— 2016 & 2O17
USER EXPERIENCE LEAD & USER RESEARCHER
FOR SMARTCITIES
USER EXPERIENCE LEAD & USER RESEARCHER
FOR SMARTCITIES
Foundational Research for R&D projects and User Interface design for Smart Cities projects
ROLE
As UX Leader I led the efforts to transfer a proactive way of working to the rest of ux professionals by conveying a new work approach, positioning the discipline within the R&D center in the context of IoT and cultivating a design team culture. I was also in charge of defining the design methodologies and processes to create and develop products through design in the IoT framework.
ACTIVITIES- Field research
As UX Leader I led the efforts to transfer a proactive way of working to the rest of ux professionals by conveying a new work approach, positioning the discipline within the R&D center in the context of IoT and cultivating a design team culture. I was also in charge of defining the design methodologies and processes to create and develop products through design in the IoT framework.
As UX Researcher for SmartCities I led the field research, instrument design and visual design for the initiatives we had in the team.
ACTIVITIES- Field research
- Usability studies
- Customer Journeys
- Product Strategy
- Workshops facilitation between actors
RECOMMENDATION
“I had the opportunity to work with Maria Paz in R&D projects, where she demonstrated her exceptional abilities designing new product from scratch in complex, uncertain contexts while keeping a magnificent team work.
Maria Paz stands out for her talented research work and communication skills, so important when passing on insights to the rest of the scrum team. A constant learner, she is focussed on the problem, not the solution. During her time in Telefonica she become a natural leader. I wouldn’t hesitate once it if I had the chance to work again with her in the future!”
Laura Eguren, Project manager
COMPANY
Telefonica R&D center is a public-private initiative which aims to lead the development of new technology with focus on the digital world and the Internet of Things, creating applications and services for Smart Cities, Agriculture and Mining based on open platforms and collaborative models of work and research.
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Muvio: Online platform to understand how “the city moves” feeded by cellphone data
ABOUT THE PROJECT
One of the main missions of Telefonica Research Center is to put in value the data from his huge communications network. Muvio was developed to address the need from the transportation sector of being able to understand through massive amount of data, how the city actually “moves” and how certain cities vary according to their geography and season of the year.
APPROACH
I did in depth interviews and workshop with stakeholders to inform strategic thinking. After having all the insights from a first round, we started the development of a series of prototypes to test them with users, we created an “ industry experts council” from transportation consultancies that were on the edge of technology and more willing to have different sources of data and methodologies to sense the city.
ACTIVITIES
In depth interviews, usability testing, interaction flows, information arquitecture, user interface design.
A sneak peek on the user interaction from one of the functional prototypes.
User interface design proposal for results page.
Interaction flow for the entire platform.
User testing the entire flow with lookback.
User reaction while testing the platform.
I had the opportunity to give a talk at Interaction South America 2016 about the development of products in research environments and the importance of the collaboratiion between user experiences and data scientists.
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Arica: on-demand public transportation experiment
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Chile’s deficient public transportation system was an opportunity that we found across the entire country, to work on and propose an improvement to the cities. We selected Arica, Chile’s norhtest city, because it had integrated GPS in all buses, we had contacts within the sector, the bus owners were willing for a change and it represented the same issues than other cities.
APPROACH
Understanding the problem from the three main actors of the service, the bus owners, the passenger and the driver was the first approach. For that I did interviews, field research and a workshop with the main stakeholders to show results from the field, align expectations on the project and take insights on their assumptions and vision from the service.
ACTIVITIES
In depth interviews, a day in the life of map, field observation, assault interviews, workshop facilitation.
