MALONSOPORTFOLIO

I am an all-around designer/architect with four years of experience. My work has been recognized as one of the most innovative of emergent designers in the spanish speaking world, and has been exhibited and published in Germany, Spain, France, Romania, Brazil, etc.
However, although I am very proud of these accomplishments, my first and foremost passion as a designer is not to be on magazines, but the creation of simple, compelling and relevant solutions that make the lives of people a little better. I was trained in user centered design, and have a special interest and focus in human computer interaction. The portfolio you are about to see is my work in this particular area.

Martin Alonso, Minjeong Kim, Dennis Paiz and Kate Swanson. Tools: iphone sdk.
GPS Augmented reality game developed for a class at Stanford. The user plays King of the Hill on the screen, but the actions of the icon representing him are defined by what he does in the real world. Therefore, to conquer the hill you must run (in the physical world) to the hill indicated on the screen (the digital world). We went through every stage of prototyping and testing, and made a rough but working prototype in four weeks.

L: Paper prototype R: Working prototype

Martin Alonso, Robbie Holop, Sudarshan Kadambi and Steven Peng. Tools: wii-motes, flash.
Interactive learning-toy for kids in the first years of elementary school. The kids play between a projector and a screen. The projector displays an animated story where a character is missing. The objective is for them to make their projected shadow to be that missing character, completing the story.

L: Terry Winograd! trying our working prototype R: User testing, first prototype.

Martin Alonso, Brian Ng and Minjeong Kim.
Project developed for Humana R&D. User research showed us that people struggle with processing the abundance of information that is available regarding how to take care of their health. We created a simple mobile and internet platform to track your health based on a relative scale: how well do you think you are doing today? That information can be shared with your family and friends.

L & R: Two instances of our website prototype

Martin Alonso, David Goligorsky and Robert Cameron. Tools: Arduino micro-processor controller, piezo-electric speakers.
Project developed for Purina in the context of a Stanford class. After extensive user research, we realized that there was an unexplored market niche for pet toys that went beyond fake bones and simple objects. People need to see their pets doing great things, not just biting and scratching. We created a musical instrument, a piano for dogs.

L: Picture of prototype and "user" testing R: Image from our user research

Martin Alonso, Malvina Goldfeld, Ioulia Kachirskaia and Zach Weiner. Work in progress.
We work with East Palo Alto charter school. Kids in EPA are very proud of their work, but that work never goes out of the classroom, causing a disconnect between school and the outside world. Lately, that has caused a perceived loss of relevance of their school work. We created an inexpensive and simple solution to take and upload pictures of their work to a website, so they can show it to their parents and their relatives abroad.

L: Prototype of the picture studio R: Picture of (failed!) first prototype

Martin Alonso and Jesse Ciremele. Work in progress.
This project is a web-based service where users create and complete other users stories. After login, any user can browse the stories already been written in the website, and can decide to add its own phrase (300 words) anywhere in the string, either continuing somebody's story, creating a sub-story starting half-way in another story or starting a whole new one.

L: Home and single screen R: Detail of a continuing story.

Abby C. King, Tom Robinson, Banny Banerjee, PI. My position: lead interaction designer
The objective of the study is to test if smart-phone based applications can help people to walk more and otherwise reduce their sedentary behavior. Work in a team with an array of different disciplines: Behavioral Science, Design, Computer Science, Psychology, Engineering. (sorry for the vagueness, non disclosure agreements!)