Yiota Demetriou
Experienced UX Researcher and Award-winning Product Designer who advocates for Human-Centred multisensory interactive experiences. I believe that the spirit of play is essential to creating meaningful and intuitive user experiences.
I am passionate about understanding users empathically, and how sensory understandings can be integrated into innovative solutions across industries to create intuitive cognitive designs.
About me
I am curious about how lived and felt experiences, and the sensory data these produce can be used to better comprehend human motivations, feelings, and learnt behaviours; and how these can be integrated to develop innovative sensory solutions.
I have innovated and co-designed a variety of projects with multidisciplinary teams of creatives, engineers, and scientists, in academic, commercial research, and corporate environments. Designing physical, digital multisensory solutions, and artifacts with a focus on user interaction and engagement.
- Storytelling devices using haptic and heat-sensitive nanomaterials.
- Playful exhibition tools for cultural spaces with wearable technologies.
- 360 VR & AR room-scale immersive experiences focusing on kinetic and tactile engagement.
- Interfaces for green vehicles.
- Cutting-edge UX evaluation strategies to capture and analyse experiential data that can improve everyday experiences.
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Ph.D. (Doctorate of Philosophy) in Arts, Technology and Cognitive Sciences University of Bristol (UK), 2015
- MA in Performance Studies and Interaction Design, University of Hull (UK), 2011
- BA (Hons) in Theatre and Performance Studies, Queen Mary’s University of London (UK), 2010
I studied Theatre as a first degree and continued my education with a postgraduate degree in Arts, Social Sciences and Game Design. I learned to observe, collaborate, empathise, and engage in the spirit of play. I understood the value of storytelling, especially as a communication tool and I learned to apply it in different contexts. Most importantly I learned how to problem-solve using creative and analytical skillsets, which encouraged my involvement in ideating interactive content, using technologies creatively that build new modes of communication and entertainment.
As my interest in the areas of social sciences, cultural studies, and the human mind grew, I obtained a (Ph.D.) Doctorate of Philosophy. I applied practices from Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Interaction design (IxD), Human-Centred Design (HCD), and my former studies to better understand human experience, cognition, and perception.
I developed expertise in the subject of audience research. My work on lived and felt human experience developed audience-centric interactive tools and frameworks for cultural workers to use in their creative practices, and for cultural centres to transform into playful interactive spaces that offer meaningful experiences to visitors, audiences, and users.
My work in UX and product design was cultivated through an ongoing interest in cognition, experience, and interaction design. Since my Ph.D. I have co-designed with multidisciplinary teams of creatives, engineers, and scientists, in academic, commercial research, and corporate environments. Designing physical, digital multisensory solutions, and artifacts with a focus on user interaction and engagement.
#productdesigner #ux #design #html #css #analytics #nlp #leadership #figma #kpi’s #storytelling #mutlisensory #data #interactiondesign #digital #python #techsolutions #teched #research #uxresearch #creativesolutions #touch #haptics #designthinking
I am available for full-time projects and roles.
I am willing to travel for work or relocate in the UK or wider Europe.
I hold both European and British rights to work.
English (Native), Greek (Native), Italian (C1), Spanish (B1), French (B1), Turkish (B1)
Skills
- Lecturing in Creative Problem-solving and Ideation
- UX Research and Usability Testing
- Qualitative Analysis
- Quantitative Analysis
- Organisation, Planning, and Facilitation Of UX Activities
- User Empathy
- Leading Ideation and Co-design Of Cross-functional Teams
- Product Co-design
- (IxD) Interaction Design
- Prototyping (2D & 3D)
- Report Writing
- Operation of Creative Technologies
- Design Thinking
- Participatory Design
- User Research
- Ethnographic And Netnographic Research
- Card Sorting
- Cognitive Walkthrough
- Storyboarding
- Focus Groups Facilitation
- User Interviews, User Surveys, and Questionnaires
- User Observation
- Heatmapping UX
- Empathy Maps
- Collaboration
- Agile Roadmapping
- A/B Testing and Multivariate Testing
- Microsoft Office
- Google Analytics
- User Testing
- Mouseflow
- Adobe Creative Cloud and Design Systems (Photoshop, InDesign, Adobe XD, After Effects, Spark, Dreamwear, Aero)
- Figma
- Moqups
- Wufoo
- Python
- HTML
- CSS
- Mac
- PC
- Micro-modular Controllers (Arduino, Raspberry Pi)
- Open Source Brain-Computer Interfaces
Creative Corporate Workshops
I have experience in designing and facilitating bespoke interactive corporate training workshops for crossfunctional team building, effective collaboration, brainstorming and ideation. This has been driven by my training in theatre, where we learn through play. I use creative means to achieve inspiring training sessions, such as improvisation and role-playing scenarios, as well as storytelling. These techniques encourage businesses to unlock their creative potentials, for employees to work and innovate better together and enable teams to take productive risks.
