In Android 9 Pie, Google started the transition from static navigation buttons to gestures with a near-universally panned half-step. The traditional 3-button navigation bar was replaced with a slimmer gesture “pill” and back button. The app switcher got a similar facelift, spreading apps out horizontally and adding a dock filled…

This project was part of a 10-week Design Thinking Studio class at UW’s Global Innovation Exchange (GIX). We were grouped into teams of 3 and given the task of identifying a target problem in the broader space of single-use-plastics and, through research, generating requirements, prototyping, and user testing, arriving at…

Last time in Project Rebirth…

Last Time in Project Rebirth…

My first smartphone was an LG G4, and I loved that thing. I chose the G4 over the then-recently launched Galaxy S6 because it was slightly cheaper, the camera was quite good, and (most importantly) I’m a contrarian mess. While the S6 would surely make it easier for me to…

The nice folks over at Wondershare reached out and asked me to try out their UI mockup software, Mockitt, and write about my experience. I was already planning a series redesigning popular apps, so it made sense to combine the two projects and learn Mockitt by using it for something…

Bezels are dying! Xiaomi’s original 2016 Mi Mix marked the beginning of a borderless trend, stretching the screen right up to the edge of the phone (though the 2014 Sharp Aquos Crystal did it first). The idea of trimming the glass crust from your phone’s screen is quite compelling, but…

In the early 20th century, over 70,000 Americans were forcibly sterilized by the state. Minorities, victims of sexual abuse, autistic people, queer people, and poor people were targeted. The right of a state to do this was upheld by an 8 to 1 vote in the supreme court case Buck…

Its almost the end of Pride month, and, inevitably, some people claim queerness is nothing to be proud of. In an ideal world, sure, orientation and gender identity would just be facts about you and not accomplishments to be proud of, but this isn’t the world we live in. Our…