David Montero

David Montero

Interaction Designer, Creative TechnologistAmsterdam, Netherlands
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David Montero

David Montero

Interaction Designer, Creative TechnologistAmsterdam, Netherlands
About me
Interaction Designer and Creative Technologist with MSc in Computer Engineering and MA in Interaction Design. Creative and visionary, passionate for the human side of computing and a strong advocate of User-Centred Design. Experienced working in multicultural and multidisciplinary environments and global teams.
Projects
  • Ardunie
    ArdunieArdunie is an animatronic head which follows your position with his eyes, when he feels that you have spent time enough with him to consider you his friend (and if he is in the mood) he will try to engage you in a small talk. Insight One of the labs in Physical Computing at Sydney Uni required the development of a device electronically complex to show the understanding in the Arduino platform. I went one step beyond, proposing an interactive sculpture involving a Kinect motion sensor. Idea Ardunie is thought for an exhibition room, the head uses motion tracking to keep viewer’s attention while in the background attempts to make a phone call to a random number which will be who eventually will be dragged into an unexpected conversation. The animatronics in fact are a façade to buy time, the real goal of the installation is exploring the relationship and social behaviour of people with human-like devices, a change in behaviour is expected when the viewer discovers that is a real human being who is at the other side of the line, a moment of confusion and embarrassment should occur, since from that point social rules will apply. The prototype was developed in plywood and programmed using Arduino and Visual Studio with a socket communication in between the microcontroller and the Kinect SDK. Role This was a solo project involving, coding, electronics, assembling and woodcraft. Impact Ardunie was marked 99/100 and strongly suggested to present to the Dorkbot festival in Sydney.
  • Augmented Reality Photo Booth
    Augmented Reality Photo BoothInsight Aiming to expand their Amnesia Connect application Amnesia-Razorfish is exploring new platforms for content sharing and manipulation. How should the interaction be in the case of a wall mounted display in which the user has complete freedom of movement? Dealing with motion sensors was an unexplored new territory for Amnesia and the traditional methods of interaction didn’t apply. Idea A wall screen shouldn’t be a mere extension of a desktop, that’s already a mistake that early developers of smartphones fell into when designing the UI for touch based handhelds. When the user is in front of a wall screen is usually stood up and will use the area at the reach of her hands, that is, waist up. Also the user manages herself in a 3-dimensional space where depth exists and this reality has to be translated into the 2-dimensional space of the screen. Hence the approach was addressing the interaction of a user with a physical object while standing in front of a vertical surface, in this case we used the simile of delivering a presentation or a lecture using a blackboard, or manipulating magnets on a fridge. Gestures In this concept we decided to go beyond what it has been developed so far. The current state of the art with Kinect when it comes to manipulate objects is setting a hovering timeout of about 2-3 seconds over the object, showing a process bar around the icon representing the user’s hand. We considered this was not a natural interaction, in a 3-dimensional space people “grab” objects closing their hands and release them opening them; in a 3-dimensional space people “push” buttons and not wait with the hand over them until they activate; in 3-dimensional space when somebody wants to “stretch” a material, grabs it from two edges and opens the arms. Open Hand vs. Fist Distinguishing an open hand vs. a fist using current Kinect technology is very tricky. The Kinect device is based on a matrix of infrared beams emitted from the device, the reflected beams are sensed by an infrared camera and this information is used to build a depth map of the room. Well, these beams expand on space, the further the object is from the camera, the less resolution it is retrieved, therefore, while it’s quite easy to determine when a hand is open up to a distance of about 150cm it’s very difficult to detect at longer distances since the depth image returned for the hand will be almost the same, that is, a blurry mesh of dark pixels. Since we didn’t need such accuracy as to distinguish the finger tips, just open hand recognition I could go a little rough and take approaches more based in the shape of the returned depth image from the hand. My approach was then using horizontal and vertical raster scan lines to look for light pixels on the portion of the image corresponding to the hand area, if the amount of gaps found went over a threshold I considered the hand open. To improve the performance, I scanned one image out of a certain amount of frames. All the values were parametrized and a dashboard was created to fine tune the detection engine for different environments. Role Teaming up with Amnesia's Interaction Designer, Stefanie Elsholz, we defined the proper body gestures and UI for a wall based installation. I then designed and developed a prototype and testing environment for three different kind of gestures, my work also included researching the existing methods and technologies and assess on the current feasibility. I finally developed a high fidelity prototype to showcast the concept potential and created a gestures library using MS Kinect SDK. Impact The concept is applied in Amnesia Connected Room project and Razorfish's Connected Retail Experience platform.
  • Offender Tracking App
    Offender Tracking AppInsight Police who are monitoring offenders wearing electronic GPS tracking devices don't have sufficient real-time feedback around the context of their current location, and the location of other police resources. How could a mobile /tablet application solve these issues? How could the capabilities of these devices (e.g. camera, compass, accelerometers, etc) also create new features beyond the basic functionality? Idea The solution needs to allow users to: see one or many offenders being tracked in real-time see the location of other law enforcement resources respond to alerts provided when offenders are in, or headed towards, a location that requires action retrieve personal information about a particular offender other features that are driven by the capabilities of the mobile/tablet devices Who Law enforcement agent assigned to offender tracking tasks Where Public spaces, private and/or public transportation The app must allow quick overview of related information The app must facilitate quick response to alerts Data privacy Concerns of being easily spotted as an agent How On the move The user might be connected to the HQ, the system should allow a phone conversation without closing Long engagement with the app Low power consumption The interaction is likely to be interrupted, error recovery from incoming calls, messages, low battery and loss of reception On crime analysis Create movement and behaviour patterns Collate movements with crime scenes Use Cases Tracking one or more offenders, display associated information and actions Trigger and respond to alarms Search for offenders, resources or locations Automatic identification of "public space", entering "Stealth Mode"
