Works
Past Works
As a design-driven product leader and mobile industry veteran, I’ve launched hundreds of digital products around the world, and consulted dozens of startups in bringing new product ideas to market.
Backhouse Brands
Backhouse Brands is the only self-serve restaurant solution that combines B2B brand licensing, proprietary order & menu management technology, and consolidated financial reporting into a single platform. The startup is backed by Great North Ventures and was honored in 2022 as one of the top 15 restaurant tech startups in the United States by Hospitality Technology and MURTEC. The Backhouse Brands product suite includes a B2B marketplace for creating and licensing virtual brands, proprietary web and tablet order management infrastructure, omnichannel reporting, and 24/7 live order monitoring and tracking by real agents.
Restaurants use proprietary order management hardware and software to receive, print, and manage orders.
Streamline training and ensure consistency of prep by creating quick recipe guides that are bundled with each menu item in a live order.
Create one parent copy of a menu and share it across multiple restaurants marketplaces from a single source.
Build and manage menus in one place without the need to ever login to DoorDash, Grubhub or UberEats portals.
Bloom Smart Video App
The Bloom Daily Videos app achieved recognition with nominations in three categories at the prestigious 2018 Online Media Awards, notably earning a nomination for 'Technical Innovation of the Year.' This cutting-edge application offered a captivating and immersive experience, featuring a curated playlist of five videos daily. Designed to seamlessly integrate into users' daily routines, the app delivered content in a smart, energetic, and uniquely engaging format.
One of its defining features was its forward-thinking approach to user interaction, embodying what I coined as 'autonomous interfaces' and the 'invisible future of design.' Leveraging advanced device sensors, the app had the ability to intuitively detect a user's activity, whether they were walking, running, or driving, and autonomously switch between audio and video modes accordingly. This innovative approach marked a significant step toward the future of user-centered design, enhancing user experiences by adapting to their context and preferences.
TRT World Quiz
As part of the digital strategy for extending the TRT World brand to the American market, an award-winning Daily Quiz voice app was developed for Amazon Echo and Google Home devices. The app won the Actions on Google Developer Challenge in two categories.
In addition, I also led the strategy and execution of the Tough Choices voice adventure game and the Blackbox VR app.
TRT
As the Head of Product and R&D at Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT), I led the design and development of internally-facing newsroom management platforms in English, Arabic, Russian, German and Turkish for domestic and international TV channels, as well as award-winning externally-facing consumer products across web, OTT, VR, Voice, and native mobile apps.
Media Coverage
Lexy.fm
Lexy was my latest spoken web project. She was a smart dial-in agent that was designed to help people discover and listen to interesting audio content in a format that was as natural as a phone conversation with a friend.
A prototype was developed and launched to validate the ability to make 40,000 podcasts searchable and accessible through a conversational interface with zero internet or mobile data access required.
Howlak
Howlak means "around you" in Arabic. Howlak is a location-based restaurant ratings and opinions app that uses visual ratings and short opinion polls to help expats and locals discover and decide where to eat next. The app featured an autonomous interface that searched and updated itself automatically as you moved around the city. The latest version of the app introduced gamification through loyalty points and some hardware magic that provided users with a frictionless way to redeem points at select partner restaurants.
Media Coverage
“Listening App” for Al Jazeera America
This was an experimental tablet app that leveraged audio fingerprinting technology from Audible Magic and dynamic real-time closed captioning topic extraction from Boxfish to deliver an innovative working prototype of a unique TV companion app experience. The app listens and extracts topics in realtime from a television programme. The Listening App allowed users to watch any mainstream news programme and have the app magically surface original Al Jazeera America content related to the same topics being spoken.
Al Jazeera Media Network Apps
With a focus on Read, Watch, Browse, and Personalize, the network apps launched on iOS and Android mobile and tablet devices for channels across the network. The UX strategy focused on building an extensible design framework that could easily adapt to various languages without much effort, thus increasing the speed to market of launching new apps such as Al Jazeera Balkans in record time.
The Stream Second Screen App
The Stream app was the first interactive Live TV companion app at Al Jazeera. Start the app at any time to explore The Stream's content and take part in the show's ongoing discussion.
When The Stream was live on air, users tap Sync to jump into the live experience. During the experience, users are pushed additional information about the current topic in real-time with opportunities to participate in the discussion.
Voices Project in Ghana & Kenya
Launched through a grant awarded to the Worldwide Web Foundation and local NGOs, the Voices project explored the potential of voice technology in connecting Al Jazeera with users of low-end mobile devices in developing countries. The core part of the project was the design and deployment of a voice-based service in Kenya and Ghana to cover the Presidential Elections in those countries.
Media Coverage
Virtual currency rewards & native ad platform
The virtual currency rewards platform gave app publishers an opportunity to generate revenue and drive their virtual goods transactions in a branded offer wall experience. The solution also provided advertisers with powerful insights and control of their marketing campaigns through sophisticated campaign dashboards.
Media Coverage
Apperang app advertising platform
Apperang was launched in 2010 and featured in TechCrunch as a pay-per-install platform to solve the app discovery problem for developers. 15 developers were signed up at launch. Notable apps included Booyah’s MyTown, Flixter’s Movies app, and Slacker Radio.