About Me
I am a passionate and outgoing creative director who is comfortable leading design teams and aligning customer needs to business goals. Throughout my career I have been known for introducing innovative ideas to solve problems and utilizing new technology to better connect with customers. In my design approach, I focus on understanding my audience and delivering them empathetic content.
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In 2015 I started working in Mixed Reality and developing UX design principles for this emerging technology. Scroll down to learn more about my journey in that space.
How I got into Metaverse Design
I started at 3M in our transportation business. The transportation group at 3M makes everything shiny that goes on a road way (signs, pavement markings, work zone sheeting, etc.). The best way to showcase these products is on a roadway, at night, from the inside of a car. We have a test track in Minnesota where customers can go to see our product catalog, but 3M is a global company. How do we bring the test track anywhere in the world? The answer I came up with in 2015 was virtual reality.
First steps into VR/AR
My first step into VR was with the development of tradeshow interactive product content. From 2015 - 2020 I was making a new VR demo every year to showcase our products to customers globally in ways that we had not been able to in the past.
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The success of these demos allowed me to continue working with leaders around the company to develop AR/VR content for many different groups and many different products.
Developing a Metaverse Team
Starting in 2020 I established a more dedicated structure to our AR/VR activities. This included creating an IT structure to support AR/VR activities, expanding our library of equipment, and building a team of agile mixed reality prototypers.
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The demand for AR/VR products increased dramatically during the pandemic and I ended up converting my dining room into a full staging area for these activities!
Design Principles for the Metaverse
AR/VR is a very new concept for a lot of businesses. Most of the customers that I work with have a hard time understanding what makes a quality experience. So I came up with a series of basic design principles that I use to communicate the important elements we need to consider while working on AR/VR projects.
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There is obviously more nuance to this, but these basic principles have really helped to educate new concepts to partners who have little to no experience with AR/VR.