  • Art Tee Vending Machine
    Art Tee Vending MachineInsight Study on the interaction design for an art T-shirt vending machine with a 7'' touch screen Idea Who Commuters, people looking for a quick purchase, quick present or a replacement for a dirty or broken shirt People killing time in an a waiting area (i.e. train platform) Where Public space, probably an area of high activity (i.e: train station, night club) Requires very fast interaction, the steps for a purchase shouldn't be more than 3: choice, payment and collection The payment issues are the usual for a public space: providing privacy for credit card payments and a mean of checking the surroundings (i.e. covered keypad and mini security back mirror) How The interface must encourage exploration and discovery Quick and easy way to browse the catalogue in which the key elements are: design, gender, colour and size Immediate error recovery and return to previous steps A 7 inch screen is small to medium size: no overload with content, no fancy 3D or rotation effects that can also deviate the user from a quick purchase The design must provide quick yet playful experience and the possibility to continue the purchase online if the waiting time is interrupted (i.e. train arrives) Scenarios Idle and Initialisation: the screen acts as an attractor loop Browsing and Modifying Choice Item Description and Error Recovery Checkout
  • Design Lab logo clip
    Design Lab logo clipInsight The brief was designing a little craft looking paper clip to hold together the exhibition flyer and catalogue. The gift would be offered to the VIP guests during the exhibition's pre-opening event. Idea The design should allow keeping the booklet open to read each work's description while enjoying the drinks and cocktail's snacks. The shape displays the DL acronym standing from Design Lab. After experimenting with different sizes and materials the item was laser cut in two versions: Transparent perspex which allowed reading through the clip. Bendy Birch Plywood, lighter and more robust. Role This was a solo project, the process implied design, cardboard prototyping, CAD design, laser cutting, testing and final production. Impact Very positive feedback from the attendants who asked for extra clips to share with their colleagues.
  • dOh
    dOhEver had a doh! moment?, that is the moment when the door slams behind and you slap your forehead realising you left the house without taking the keys.This device is the response to that “thoughtless act”, that daily ritual everybody performs to remember not to forget. Insight As one of the assignments in Sydney Uni's Master in Interaction Design the brief was observing "thoughtless acts" in everyday routines and try to find a chance for innovation to then design and prototype a device that would assist in people's daily lives. Idea One of most common ways to remember items is by binding them to a physical location. The concept behind this device is to virtually link items to one significative location: the knob of the exit door. The device will recognise previously tagged objects and rise an alert with one is missing, identifying the type of item by a color code. Role This was a solo project, from concept to assembling the electronics and programming the microcontrollers. Including the filming and edition of the promotional video and the design of logos and poster. Impact The device was featured in Engadget(US), Amnesia Razorfish (Australia) and Tecmundo (Brazil) technology blogs among others. It's promotional video hosted in Vimeo has overpassed the 4.5k visits to the date. Work on display in Attract::Relate::Sustain exhibition at The Verge, Sydney. This assignment was marked with high distinction.
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Work history
    Mobile UX Architect & Creative Developer
    Volunteer Job – Ideating, designing and developing a game for iOS and Android platforms as part of the Brain Art Exhibition taking place on Spring 2012. Responsible of the game’s UX with another team member and developing with another 5. A multidisciplinary team of 9 creatives in total, all of us involved in the ideation and concept phase
    Mobile UX Architect & Creative Developer
    Volunteer Job – Ideating, designing and developing a game for iOS and Android platforms as part of the Brain Art Exhibition taking place on Spring 2012. Responsible of the game’s UX with another team member and developing with another 5. A multidisciplinary team of 9 creatives in total, all of us involved in the ideation and concept phase
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Skills
  • User Experience Design
  • Mobile
  • NET
  • CSS
  • Information Architecture
  • Microsoft Visual Studio
  • Perl
  • Python
  • Unix
  • Interactive Design
  • User Experience
  • Final Cut Pro
  • Illustrator
  • Visual Studio
  • Lightroom
Education
    MA in Interaction Design Electronic Arts
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    ?Featured in the 2011’s Honour Roll published in the Sydney Morning Herald as ?placed on the Dean’s List of Excellence in Academic Performance Led a multidisciplinary team of three members on a project involving the ideation and full design of a web service and mobile app. Following a user-centred design process for the full project cycle. The project included: user and market research, competitor analysis and identification of business potential, contextual enquiries, affinity diagrams, creation of personas, wireframes, use scenarios storyboards and wireflows, low fidelity mockups and high fidelity prototypes, iterative usability testing and refining. Our group achieved the highest grade (HD) ?Physical Computing Project (named dOh) featured in Engadget, Razorfish and ?TecMundo technology blogs
    Monbukagakusho Research Scholarship on HCI
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    Research topic: Affective Computing in ICALL (Intelligent Computer Agents for Language Learning). The research project consisted on identifying behavioral and physical factors to determine the attention state of the user during an eLearning session by combining skin conductivity sensors, eye tracking and mouse movement patterns; the system would then adapt the training contents to achieve an engaging experience
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Awards
    Placed on the Dean's List of Excellence in Academic Performance
    Academic Award received at the completion of my Master in Interaction Design & Electronic Arts at the University of Sydney