Consumer Electronics

Senior Design Manager at Skype - Software & Hardware Integrations for TV, home phones and headless devices

One of my most rewarding design experiences was working with the consumer electronics teams at Skype. I had the opportunity to collaborate directly with developers in Palo Alto, travelling to both San Francisco and Tallinn, Estonia to immerse myself in the process. We partnered with Sony to bring Skype to emerging platforms like the Sony Vita and Bravo TVs, and explored new territory designing for ‘headless’ devices, home phones, and Skype-enabled televisions.

I worked closely with multiple TV manufacturers to tailor the Skype experience for their ecosystems, culminating in our own bespoke ‘Skype on your TV’ application, optimised for Samsung devices.

This suite of projects spanned the entire product lifecycle, from early incubation and concept development through to production and launch. It was a masterclass in end-to-end product design, and a formative chapter in my career.

Highlights

Work included generating scenarios, illustrating user journeys, prototyping, wire framing, user testing, site maps, diagrams, process flows. I created documentation and design guidelines for TV manufacturers and development teams to reference so they could replicate the experience in their own environment and operating systems of choice.

Say hi 🤙

Product design leadership, strategy and mentoring. Find out more About me, drop me a message and send an email to keith@keithsymons.com or use this form to get in touch, I'll look forward to hearing from you. Many thanks.