Portfolio Supplement

Hello, I’m Karina! I am an Industrial Design student from Maui, Hawaii who is currently a rising senior at the University of Houston. Here are just a few of my works:

Time Zone (UI/UX) Workflow Platform

I am currently designing a digital UI/UX tool for workers who operate across multiple time zones. As I currently work on this project, these are some highlights from my research process I have to share:

Guiding Question

How can the future of remote work better accommodate workers from different time zones?

With remote work being the norm during the COVID-19 pandemic, employees are working from around the world, often in far-away destinations or across states. I considered a variety of project directions, such as a physical product to visualize time and workflow, a UI/UX project management tool, service model, and systems design.

“What’s your biggest pain point about working across time zones?”

I gathered the following responses from my first short-answer survey questions:

Top reason: Availability times are limited

“Availability times are smaller when you don’t want to shift your schedule to accommodate.”
“Coordinating and communicating [is] first thing in the morning or the last thing in the afternoon depending on the team/region.”
“I can’t get in touch with [my colleagues on the west coast] until late morning or afternoon.”
“They’re available when I am asleep.”

Market Analysis Research

However, the difficulty lies in more than just finding work shifts and meeting times.

A key side effect of working across time zones is that you “lose time” when you do not delegate or respond to work correctly.

Design Objective

Design a digital feedback and reflection module to accompany product-based work when sent across remote distributed teams.

I am currently in the ideation and prototyping phase. To keep updated on this project, feel free to contact me.

Wave Aloha (Product-System)

Over the course of a 3-month academic project, I created Wave Aloha, a new product and systems design. I designed an overhead compartment lock to support Hawaiian Airlines’ new deplaning process as a case study for the airline. Passengers would be called by rows to deplane the aircraft, and the flight attendants would come to unlock the overhead bins with an RFID card. My product and system would support social distancing procedures on the aircraft and reduce overcrowding and close contact among passengers with COVID-19.

Product Design

My portfolio of academic work focuses on product design. While my projects in user experience have manifested in physical products so far, my professors simultaneously emphasize intentionally designing user interactions, touch points, readability (both written and visual) and more.

Data Visualization

At the start of the Wave Aloha project, I complied data from a multitude of sources to visually demonstrate information regarding tourism to Hawaii with data from pre-pandemic and post-October 15, 2020 sources.

As a data visualization exercise, I conducted small studies on infection points on public transit systems.

Layout and Graphic Design

I authored and formatted a PSAT manual for the University of Houston Bonner Leaders – Lobo Prep program.