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Hillstone Restaurant Group (Houston’s, Bandera, R+D Kitchen, etc) had an aging, baby boomer clientele and wanted to attract a younger demographic without losing their core customer base. We helped shift the 50 nationwide restaurants towards a more modern aesthetic through remodels and new concepts (e.g., R+D Kitchen in Santa Monica) and lighter fare (e.g., sushi) to keep locations relevant in the volatile restaurant industry.

To design services and environments that addressed the frequently conflicting needs of employees and guests, we spent 6 months conducting ethnographic research in the restaurants’ kitchens and dining rooms.


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The Los Angeles Police Department was interested in learning more about how their officers deal with daily stressors – and what those stressors were. Through ride-alongs with the gang unit, station visits, and officer interviews, we learned officers were apprehensive their actions in the field wouldn’t be supported by their superiors. Lack of support was leading to a lack of confidence in the officers’ actions, and they didn’t have a safe place to ask questions, learn from each other, and express emotions.

We prototyped a blind group therapy session for officers to privately air their concerns, share their stories and fears, and express emotions. Once the prototype testing had wrapped, officers requested the sessions continue.


Global NGO

A global NGO wanted to design a holistic interface to assist its in-office staff and field workers in tracking and monitoring their multitude of patients worldwide. We designed a research study for implementation in Nigeria, South Africa, and Mexico to learn from patients, field workers, and office staff about their needs and current tracking systems.

After integrating learnings, we facilitated co-creation workshops to build a more desirable app and web portal for both internal and external employees to interact. The portal tracks a vast set of populations, including HIV/AIDS patients, pregnant women, births and deaths, and ebola carriers.