Fernando Albertorio’s passion is solving real-world problems through technologies that empower people to exceed their abilities. My goal is to always create products that are inclusive, accessible and equitable using UX and accessible design. My expertise as a scientist, technologist and personal life experience as someone who is legally blind and low vision allows me to bring a unique problem-solving skillset to the product team.
I bring over 15 years experience developing technology within a variety of markets. I’ve enjoyed various positions throughout my career in business, technology commercialization, product design/UX, sales and innovation. The following represents a portion of my technology design portfolio.
The Sunu Band sonar smart-band is helping people who are blind and low vision be more independent. This smart-band combines sonar and haptic feedback to detect objects, obstacles and people that are within the environment, up to 16 feet (5.5 meters) in distance. Then haptic vibration feedback informs the user about their proximity to an object or obstacle through a series of pulses that are felt on the wrist. The Sunu Band reduces accidents, improve mobility and autonomy for people who are visually impaired.
As a co-inventor of the Sunu Band wearable technology, I was responsible for designing the user interface and haptic feedback of the device.
Digital accessibility is an important priority to ensuring that products are inclusive to people with disabilities. Over 90% of mobile apps that are currently available remain inaccessible to people who are blind and low vision because they were not designed to work with the screen-reading, voice over and other accessibilities tools used by blind and low vision people. I describe my contribution to creating a mobile app experience that is helping the visually impaired navigate their surroundings.
Product instruction is an integral part to the user experience. The aim of any product instructional design is to make the user successful with the product. However, most product instructions or guides remain inaccessible to people who are visually impaired – leaving most users to seek additional help and support. This has also been the case for the majority of assistive technology products, which typically require the support of a specialist who works/trains the user on the product. This process is highly inefficient and poses problems of scale. I share my contributions to creating product instructional design that provides a great user experience and that can readily scale.
I was commissioned by Lesley University School of Design to create and instruct the UX Research Methods online course. I share how I worked with the university’s instructional design department to creating a course that not only provided theory but practical experience in user experience research. The eight-week course provided students with hands-on UX design and research experience with real users through a collaborative project which mimicked working at a technology startup.