hardware – Cheryl Platz

Echo Look (Product and VUI Design)

Consumer Products, Conversational UI, Information Architecture, Leadership, Multimodal Interfaces, Prototyping + Development, Research, Touch & Tablet UI, UX and Product Design, Voice Interfaces

I was hired to help a fledgling product team transform their initial concept lab pitch into a production-worthy multimodal design for an entirely new hardware product category at Amazon. Problem statement How might we create a completely new experience that helps customers manage their wardrobes, combining natural user interfaces with traditional user interfaces and Amazon shopping technology? At the time I was hired, a concept lab team had identified a product opportunity combining fashion with natural user interfaces, and had received funding for a small pod of full time employees to work on the concept as a secretive, "tented" project team.…

Alexa: Do Not Disturb

Cloud Services, Consumer Products, Conversational UI, Multimodal Interfaces, Touch & Tablet UI, UX and Product Design, Voice Interfaces

In parallel with our efforts on Alexa Notifications, I was asked to drive the completion of the Do Not Disturb feature. DND applied not just to Notifications but to Communications (calls/messaging), which meant a separate team of stakeholders and faster deadlines than the longer-term Notifications project. As with Alexa Notifications, I led the design side of this effort in partnership with Carl Mekala (and Sharbani Roy) from the product management team. This was my most "traditional" VUI design engagement during my time on the Alexa team - while some was new-product (Echo Look) and some was more systems design (Notifications/Interrupt…

Disney Friends for the Nintendo DS

Consumer Products, Conversational UI, Game Design, Information Architecture, Leadership, Management, Multimodal Interfaces, Research, UX and Product Design, Video Games, Voice Interfaces

As Lead Producer on Disney Friends, I owned the vision and delivery of an ambitious new game that blended four unique cinematic universes with a single, cohesive gameplay mechanic. We became one of the first Nintendo DS titles to incorporate speech recognition, but had to do so in a way that performed well, integrated seamlessly with gameplay goals, and could ship simultaneously in at least 6 languages. Project Summary I served as the Lead Producer on Disney Friends DS, from initial pitch to final gold master build. I led a 15-person team of artists, developers and game designers with a…