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About me!

Barrett Lo wearing a red sweater and green coat in front of a red brick wall.

Hey! My name is Barrett Lo (he/him/his*).

I'd like to think that I'm a designer at heart, continuously considering how each of the human senses may be engaged in any given context. Furniture design (strongly influenced by my time at Ian Saude) and linocut printing (putting my Graphic Communication degree to work!) are my latest creative interests. Much of my undergraduate experience focused on digital UX, and more specifically, UX for extended reality technologies. You might find research related to virtual reality or video games that I've written or presented at a conference floating around.

I designed and developed this website! In my aim to better understand the digital product development lifecycle, I taught myself HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and made my Figma dream a reality. For this website, I created a component-based architecture and unique main navigation experiences for mobile and desktop with the help of Vue.js. I'm happy to be using two amazingly free products in my development process, Visual Studio Code and Cyberduck.

Despite my background in design, I've found myself in a software engineer role at Microsoft, under the Azure cloud software-defined networking team. I'm grateful to have a patient and supportive manager to mentor me while I learn about networking and software development.

With any time I have left, I’m usually reading books or watching shows on the various streaming platforms. Check out my book and media recommendations!

Connect with me!

The best ways to contact me are through email, LinkedIn, and Instagram:

Résumé

You can view my full resume/CV below or download a sample through the button below:



Education

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

B.S. Graphic Communication
  • Concentration: Experience Design for Extended Realities
  • Minors: Computer Science, French

Community College of the Air Force

A.A.S Air and Space Operations Technology
Development Experience

Software Engineer, Azure Networking

Microsoft
  • Developing internal tooling in C# that automates time-sensitive tasks required to mitigate critical customer service issues
  • Leading unification of code and process documentation across multiple teams

Front-End Developer / UX Designer

L-O.io
  • Designed a mobile-first, single-page web application with unique device size experiences to serve as a personal portfolio
  • Translated Figma mock-ups into a live, functional SPA that leverages Vue.js for dynamically rendering custom components

Steganosaurus

Personal project in Python
  • Designed and programmed Python application that encodes text into an image’s pixels with no visual difference discernible
  • Implemented the Python Imaging Library (PIL) for image manipulation
Product Design Experience

Graphic Design / Marketing Assistant

Ian Saudē Inc.
  • Established information architecture for dynamic website and refactoring 300+ existing e-commerce web pages
  • Reported directly to the Creative Director and CEO while developing designs and producing order specifications for $10,000+ luxury product orders
  • Captured, edited, and prepared original photo and video assets for use on website, social media, email, and print publications
  • Coordinated the design and purchases of digital and physical products from domestic and international vendors, each $3,000+ value

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Cal Poly Corporation
  • One of two UX design assistants for Research Grant 51234, explored the impact of student awareness of time spent studying compared to peers
  • Researched optimal data visualization for simple and detailed views of user-inputted data in both Android and iOS mobile applications
Leadership Experience

Co-Executive Director

Cal Poly User Experience Club
  • Oversaw six student board members from design and engineering backgrounds to provide a community and programs for 50+ members
  • Created curriculum for weekly lessons in interaction design, interface design, UX writing, UX research, content strategy, and accessibility
  • Managed 20+ students (4 functional teams) in redesign of university’s mobile application, resulting in a cohesive high-fidelity prototype
  • Planned and executed 12 guest speakers and workshops over the course of 6 months, with additional hosting of weekly community design sprints

Space Control Operator (E-5)

216th Space Control Squadron, California Air National Guard
  • Recipient of Air Force Commendation Medal for deployment to Southwest Asia as subject matter expert on a $8 million TS/SCI system
  • Responsible for development, implementation, and instruction of the in-house electromagnetism fundamentals training
  • Graduate of the Air Force’s exclusive leadership + management course
  • In-depth operational knowledge of satellite systems and electromagnetic radiation principles
You've reached the end!