Yahoo Inc. - Interaction Designer Intern
I worked for Yahoo! Inc Sunnyvale as Interaction Designer Intern for the summer of 2008. I was working with the Y! Autos team on projects that could very well span over all the stages of a typical product development lifecycle (ideation, competitive analysis, wireframing, prototyping, observer/notes taker for usability testing). Also, I constantly made an effort to bridge the activities between the UED and Product Management functions, so as to address the gap between a good design and good product. I got to learn a lot about the work culture of teams inside a vertical inside an internet giant. Not to forget the fun part, I got to make a couple of appearances on Valleywag (now Gawker, silicon valley's gossip portal), had loads of fun time with colleagues and other fellow interns. The projects that I worked on during my summer@Y!, are listed below.
Y! Autos - Vehicle Research Pages
The pages for researching about vehicle were redesigned. There was also a new module added on the pages that enabled the user to quickly jump between the different make, model and year. I worked as a prototyper for this project, which can be then used in the user testing of the new design. The prototype was made using Omnigraffle, Illustrator and some Javascript for interactive modules.
Here is the screencast of the clickthrough of the prototype.
While this prototype was being used for user testing conducted by a third party, I also helped in taking notes sitting on the other side of mirror.
The recommendations and analysis from the usability test were then incorporated in the final design based on priority, severance and its impact on end user engagement. The redesign is now viewable at Y! Autos - New Cars Research and Y! Autos - Used Cars Research
Y! Autos - Insurance Page Redesign
Overview: This project dealt with the redesign of the Y! Autos page redesign to provide higher value to the users and advertising partners. The current page provides the users with Get-A-Quote(GAQ) module which features three rotating advertising partners. The site lacks useful and informative content with very limited content for the increasing user population. In 2007 alone, the number of online quotes requested increased by 15% over 2006 to 32 million, with 37% increase in number of insurance policies purchased over internet (2 million in 2007).
User Need Analysis: Before starting to think about the solution to the problem, I went back to the users to understand what drives them to any insurance website, and what type of content and tools do they need to complete the task on the website. I conducted a mini telephonic user survey and talked to 7 users who were currently in the market looking to buy/upgrade/switch their vehicle insurance. This telephonic survey provided me with some useful information on the user needs and expectations for a insurance website.
Based on the results of the survey, mini user personas were created to better represent the target users.
Scope: After analysing the feedback from user surveys and competitwive analysis of other insurance providers in the market the exhaustive category of content categories was generated.
- Get Quotes/ Rate (w.r.t. location): Ballpark Rates, Personalized Rates.
- Side by Side Comparison: Intra, Extra
- Tools/ Calculators: Coverage Calculator, MMT Safety and Risk Calculator, Insurance Score/ Badge, Other Car Research Tools
- General Information: Guides, Contact Info Agent, Starting Point, Video, Articles
Sketching: Some initial whiteboard sketches 
Wire Framing: Based on brainstorming with peer designers, business development and product manager, some wireframes were made using omnigraffle. A few iterations were also made keeping in mind, the worst case scenario of unavailability of the data sets from third party partners.
