Building a content delivery system for people without Internet access.

Computing and the Internet are essential tools to build digital literacy skills, but 4.5 billion people don’t have access to desktop computers, and most existing technological solutions aren’t designed for people living in emerging markets. So why is half the planet left out?

Endless saw this opportunity, and created Endless OS – a free, open-source, extremely user-friendly operating system designed for people with little to no Internet connectivity, built on GNOME.

Product designers at Endless are the chorus for keeping the product centered on the people we build for. The designers touch everything – designing the entire operating system, design of the services Endless provides, content curation, market research and field research, user testing and iteration, keeping upstream design relationships. Endless is a huge product, and we were a small but mighty team.

I worked with Endless as a product designer for 2 years, and wore lots of hats.

Offline content apps

Endless’s offline content apps are Endless’s main solution to delivering market-specific content at scale. Endless OS contains tons of pre-loaded apps, with everything from history and health apps to news and entertainment apps. I designed many apps myself, working in UX design, UI design, front-end development (HTML/CSS/JS), and content curation and editing.

I also worked extensively on the app-building ecosystem, a set of frameworks allowing one to build an Endless app oneself. I eventually became the lead designer for the Modular Framework, the open-source user-facing design library for the apps. I worked deeply in modular UX and UI design, design systems, template creation, user flows, user journeys, front-end development, and feature documentation. I also worked deeply in HTML, CSS, and Javascript, leading an initiative to restructure our framework code for better clarity for developers.

Not to mention communication – my work often involved gathering input from people across various teams, synthesizing the input, keeping a lot of people on the same page at the same time, running meetings, and consulting with the design team.

Collaboration & Workflow

I often collaborated closely with the engineering team, working hard to foster stronger collaboration and communication design and engineering, which was key for the framework. I worked on forming better tools for the design team to do their work with engineers, helping identify pain points and solutions for our workflow. I also often attended (and sometimes helped organize) international hackfests with our engineers working abroad and in the larger GNOME community.

NOTE: Below are a few samples of my work. To see more in-depth samples, please contact me.

Product direction

I was constantly working with our team to balance Endless’s large product vision and changing user needs with our product direction, which involved a lot of keeping our ears to the ground. I often worked closely with product managers and engineers in roadmapping and strategizing for the future of the framework.

User needs

I worked to be a voice at Endless for needs of our users, and encouraged cross-team collaboration – particularly with engineering – to foster a widespread knowledge of who we were building for. I often worked closely with branding and communications design, providing user insights and connections to product and offering extra hands to create marketing material when necessary.

Research in Indonesia

I helped plan and participated in a design sprint in Indonesia, a new market for us at the time. I led a small team doing qualitative research and interviews, helped lead research synthesis with the larger team and other designers, and prepared and presented a slide deck with our key insights and findings to the company.

(Due to privacy, to hear more in-depth about this sprint, contact me and I’d be happy to chat.)

I grew immensely in my 2 years at Endless, both as a designer and as a critical thinker. Endless has an immense product vision, and I was challenged to expand even further the way I understand how design, and products in general, fit into people’s lives. I learned how to ask better questions to gain more valuable insights, learned how to synthesize research more quickly and efficiently in a small timeframe, and grew in the way I approach my design process. I was challenged in learning how to design for first-time computer users and deepened in my understanding of how large-scale product organizations work together, especially with Endless’s diverse and physically scattered team.

Most of all, I found more of my voice as a designer and defender of user needs. I learned the importance of challenging directions that aren’t working, grew in knowledge of myself, and solidified in my passion for designing for democracy and social impact.

To see more samples of my work at Endless, please contact me.

See more

See the rest of my projects.