Current Project - What gives us goosebumps?
Have you ever wondered what gives us the chills, how our bodies respond to emotional stimuli? and what these reactions look like in our brains? ACE has funded my project to use brain-computer interface hardware, in order to look into how our senses work more closely. This groundbreaking work will help us understand how to use sensory data to our advantage, in order to innovate healthy and sustainable sensory solutions.
Teaching in Higher Education
I have been lecturing in Universities across the globe for more than five years. I'm currently lecturing on the Applied and Creative Computing course at Bath Spa University. A multidisciplinary course focusing on the creative applications of emerging technologies and using creativity to problem solve. This enables students to identify gaps in the industry by combining animation, gaming, software development and/or other contexts that collide creativity and computing. Subjects taught include Ideation and Creative Problem-solving, Design Thinking, Innovation Entrepreneurship, Human-Computer Interaction, User Experience (UX) and Interface Design (UI).
App Design & UI
- CyArtHub is an all encompassing digital platform and social resource for creatives that I co-designed together with a crossfunctional team of engineers.
- It includes an online network to connect creatives, a workspace for collaboration between members in the network, a space to develop member profiles also involving curatorial space to exhibit their work.
- Organised the flow of work for the creative and engineering teams.
- Completed user research to identify opportunities for improving design networking apps and digital workspaces.
- Partnered with UI designer to translate information architecture, navigation and process flows into intuitive and easy-to-use solutions.
- Designed prototype interface and created guidelines for use interaction.
- Coordinated and conducted user testing of UI using a mixture of qualitative and quantitate methods, including focus groups, interviews, surveys, diary studies, touch heatmapping, and analytics.
- Analysed user insights and communicated actionable insights to colleagues and stakeholders.
Physical Product Design
As featured on BBC Radio Bristol, and in The Bookseller, To You is a novel storytelling device in the form of a concertina book. It is an intimate reading experience, about love and loss, that can ONLY only be read when its pages are warmed-up by the reader’s hands.
It is a special edition with only 150 books handcrafted and sold worldwide at renowned galleries and held by some of the world’s oldest libraries in the rare books collections.
To You, is an award-winning piece that has made an impact on advancing human understanding and cognition, in the area of Science, Technology, and Art. The book’s subversive use of nanomaterials (conductive crystal inks) for storytelling and reading experiences, has made a contribution to the print and bookmaking industries.
I designed and crafted the world's first RARE heat and touch-sensitive paper-based book. I established the product's user guidelines, it's UX research strategies and conducted usability testing. I led the product's business, e-commerce, and audience development by successfully creating a global market of book retailing and art collecting.
Collaboration
Working with stakeholders, operations, marketing, as well as engineering departments to realise the design of an envisioned product. Early engagement ensures building the right product.
User-oriented
Understanding user empathetically and researching thought processes and behaviours to determine what makes an intuitive sensory design solution.
Product & Business-minded
Combining the business needs of the client and stakeholders, to understand how people will use a product. Set up and creation of production process reports, KPI's, delivery and tracking performance reports.
Identify Novel Solutions
Risk evaluation and identification of development opportunities through creative problem-solving. Collaborating with developers and marketing teams to define solutions.
Wireframing & Design
Wireframe design for UX solutions. Mapping out the functionality of design, and measuring a design’s usability throughout the development process, from ideation to prototypes, to the final deliverable.
My Process
Empathise ↔ Define ↔ Ideate ↔ Prototype ↔Test
There’s more than one way to explain why a product doesn’t feel right, or, to put it simply, is poorly-designed. In most cases, the product’s design and the way it invites interaction feels unintuitive. This can mean that end-user intelligence was not consulted and integrated from the very beginning of the production cycle. Resulting in a lack of emotional engagement with the product and a decrease in user interest.
Users of consumer products in the Business to Consumer-B2C market are the consumers who choose a product driven by other aspects, besides pure usability, features and functions, such as the perceived value, the expected benefits, and the emotions elicited.
Understanding the human experience, and generally what end-users want, is key to creating engaging products that offer meaningful experiences. To achieve this, a user-centered perspective should be required at all times in the design process from research to ideation, to prototype and evaluation.
My process takes into consideration the best practices of user experience (UX) and usability guidelines to produce the desired outcome. As a designer, I do not only co-design the product, but also the user experience in relation to its use. I aim to co-design products that generate positive emotions and experiences for users.
Some of the people I've worked with recently
