Designer Software: Android

Problem & Results

Leveraging my software engineering background, I created functional prototypes and tools to gather participant performance data. These were especially valuable for evaluating and refining mobile text input systems on Android devices.

Android became one of my favorite high-functional-fidelity rapid prototyping platforms, using it for everything from an initial proof-of-concept to full-featured apps.

Time to Contribute

For instance, when I determined there wasn’t a good enough Android app for Toastmasters club members like me to time speeches, I adapted an open source project and released my own. The initial version was designed to be easy enough for a Smartphone novice to use, but tuned specifically for the Timer role in club meetings.

After far too many OS releases with too little design direction, Android became a stable, maturing platform with a clean visual style. I redesigned the timer app to follow Android 4.x conventions.

The latest release of Timer4TM features color themes and elements of the Material Design system, visual aids for people with impairments, and other features requested by long-time users.

Future plans include custom layouts for split-screen phones and full-size tablets.