Hello. My name is Hajin Choi.
I create interactions that facilitate communication between people, information, and system.
I'm graduating in December 2010 with a master's degree in Human-Computer Interaction
at Carnegie Mellon University where I also earned the BFA in Communication Design.
I'm currently seeking for a job in the field of User Experience and/or Interaction Design.
My interest lies in Interface and Information Design because I'm excited about...

1) creating means for people to have effective, pleasant and enriching experiences in getting their job done and interacting with others, and
2) dealing with complexity and turning raw data and resources to something purposeful and meaningful.

I consider problems are opportunites.
Born in Seoul, Korea, have
called Pittsburgh home for four years now/Soft-spoken and extremely optimistic/Love walking aimlessly in nice weather while listening to music/Enjoy alone time as well as good convo with good company/Drink lots of coffee/Laugh a lot :)
I'm fascinated by how well-conceived designs,
coupled with technologies, can bring benefits to our everyday lives.
When solving problems, I always try to grasp the holistic picture and the details using my analytic and intuitive mind with right balance.
Web Presence of American Institutes for Research (AIR)
Website Redesign for a Non-Profit Social and Behavioral Science Research Organization
CHALLENGE
American Institutes for Research challenged use to redesign its website that appeals to its various audiences and advances its image as a thought leader among its competitors.
QUESTIONS
What do the different stakeholder groups expect for the website?
What is an appropriate information hierarchy for the website content?
What is the best way to accommodate a seamless browsing and searching experience on the website?
SOLUTION
We delivered a high-fidelity, partially functioning prototype of the website that shows the key design decisions we made and reflects our design vision—expertise, humanity, resource. The final design showcases AIR's capabilities and accomplishments while emphasizing its humanity by featuring employees and using images and graphics that give the organization a warm and friendly feeling. It also works as a well-organized, easy-to-navigate information resource.

Design Vision
We drew our design vision from the research findings and data consolidation to guide and inform our iterative design proces.
Video Sketch
This illustrates a use scenario of the website from the perspective of a persona we created, a Ph.D. student interested in one of AIR's research areas.

(from Jenny Schweers on Vimeo, produced in Adobe After Effects by Brett Holcomb)
Information Architecture
We made a lot of effort to simplify the information architecture, eliminating duplicate pages and reducing the two main navigations to one in order to make the site more intuitive and easier to navigate.

"It's pretty simple and easy to navigate 'cause there aren't too many items in each list, which can be overwhelming."
— a participant testing the final prototype
Homepage
The homepage features AIR's focus areas and their work along with a featured employee that rotates periodically to showcase organization's capabilities and humanity.
People Section
The main addition of content in our new design is the People section.

"[The focus on people] brings personality to the company and makes it seem like there're real people behind all of this."
— a participant testing the final prototype
Integrated Search Across the Site
Our research informed us that users rely heavily on searching when looking for specific information. In the new design, we made search functionality available across the different sections of the site with various filters appropriate for each section. Our research findings also stated that of a wide range of AIR's focus areas, the users are usually interested in one particular one. And this makes filtering search results by focus area especially useful.
Icons for Five Focus Areas
Based on the research finding that the current website lacked a warm and friendly feeling, I created graphical representations for five focus areas AIR practices and used them throughout the site.
"Badges" for Different Content Type
From the heuristic evaluation and think-aloud studies on the current site, we found that it takes a long time for users to find the content they look for because the website is text-heavy and the different content types are displayed in the same manner. We addressed this issue by creating color-coded "badges" to indicate the content type. The image on the right shows how the "badges" are used in a search result page. This helps users skim through the entire page and still be able to easily locate the information they want.

"It's clear right away that this is highlighting work we've done and [what type of work it is]...I think [the "badges"] would be useful for someone trying to learn about the company—a potential employee or prospective clients looking for examples of work that we've done."
— an AIR employee testing the final prototype
PROCESS
We spent the first half of the project conducting research to understand the current state of AIR's website and its visitors' needs and expectations for it. The research methods we used included heuristic evaluation on the current site, competitive analysis, contextual inquiries and stakeholder interviews. These were followed by affinity diagramming and modeling of the data, which allowed us to manage a large amount of data, identify important needs, and gain insights for the design phase.
We created the website stakeholder map when planning the research to identify important parties we needed to speak with. (The highlighted groups are the ones our research participants belonged to.)
During the design phase that took up the second half of the project, we went through several iterations of prototyping with varying levels of fideliy and testing them with the members of general public and some of the AIR employees to validate our ideas and find areas for improvement.
I created low- and high-fidelity wireframes with pencil and paper, and Adobe Fireworks and InDesign.
Below are some of the quotes from the peer evaluations on my performance as a team member. (I must have done something right!)
"She is a pleasure to work with. She's dedicated, designs beautifully, helps keep us organized, and has gone above and beyond all semester."
"She is designing great work and has been instrumental in keeping us on track."
"Thanks for consistently doing great work. Your design insights and work ethic have been fantastic."
"Thanks for putting in a lot of extra time to make everything look great! We couldn't have made it without you."
MY ROLES (DESIGN LEAD) / SKILLS USED
Leading design discussions, Low- and high-fidelity wireframing, Report and presentation slide design, Visual design /
Heuristic evaluation, Competitive analysis, Contextual inquiries, Stakeholder interviews, Affinity diagramming, Data modeling
Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Fireworks
DURATION
Jan–Jul 2010
(7 months)
COURSE
MHCI Capstone Project
TEAM MEMBERS
Brett Holcomb
Matt Morosky
Jenny Schweers