUIs have the mental model of c
  omputers as tools and are reaching a limit, and that when it comes to mobile, people want unfolding, unanchored experiences. She also went over some interesting mobile patterns being seen today across various mobile products. Check out her upcoming book by the same title –it is said to include a couple of sketches drawn by yours truly
• Jonas Lowgren’ s “Exploring, Sketching and Other Forms of Working”. In this talk, Jonas invited us to think in terms of exploring (assume wide design possibilities) and sketching (exploring a full realm of ideas –in a disposable manner). He also highlighted the importance of increasing the material fidelity of prototypes if the interactions involved are not idiomatic. This also means prototyping in code, and building with a sketching mindset.
• Ryan Betts‘ “Concept to Code: Code Literacy in UX”, in which he reminded us (in less than 10 minutes) that Interaction Design is a multi-literate field, and that as designers we don’t need to learn how to code –but it not only helps immensely if you do, but it is also not necessarily all that difficult of a skill to master, and certainly one that pays dividends in this industry. He divided designers into 4 archetypes, Enthusiast (knows code enough to carry out a meaningful conversation about it), Mashup Artist (can play with small chunks of code), Inventor (know at least one language good enough to program anything on it from scratch) and Wizard (programing guru who can pick up just about any programming language there is). Ryan suggested that interaction designers should (ideally) be anywhere between Mashup Artists and Inventors. This was indeed one of my favourite talks of the entire conference.
• Dana Chisnell‘s “Real Users Don’t Do Tasks”. Here,
  Dana reminded us that the web has evolved, but our usability techniques have not, that people don’t work with a device out of context (referring to testing under unlikely conditions), that users constantly redesign the UI of your product or application in real time, and most importantly, that our filed should focus on cultivating polymaths: meaning that we should learn more about practices such as anthropology, psychology and many others that naturally complements user experience, usability testing and interaction design.
• Fabian Hemert‘s “Hack To The Future”. In this talk, we learned about making digital content more “graspable” by applying concepts that we as humans are already used to, such as thinness, and weight. In other words, adding “digital texture” to prototypes and designs. I particularly remember him showing a video of a mobile phone that is able to transmit “kisses” by making the receiving device slightly wet once a kiss is sent from the originating device. The idea here was to make point of always letting your ideas out,since sharing with people is crucial to get feedback and inform your designs. Design should be a knowledge-producing discipline. This talk gave me the feeling that nothing is “unprototypeable” and turning ideas into a reality –even a hacked, play-pretend one, can go a long way.
• Abby Covert‘s “Does it Have Legs? Information Architecture Heuristics for Interaction Designers”. Abby reminded us that heuristics are a proven way to critique, evaluate and predict –but we have to many principles that overlap and do not apply to all contexts or channels. She proposed a list of 10 useful heuristic IA principles: is your product Findable, Accessible, Clear, Communicative, Useful, Credible, Controllable, Valuable, Learnable, and Delightful? This was one of the most applicable sessions from the entire conference, which why I invite you to take a look at the slides of her presentation instead of me describing it further here. If you’re an Interaction Designer, you can most definitely apply this you your work.
• Angel Anderson‘s “Why We Share?”. This was one of those talks that just about anyone who uses the web in any way, shape or form today can get immense value from. People are social by nature, and people use the web to interact with one another –hence making the web a place where we have inherently grown to share various aspects of our lives. In her talk, Angel told us that there are 3 reasons why we share: Bragging (because we seek validation), Complaining (because we seek agreement) and Reaching Out (because we seek comfort). She reminded that knowing what motivates people to share will results in designing optimal sharing mechanism and in turn, better products and applications. She also introduced 6 social design characteristics: Landscape, Frameworks, Social Objects, Personal Boundaries, Privacy and Friction. Her deck of slides is also one of the best I saw in the conference. Take a look at it for yourself.

These is only a short collection of the talks that caught my attention the most. There were many other interesting sessions I didn’t get to see –I am myself also waiting for the videos to come out to

get caught up on the rest of the stuff that was discussed in all the other rooms of Dublin’s Convention Centre.

A video no one has to wait for is one that took place in the hallways of the convention centre and was in fact completed before the conference ended and presented on the big screen for everyone to see: “Shit Interaction Designers Say”:

The closing party, hosted by Microsoft, was held at none other than the Guinness Storehouse/Museum. I had not been here since New Years Eve in 2003! I was happy to return –as happy as I was to talk, dance and laugh with friends from all over the world… and drink as much Guinness as humanly possible (which for me is not all that much). I also came out of that place with a XBOX’s Kinect sensor that i seem to have won on a raffle earlier that day. For that, yet another awesome closing party and much more: GRACIAS, MICROSOFT!

We learned. We drank. We shared. We dranked. We danced. We drank…. but most importantly, we drank some more we got inspired to continue expanding our own limits and working to be the best designers we can be, creating the best products, services and applications we can design. This is why I make sure I don’t miss this amazing conference.

Thank you, Ireland, Thank you IxDA and thank all of you who I had the pleasure and honour of sharing yet another incredible Interaction experience. You know who you are.

Sláinte!

(That is “Cheers”. In Gaelic)

For all things “Photos” make sure to check out my Ireland 2012 Flickr set.

Along with the collection of India photos (and videos), this is the last set of material resulting from the explorations that took place in these exciting regions of the world.

Here they are: my Flickr sets from Kathmandu and Pokhara in Nepal:

…and, some “bonus” material: Video footage (from the air) of the Paragliding experience over a beautiful lake in Pokhara:

Quite an unforgettable trip. If you haven’t ventured to these lands, I highly recommend you do. It’s worth every effort.

If you are reading/watching this and have any questions on traveling to India or Nepal, don’t hesitate to contact me or writing something in the Comments section below.

Namaste.