Amplify Science Sims

Designing Interactive Simulations and Building a Design System in Flight

  • I joined the Amplify Science team late in product development, where the work was already underway and moving fast. Every simulation — from magnets to weather patterns to force and motion to the water cycle — came with its own new feature or special functionality, and almost every one of them required an update to the underlying design system. There was no settled foundation to design against; the system had to be built and evolved simultaneously with the actual product.

  • My Role

    I designed the UX and UI for simulated representations of scientific phenomena — working in rapid sprints alongside a product manager and engineering team — while simultaneously establishing and maintaining the design system that those simulations depended on.

    • Worked in tight sprint cycles with product and engineering to design each simulation's interaction model and interface

    • Identified where new simulation requirements exposed gaps in the existing design system, and updated the system in near-real-time to keep pace with production

    • Designed user flows and UI for interactive representations of phenomena including magnets, weather patterns, force and motion, and the water cycle

    • Collaborated closely with engineering on asset design and export, followed by design QA on implementation

    • Illustrated digital assets used directly within the simulations, including manipulatable scientific materials and phenomena

  • The simulations shipped successfully across the Science product, and the design system built under sprint pressure proved durable — continuing to support new simulations and functionality well beyond the individual projects that originally drove its creation.

 
 
 
 
 

Design Direction

 
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