> Bachelor of Applied Science (Software Engineering) | Minor in Commerce - UBC 2004
> Master of Human-Computer Interaction - CMU 2005 Aug

You have been directed to my old portfolio site.

My updated portfolio site can be found at http://portfolio.charlesyiu.com.

This project involves the development of Natural-language based muti-modal interfaces for wearable maintenance documentation systems. It is an eight months long project. I work in an interdisciplinary team to produce a working prototype that serves as a proof of concept and requirements document.

The user research phase begins with us conducting contextual inquiries, etc. Then in the innovation phase we will produce product ideas situated to meet the identified needs. Finally, we engage in a prototyping and user-testing phase where we produce prototypes with increasing fidelity and iteratively test them with users to improve the design.

More details soon..

DISCO is an instant messaging or chat interface I designed and implemented using Kinetic Typography.

:: Details

This is a project for my Communication Design course. In this course I learned about the principles of visual, typographic and information design. Using Adobe InDesign and Illustrator, I have designed a cover as well as the grid system for the pure text content of a booklet.

:: Details

My project group has carried out a thorough investigation on the usability of Palm Pilot system. A report was produced to outline the redesign ideas.

::Details

We have introduced a service redesign of CMU parking. We went through stages like discovery, synthesis, construct (service innovations), refine (progressive resolution), experience prototyping (enactments) and release.

:: Presentation slides (webpage format)

This is a project for my Human-Computer Interaction Methods course. Our team of four is doing contextual design and usability analysis of AT&T Privacy Bird software with Dr. Lorrie Faith Cranor, chair of the P3P Spec. working group. This includes activities like Affinity Diagram developemnt, Contextual Design, Keystroke-Level Model (KLM), Heuristic Evaluation, Cognitive Walkthroug, Think-Aloud and a final presentation.

::Details

The Home 2020 Studio X proposes a vision for digital life in the near future. We create a prototype to illustrate this vision. We operate as a design/build studio: our full-scale building will demonstrate the ideas we develop.

::Project 1: scenario

In my Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Course, we designed a portable, touchscreen digital photo album which could be used for photo storage, browsing and organization. Based on the success of dedicated multimedia devices like the Apple iPod and the increasing use of digital camera, we believed there is a market for the device we proposed.

::Project Proposal
::Paper Prototype
::Heuristic Analysis on another team's design
::Heuristic Evaluation, Cognitive Walkthrough and Design Recommendations
::Design Strategy Report
::Fianl Report

Macload Building is the building which houses the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. In our 3D computer graphics course, our team proposed to model the Macload Building and changed it to a venure for a first person advanture game - much like the Tomb Raider.

This project has participated in the IEEE ECE undergraduate project fair 2004 at UBC and have won an award. The letter of recognition from MacDonald Dettwiler & Associates Ltd.(MDA) was issued.

::Project Page

The goal of this project is to construct an automatic test case generator. It takes in a system level specification (SLS) as the input. The SLS is written according to a set of specified grammars. Below is a quote from the project assessment by Dr. Jeffrey J. Joyce, our project supervisor.

"I'm very, very impressed with what you have accomplished and how you have written it up."
"you should be very proud of what you have achieved."

::Project Page

In 4 months, my teamates and I have designed and implemented a real time dancing game using Java technology. At the beginning we were concerned about the performance issue of the game since it relies on real time data analysis. However, after the performance tunnimg, it can be considered as a successful project and the final performance is satisfactory.

::Project Intro Video
::Final Presentation [Powerpoint / Adobe PDF]
::Project Formal Report
::Project Java Doc

::Detailed Project Description

::Requirement Elicitation and Analysis
::Initial Architecture / Design
::Prototype, Revised Architecture / Design

Final Deliverables:

::Section 1: Requirement Document
::Section 2: Revised Software Architecture and Design
::Section 3: Test Plan
::Section 4: Possible Improvements
::Final Project Presentation [Powerpoint / Adobe PDF]

In this course, we were expected to develop a Software Requirements Specification (SRS) for a simplified Air Traffic Control (ATC) Radar Data Processing System (RDPS).

::Draft Software Requirements Specification

Concept Papers and Scenarios:

::Alerts and Warnings Concept Paper
::Correlation Concept Paper
::System Services and External Interfaces Concept Paper
::Track Update Concept Paper
::Data Dictionary

The system we proposed to develop is the Basic Bulletin Board System (BBSb) which allows a group of registered users to exchange messages.

::BBSb Requirements Elicitation Document
::BBSb Requirements Analysis

In my Business Finance course, we are asked to value two mutually exclusive capital investment projects: 1) Plant Karaoke Club (renting unused space) or 2) Beach Karaoke Club (create their own Karaoke pub). Average return on investment, payback period, IRR, WACC and NPV are used to evaluate the two alternatives. Sensitivity analysis is also carried out to access how sensitive the proposal is to external factors.

::Case Study Write-up
::Case Study Spreadsheet Calculation

This research was for my commerce course. We analysed several popular brands of whitening toothpaste in the market.

:: Analysis Report: Whitening Toothpaste PRICE, QUALITY, DISTRIBUTION ANALYSIS

::Presentation: Whitening Toothpaste PRICE, QUALITY, DISTRIBUTION ANALYSIS (View in browser)
::Presentation: Whitening Toothpaste PRICE, QUALITY, DISTRIBUTION ANALYSIS (Download version)

Last reviewed March 6, 2005