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Work
About
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Studio


Since October 2021,
I have been the sole UI / UX Designer for Studio.






The simplified design tool for craftspeople.





A video I put together to show an example full flow of using Studio Screen recordings and edit by me, Original live action footage beautifully captured by Tania Yeo

Why?


Users of precision fabrication tools such as CNCs are often untrained or unfamiliar with the CAD or graphics programs required to create digital cut files.

My favorite user quote:

I am 75 years old and with what time I have left I would like to do woodworking, not computerworking. Hell, I wouldn’t want to do computerworking if I were 25.

Designing Studio means having somewhat a counter-intuitive mindset: that success comes from our users spending the least amount of time possible in our tool (so that they can get to making things with other tools).






Cross-device Design


A part of making Studio accessible to the every-day craftsperson, we wanted to make it available on essentially any device. To achieve this, Studio is delivered as a web-application, from anywhere that can load a website, including phones! As such, an important (and challenging) aspect of Studio is that it is also designed for mobile use.




Here is a video from our launch to demonstrate use on mobile:
https://youtu.be/6hnnR7kc_D0




Planning & Review


In addition to allowing users to quickly generate 2D designs, we also wanted to give them tools to help ‘plan’ for fabrication, by setting intention for type of cut, depth, bit diameter, and offset.


The ‘Review’ mode in Studio shows an approximate render of your design, given the ‘Plan’ that has been set. It’s a quick way to sanity-check your fabrication plan, and make sure that your planned cuts match your vision for your project.

I came up with the idea and designs to use 2D shading techniques to generate inexpensive, but convincing renderings:



See some secret things I did >

(you’ll need a password)



More things I am proud of


  • I created and have been managing the entire design system for Studio (in Figma).
  • I designed and implemented a feature to collect feedback and bug reports from users and make them easily accessible in our team slack.
  • I originated a new process for engineering handoff called ‘SoTs’ (Source of Truths) which would allow for easier navigation by engineers, and a consistent place to reference for QA testers. Ask me what I want to improve about this process!
  • I maintain a great relationship with the engineers on our team and have been told that I write excellent tickets!
  • I built 2 new single-line fonts for our users.
  • Ask me about prototyping tricky interactions in paperjs and grasshopper :)


More coming soon!