Brian Bureson

Product Design Leader dedicated to building teams and products people love ❤️

My most recent portfolio projects are confidential.

Below is a selection of projects from 2017 and prior.

MassRoots for iOS and Android

Product design, user research, design leadership, management, organization design

  • In May 2016, I joined MassRoots as the Director of User Experience to establish a UX discipline and scale-up a product design team.

  • I directed 3 designers, while also being the lead designer and user researcher acting as a ‘player-coach’ to guide and mentor the team.

    I reported directly to the COO and worked directly with the C suite.

  • I recruited and hired top talent and built a strong culture of Design at MassRoots.

    I worked closely with the executive team to build a vision for the future of MassRoots. I aligned closely with the COO, marketing, product management, and engineering to create a shared sense of accountability and success across the team through KPIs, metrics, and team building.

    I delivered robust plans, strategies, and documentation for achieving the business objectives, and conducted user research for understanding our users, our business opportunities within the context of design.

  • Research

    • 1-1 user interviews

    • Focus groups

    • Card sorting

    • Tree testing

    • Task analysis

    • Surveys

    • Moderated and unmoderated user testing

    Design

    • Wireframes

    • Participatory design

    • Task flows

    • Design specs

    • Prototypes

    • Visual design

    Product

    • Product requirements definition

    • Dual track design and delivery for scrum teams

      • Weekly backlog grooming

      • Bi-weekly sprint planning

Skype Qik Group Video Messaging

0 to 1 product design, user research, design leadership

  • I was the design lead for the first version of Skype Qik, a video messaging app built on Android, iOS, and Windows Phone.

    This was a special project was comprised of a ‘Tiger Team’ selected from within Skype to quickly design and build a competitive group video messaging app to evaluate asynchronous video messaging as a possible integration into Skype’s main client.

  • The design team included myself, 3 visual designers, 1 user researcher, 2 interaction designers (1 part time), 1 web developer for the design phase.

    Each mobile platform had it’s own engineering and testing team for the implementation phase.

  • Early on, I worked through the interaction model and problem space on my own.

    Once I got buy-in from stakeholders, design resources were allocated to build out a design team to support the project including 3 designers, 1 user researcher, and 1 web developer for early stage prototyping.

    The unique interaction model is my original design for this app, which has now been copied by other companies, such as https://www.marcopolo.me/.

    This was the first unique mobile app from Skype since Skype was introduced to Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. This app tested features that were trending in the market to evaluate if they were worth considering for further integration into Skype’s core products.

    I worked in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign to prepare wireframes, design artifacts, prototypes, specifications, and other materials to help inform product design decisions.

  • Research

    • 1-1 user interviews

    • Surveys

    • Moderated task-based user testing

    Design

    • Wireframes

    • Participatory design

    • Task flows

    • Design specs

    • Prototypes - evaluated live code and HTML based prototypes

    • Accessibility - ensuring coherence with Android, iOS, and Windows accessiblity standards

    Product

    • Product requirements definition

    • Scrum

Skype 5.x for Android

Product design, user research, design leadership

  • Once the Microsoft acquisition closed, there was a priority put on creating onramps between Skype and Microsoft Messenger to allow the user base to begin interacting across each platform. This would help the problem of finding your contacts on Skype and increasing Microsofts user base by allowing cross platform communication. This project focused on integrating Microsoft Messenger contacts into Skype and improving the asynchronous chat features such as, file transfer, video messaging, voice mail, SMS integration, etc.

    I was the design lead for Skype for Android from version 2.5 - 5.x.

  • The design team included 2 visual designers, 1 user researcher, and 2 interaction designers.

    The greater product and engineering team included 3 product managers, 8-10 developers, and 3 software testers.

  • I was the lead interaction designer focused on delivering coherent design patterns across Skype mobile and desktop endpoints, while respecting the Android design patterns.

    This effort was a refinement to achieve an alignment between Skype’s other desktop products and new Microsoft features being integrated from Microsoft Messenger.

  • Research

    • Analytics, telemetry from the app and team

    • Leveraged Google Developer Advocates

    • App store rating and reviews

    • Skype beta testing team

    • 1-1 user interviews

    • Surveys

    • Moderated task-based user testing

    Design

    • Wireframes

    • Task flows

    • Design specs

    • Prototypes - evaluated live code and HTML based prototypes

    • Accessibility - ensuring coherence with Android Talkback

Skype 4.x for Android

  • Skype for Android 4.0 represented the culmination of over a year of planning and design, and almost 9 months of incremental delivery to achieve a completely re-architected and re-designed experience for more than 100M customers. It was the first non-Microsoft product to adopt the Modern design style, and included many performance improvements targeted specifically at mobile devices.

    I was the design lead for Skype for Android from version 2.x - 5.x.

  • The design team included 1 visual designer, 1 user researcher, and myself as the design lead / interaction designer. The greater Skype for Android product and engineering team included 2 product managers, 8 developers, and 3 software testers.

  • I was the sole and lead interaction designer on Skype for Android for the first half of the project, with a team being hired once the project was in full swing.

    I designed phone and tablet experiences supporting Skype’s full feature set and was the first client to release full multi-tasking while on a mobile video call.

    This effort was a complete redesign of the Phone and Tablet products that resulted in a 100 million active users with a feature set unique to Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich platform, but optimized across Skype’s product suite and brand.

    I worked across design, user research, marketing, and product to ensure Skype’s brand was presented in a way that worked seamlessly with Android (Ice Cream Sandwich) design patterns.

    I worked in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign to prepare wireframes, design artifacts, prototypes, specifications, and other materials to help inform product design decisions.

