ABOUT CONNOR AYLOR
Human Factors Engineer
Hello, I’m Connor Aylor, a graduate of the University of Washington’s Human Centered Design and Engineering program. I design solutions for professional communities to help them make the most of their expertise. I have designed medical devices for Seattle Children's Hospital, as well as researched and prototyped web tools for Impact 360 Alliance. Using this experience, I want to help connect communities to companies for better products and results.
PHYSICAL DESIGN PROJECTS
I’ve had the opportunity to work on a number of projects that range from user research to to mechanical design. Each has expanded my knowledge of the design process and its implementation. Here you can find all of the designs involving physical components and human factors.
LOCATION AMBIENT DISPLAY
Seattle Children's Research Institute
Brought up within the ENGiiNE team in Seattle Children's, the project was meant to solve an internal problem. As they gained new offices, it was hard to keep track of where everyone was which made making communication more difficult. The ambient display was meant to be an easy way to keep track of everyone's location through self-reporting. A online companion allowed for changing location while on the move, and added flexibility for future iterations. Those iterations could move into the hospital to help nurses and doctors find their colleagues.
MATERIAL PROPERTIES MANIPULATION
Seattle Children's Research Institute
This project was commissioned by the cardiology department in Seattle Children’s. They wanted to create a way to help heart surgeons practice before operations, as heart surgeries are highly unique and difficult for even experienced surgeons. surgeons. Our lab set out to create low cost heart models by 3D printing scans of patients’ hearts. I was assigned the task of making the 3D printed material elastic via chemical infiltration. This required research into chemical composition, infiltration of liquids, and process modification to create these new properties.
BLOOD HOOK ORGANIZERS
Seattle Children's Research Institute
This project was commissioned by the Transfusion Services department in Seattle Children’s Hospital. One of the processes they used required hanging the blood bags on hooks to allow separation, but the attached tubing would get caught on drawers below, causing them to fall off. My task was to informally interview the staff of the lab to figure out the specifics of the issue and any current fixes, and then design a hook that could hold the bag as well as manage the wires.
MICROSCOPE PHONE ADAPTOR
Seattle Children's Research Institute
This was another project commissioned by the Transfusion Services department, and focused on confirming issues reported to other departments. Unexpected results were showing up in the slides of the microscopes, but another department needed a picture to verify the unusual results. I was asked to design an adapter for the microscopes that could stabilize phones enough to take a picture, as existing products were too expensive to justify buying.
RESEARCH AND TESTING PROJECTS
Along with my work in physical product design, I’ve also done
work in user research and usability testing. Some of these projects are
shown below.
ONLINE COMMUNITY WEB TOOL
Impact 360 Alliance
This was my Capstone Project for my degree. My group was asked to research Impact 360 Alliance's users to discover their needs and values. While Impact 360's main goal was to find a future business direction, we also created an online web tool for community interaction to conduct usability testing on our findings. Over the full project we conducted two user research studies, created our prototype, and conducted testing for the validity of our findings.
WSDOT FERRY PAGESÂ USABILITY TESTING
University of Washington
For a class about usability testing, my group focused on the Washington State Department of Transportation ferry website. We conducted heuristic analysis before creating a test kit for studying the most critical parts of the site. Through user research testing we discovered the most critical changes to make and made evidence-based suggestions for how to make those changes.
HEALTHCARE PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOL
Seattle Children's Research Institute
As a part of something different for Seattle Children's, a teammate and I created a project management tool to digitize many of the project tracking whiteboards that were around the lab. It combined different aspects of existing project management tools in order to best meet the needs of healthcare at large. We conducted user research and usability testing to inform our design.
BUSKER USER RESEARCH
University of Washington
For my user research class, the entire quarter was spent using different research methods to triangulate data on a certain population. In my case, I studied the busker community and the issues it faced. Throughout the projects I took observations, recorded interviews, and handed out surveys to fully grasp their experiences. These were compiled to get a full picture of the wants and needs of the community.
SMALLÂ PROJECTS
Throughout my experience in industry and college, I've completed several smaller projects that have given me a broad range of experiences. These projects offer a quick sampling of the breadth of skills and knowledge I have gained throughout my work.
MECHANICAL DESIGN
As a final project in a mechanical design class, we were asked to CAD a complex object containing multiple features and bring it together into an assembly. I chose to create the microscope that the phone adapter made for Transfusion Services is used on, modeling not only its shape but also its inner workings. The project used most modeling features of SolidWorks, while also having lenses designed in Fusion360. The movable parts of the microscope were interactive.