Aaron Lee smiling

Many paths to a destination

There is always a more elegant solution. There is also timing, technology, business goals, and cost. The constant pursuit of a “better way” will lead us closer and closer to the asymptote. I push for the asymptote, for the idea that there are many methods to the madness. There is room for design.

Sustaining curiosity

Through being in creative communities and content I interact with, I believe too much emphasis is placed on sparking curiosity and too little is placed on sustaining it. Some children can discover a spatula and go on to discover all sorts of dishes naturally. Others find passion by connecting with people consistently. There is room for design.

Building up people to build cities

“People systems” are the structures that sustain how people interact and behave together. I design each iMessage text to build confidence. I listen with my eyes and how I sit. I enable people to collaborate when the default is asking for approval. I serve a 55 person design org to build people-first leaders and get creatives employed. Cities are built through intentional conversations and systems that enable them. There is room for design.

Work

  • 2026DoorDashProduct design internSoon
  • 2026FleetlineProduct designerSoon
  • 2026Innovative Design @ USCCo presidentInstagramInsta
  • 2025Innovative Design @ USCVP of Design
  • 2025LavaLab @ USCDesigner
  • 2025GuardianProduct designer [Haven]
  • 2024GuardianProduct designer, 3D designer [Nova]Case studyCase
  • 2023Raconteur Animation3D design intern

Projects

  • 2025RabbitholeProduct designerSoon
  • 2025ChewsyProduct designer
  • 2025NuanceProduct designer, 3D artistCase studyCase
  • 2025Code the ChangeProduct designer
  • 2025Manta3D artist, ThreeJSLive demoDemo
  • 2025Gameboy3D artist, ThreeJSLive demoDemo

Experiments

Nuance

Bringing emotional signifiers to calls for the hard of hearing

Designed a call app to improve conversational comprehension over call by pairing an AI-driven emotional visualizer with live captioning

  • Concept
  • Product designer + 3D artist
  • Built with Jae Sung Park, Uyen Hoang
  • 2 days
Fig 1. Live call demo. Character animates according to AI interpretation.

The deaf can’t hear emotion over the phone without video, which causes frustration and miscommunication

The hard of hearing miss the pauses, subtle laughs, and shifts in tone. They have trouble understanding emotional context over call with only captioning, which leads to miscommunication and struggle for both sides. This is a real issue when the caller is less familiar.

24% of 131 HOH participants in a study experienced some-to-moderate difficulty in comprehension with captions.
InnoCaption 2023
“I know what they’re saying, but I can’t feel how they’re saying it.”
Anonymous older adult

Current captioning services lack emotional emotional clarity

Alternative apps focus on captioning, yet the feeling of a real conversation is lost along with emotional clarity. Captions can’t be the only solution.

CaptionMate call history showing captioned conversation bubblesInnoCaption conference call with live captionsLive caption calling app displaying a transcribed conversation
Fig 2. Many options offer the same features with no real solve.

Layering visual cues to make interpretation easier

More visual cues →
More emotional context →
Improved comprehension

The more senses that are engaged, the more real the experience becomes. In the same vein, if we layer more sensory information given to the most active sense, sight, they’ll be able to more efficiently analyze context clues.

Diagram showing captions, avatars, expression, color, brightness, and depth as complementary visual cues
Fig 3. Deciding what different information we could pass to the eyes.

Always having facial expressions available in no-video situations

The hard of hearing rely on facial expressions in regular conversation to pick up nonverbal cues. Not every call is FaceTime so we create an avatar.

AI would detect the caller’s tone and immediately depict a facial expression.

Blue Nuance avatar with a concerned expressionPink Nuance avatar with an attentive expression
Fig 4. Modeled and rigged a sample character that shifts color and facial expressions.

Color is often linked with emotion

Color is often directly linked to emotion, so we leveraged color as a visual cue for emotion, making facial expressions more easy to interpret.

Fig 5. Mood color pairs.

Product

Fig 6. Preview transcript.
Fig 7. ASL feature.
Fig 8. Dynamic layout for multi-line handling.
Fig 9. Recent call playback

Learnings

  1. Layered cues build an immersive experience

    Activating different senses and addressing each sense through different angles brings greater comprehension and easier decision making.

    For example, sight can pick up color, size, depth, movement, etc.

  2. Accessible design should be intuitive and enjoyable

    Not a slap-on feature as “accommodation”.

  3. Scoping one great experience

    During a sprint, scoping down to aspects of a single core experience forces out potential for feature bloat.

Next steps

  1. Talk with 2-3 engineers and psychologists to understand blindspots.

    Emotion-to-color is a foggy area. AI voice → expression is also an experimental concept and may have latency issues.

  2. Get a working prototype to an excited user and have them use it for 1-2 weeks.

    Measure success by satisfaction survey and length of calls compared to past data.