  • Research

    • Leveraged Google Developer Advocates

    • App store rating and reviews

    • Skype beta testing team

    • 1-1 user interviews

    • Surveys

    • Moderated task-based user testing

    Design

    • Wireframes

    • Task flows

    • Design specs

    • Prototypes - evaluated live code and HTML based prototypes

    • Accessibility - ensuring coherence with Android Talkback

Product design, user research, design leadership

Tandem Diabetes Care t:slim insulin pump

0 to 1 product design, user research, design leadership, management, organization design

  • I was the lead designer and this is my original design based on a robust set of user, market, physician/medical practitioner research over the course of 3 years of iteration.

    This is a highly regarded and regulated product that is considered the best in class insulin pump with a number of user experience enhancements and unique features that make a complex process much simpler for the user and for the nurse educators.

  • The team started out with me being the sole product designer. Over time, the UX team grew to 1 visual designer, 2 user researchers, 1 web developer.

  • Conducted user and market research on consumer insulin and in fusion pumps. Worked with type 1 diabetes patients, nurse educators, doctors, sales, and marketing to understand the opportunities in the market and understand each audiences needs from an insulin pump.

    Identified the problems faced by type 1 diabetics who are using insulin pumps and designed solutions using a user centered design methodology.

    Integrated UX into an already functioning Agile software team and optimized design deliveries for the team.

    Delivered robust design frameworks, specifications, prototypes that have enabled a world class product to be built and shipped.

    As a regulated product, I worked with the FDA to ensure we designed according to their guidelines and delivered robust documentation of the design intent.

  • Research

    • 1-1 user interviews

    • Focus groups

    • Card sorting

    • Tree testing

    • Task analysis

    • Surveys

    • Moderated user testing

    Design

    • Wireframes

    • Participatory design

    • Task flows

    • Design specs

    • Prototypes

    • Visual design

    Product

    • Product requirements definition

    • Scrum

      • Integrated Design activities into Scrum

      • Weekly backlog grooming

      • Bi-weekly sprint planning

Motorola Moto 360 smart watch

Product design, user research, design leadership

  • I joined Motorola Mobility in June 2015 as a Principal Interaction Designer to help lead the design for next generation wearables, including the Moto 360 smart watch.

  • I was hired to be an autonomous interaction designer paired with a visual designer, and working under the Director of Design for wearables.

    The Moto 360 engineering team consisted of 4 developers, 2 testers, and a Scrum Master.

    I worked with a Sr. Product Manager and the Director of Product Management to plan and phase incremental deliveries for release.

  • Introduced new watch faces and interactive features, such as steps counter, date, weather widgets, etc.

    Developed new concepts for the Moto 360 Sport, fitness focused product.

    Designed next generation wearable concepts with multiple screens / orientations.

  • I integrated new features from the Google Wear API into actionable and usable design solutions for Motorola, identifying patterns where additional design was needed to deliver an exceptional experience.

    I had regular touch points Google Design lead and greater team to ensure Motorola’s brand expressions were feasible and compliant with Android Wear’s design patterns.

Skype 3.x for Android tablet

Product design, user research, design leadership

  • I designed the first Skype for Android tablet product. This was at a time when design patterns for tablets were not solidified because robust design systems had not been established. Mobile design patterns of the time were the wild west with many incoherent patterns across the platforms. I was hired as the design lead for Skype for Android from version 2.5 - 5.x.

    This release was designed for the Android Honeycomb platform, which is the first version of Android supporting a tablet form factor. This allowed a more robust feature-set to be integrated into Skype’s mobile offering for the first time.

  • I was the only designer on the Skype for Android design team at this point and was embedded on the product and engineering team as the design leader for Skype for Android.

    The greater Skype for Android product and engineering team included 1 product manager, 6 developers, and 2 software testers.

    The Skype mobile design team was based in London, UK and I was the only US based designed aside from the VP of Design, based in Palo Alto, CA.

  • This effort was a complete 0 to 1 design effort for a tablet experience to align with desktop functionality.

    I led the design and worked across multiple divisions and across Skype and Google to plan and design appropriate solutions for this effort. I collaborated with Google developer advocates and Google design, as well as Skype product, design, engineering, marketing teams.

    I worked in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign to prepare wireframes, design artifacts, prototypes, specifications, and other materials to help inform and communicate product design decisions.

  • Research

    • 1-1 user interviews

    • Leveraged Google Developer Advocates

    • App store rating and reviews

    • Skype beta testing team

    • Moderated and unmoderated user testing

    Design

    • Wireframes

    • Task flows

    • Design specs

    • Prototypes - evaluated live code and HTML based prototypes

    • Accessibility - ensuring coherence with Android Talkback

Skype 2.x for Android phone

Product design, user research, design leadership

  • I was the design lead for Skype for Android from version 2.x - 5.x.

    This effort was an early version of the Android phone design, leveraging the dashboard concept (hub and spoke). This version was limited by design patterns available through Android Gingerbread.

  • I was the only designer on the Skype for Android team at this point and was embedded on the product and engineering team as the design leader for Skype for Android. The greater Skype for Android product and engineering team included 1 product manager, 6 developers, and 2-3 software testers.

  • As the sole and lead designer for the Android platform, I reviewed the existing app and the design patterns for Android and scoped improvements based on user and business needs.

    I worked closely with engineering, product management, and other design teams to plan and release features consistent with Skype’s desktop platforms.

    I worked in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign to prepare wireframes, design artifacts, prototypes, specifications, and other materials to help inform product design decisions.