I've played various roles as a user experience designer, interaction designer, and interface developer for over 10 years. I'm equally comfortable writing code as I am brainstorming user experience ideas or creating wireframes and IA diagrams. The projects that I've worked on are not limited to just using the screen and the mouse.

I'm a graduate (class of 2000) of the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at New York University. I experimented with technology and user interfaces as a research fellow after graduation and also taught as an adjunct at ITP for 3 years.

I was the technical editor for: Physical Computing: Sensing and Controlling the Physical World with Computers by Dan O'Sullivan and Tom Igoe. It was the first hands-on comprehensive book addressing the topic of user interfaces that bridge the physical and the digital.

This 'labs' site showcases some of the more unique projects that I've worked on.


Please send questions or comments to: tu.james {at} gmail {dot} com

Lead user experience and interaction designer on project. Worked with client to create math learning experience (software and textbook) for new product targeting middle school students.
To make the subject more fun and engaging, framed math curriculum as a journey with travel companions helping the student along the way.
Rewards and badges help provide incremental motivation while completing curriculum.
Tied math to real world examples to help with retention of math concepts.
Student can customize their environment by picking travel companions and selecting a visual theme for their dashboard.

Interaction designer on user experience team, lead designer on website. The Pavilion experience communicates the idea that through collective effort people can realize their dreams for Shanghai and also help shape its future. The user experience at the Pavilion is largely driven by user contributed media from the Pavilion website. Prior to the pavilion opening, photo assignments on the website elicit and guide public contributions. Submitted photos are filtered through a gatekeeping/ curatorial process and are assigned to appear in specific parts of the pavilion, appearing during the journey through the Pavilion and finally in the 360 degree theater show.

Interaction designer and technical systems designer for a science museum exhibit educating visitors on the human body and its relationship with environmental forces (e.g. a physical force such as temperature).
We wanted to engage the visitors and make them feel personally invested in the exhibit so we took biometric measurements as part of the experience. Their measurements along with other visitors’ measurements were presented during the educational portion of the activity highlighting the effects of environmental forces.
Collected data is stored and accessed by other parts of the exhibit, for example, at a data visualization wall showing trends/stories of all visitors or at other exhibit drawing relationships between measurements taken at different stations.

While an employee at ESI Design, created simple internal dashboard, Interdash, to provide employees quick access to common tools and aggregated company relevant information. This effort was initiated after employees identified a need to have better company communications so that employees can feel the pulse of ESI.

Interaction designer on project. Our team analyzed the client’s business processes and proposed a high level concept for tools to help with staff communications and better client service/management.
We wanted tools to help staff communicate with each other and leverage each other’s expertise. We also wanted tools to help staff service clients better and maintain relationships with clients by allowing staff to easily access client’s past purchases and cart items.