I am a creative technologist and UX researcher passionate about blending art, technology, and human-centered design to explain and explore complex data sets. I am skilled in innovating intuitive solutions through qualitative research and design to shape meaningful digital experiences that connect people and ideas. I do this with emerging technology, including AR/VR, LLMs, AI/ML, and others.
I do:
Please reach out if you want to see my portfolio or have any questions: me@michaelmilanodesign.com
- In 4 months how do you design and deploy an interface to operate 5 or more autonomous robots?
- How do you lower the cognitive load for the sole mission operator?
- How do you facilitate teaming between the mission operator and the planning algorithm, and how do you establish trust in the planning algorithm?
- How do you inform the mission operator of the necessary robot and subsystems metrics and warnings?
- How do you visualize incoming lidar information to map the challenge arena as it’s being explored?
- How do you visualize and interact with search and rescue artifacts to score points?
- How do you intervene when a robot does something it shouldn’t be?
- How can you speed up artifact submission while lowering the rate of error?
Outcome:
- Designed and deployed a mission interface to be used by a single operator, which was used to operate 11 autonomous robots at once.
- Leverage video game design techniques to lower cognitive load, and increase situational awareness.
- Used a default top-down view that the operator could click and move around the mapped search and rescue area
- The operator can orient the 3d mapped area in any way to see details at different angles, and then click to set it back to default.
- Created an already-seen folder for artifacts. This paired with custom hot keys allowed the operator to quickly review images from the robots without risking deleting artifacts.
- A bucketing system was used to presort artifacts based on machine vision score of how likely the artifact was and what it identified it as.
- The main interface view is split into three core sections
- The left of the interface shows each robot and its metrics. Each robot card has an E-Stop.
- The center column shows what the planner is doing with each robot. The planner will warn the operator if there is a warning or possible error that needs to be reviewed.
- The right side of the interface has a 3D interactive map of the explored space and its lidar data.
- What is the current process of validating what a spacecraft did, why it did it, and when did it perform specific tasks
- How does mission downlink, ie downloading telemetry data and validating it, need to change if a spacecraft has onboard system level autonomy
- What software gaps are there in this architecture
- What changes need to be made to the architecture
Outcome:
- Four months of research
- 10+ missions were interviewed, which included non-JPL missions
- over 30+ interviews conducted
- Detailed architecture proposed
- Gap analysis performed and documented
- 40+ page report written for internal guidance of what software needs to be invested in to use autonomous planners in future missions
- How do you allow users to explore and search for specific low-level
PDF metadata? - How do you give users the ability to look for correlations and patterns of specific low-level PDF metadata?
- How do you visualize the data returned from a query?
Outcome
- Designed and developed a search tool that allowed users to query multiple types of PDF metadata.
- Designed and developed a feature to customize mapping for the configured Elasticsearch index.
- Designed the integration of Kibana, geographic location of PDF origin, and data visualization tools, so users could further explore search results.
Simply Satisfaction: Cobots do everything (but what you want to do), critically questions what extent a human needs to be involved in a task, and what can be automated so it can be optimally satisfying for the user. As artificial intelligence and robotics becomes more ingrained in everyday life, rather than purely focus on efficiency as a form of output or a value system, and replacing humans who have a natural desire to create, we need to focus on designing humans into the role of automation. The devices of Simply Satisfaction explore this division of labor through futuristic home devices that collaboratively automate the functionality of their task. The ideal experience, is not that the task is fully automated, but instead it has varying levels, or parts, that are. These devices augment the user in tasks everyone understands and relates to, while focusing on how the devices make the job simply more satisfying.
2) Dare Mighty Things Podcast
3) Motion Reel
4) Older work