TI-Navigator™ and TI-Nspire™ Navigator
TI-Navigator and TI-Nspire Navigator are wireless classroom networks that allows the teacher to communicate with student's graphing handhelds. Teachers can send, collect, and delete files using the Navigator system, as well as conduct instant polls, assessments, remotely view student screens, and much more. The system was designed to give the teacher the power to engage with any student in the class, quickly gauge student understanding, and facilitate a collaborative learning environment.

As the lead UI designer on TI's Navigator product line, I was responsible for redesigning the product as we attempted to revamp the system from its original 1.x design. After interviewing current customers and numerous site visits, we set out to rebuild the Navigator framework from the ground up, improving some key aspects of the system while adding some much needed features.

The design work relied heavily on paper prototyping with existing and potential users to solve a couple key problems; 1) teachers wanted to wanted to know what students received and sent files using the system. 2) they wanted to be able to easily find the files they collected. After many rounds of modifications, we developed a basic framework that addressed these major issues, and ultimately increased sales over 130% from 1.x to 2.x version.

As TI launched its hero graphing handheld product, the TI-Nspire™, we adopted the Navigator product to take advantage of new features and capabilities of a more sophisticated calculator. Launched in 2009, TI-Nspire Navigator built on its predecessor's success, and paved the way for a smooth transition for users moving from the TI-73 and TI-84 family of handhelds to the TI-Nspire line.

The new TI-Navigator framework simplified the user experience while adding key features to the system. Above you can see the basic UI consists of 3 panels - the Current Class, Class Record, and Classroom tab - each mapped to a set of tasks familiar to the user.

• Current Class allows the teacher to switch between classes populated with a roster of students for each class.
• The Class Record provides a list of transfers and actions taken in chronological order. The teacher can click on each item to see more information about its status, related files, etc.
• The Classroom tab allows the teacher view student status, map virtual student locations to physical the physical class using the seating chart, and select specific students for actions.

Another view of the Navigator screen with a student list view within the Classroom tab.

The screen above displays how the selected Class Record item and Classroom tab interact to display file transfer status. Green student icons denote a successful transfer of the selected file, while a red or blank icon display various states of failure.

TI-Nspire™ Handheld
The TI-Nspire handheld is part of TI's new math and science learning platform. TI-Nspire allows students to view mathematical concepts in multiple representations, directly manipulate objects, link interactive objects, and save and review their work within TI-Nspire documents. The handheld software interface is quite similar to its companion computer software in that they share common functionality and were designed to be used side-by-side.

The TI-Nspire handheld functions much like a handheld computer with a file and menu system along with a built-in, integrated application suite.

As part of the UI team on the TI-NSpire product, I helped define the interface and interaction model. After a TI-Nspire pilot program, I helped gather, consolidate, and recommend changes based on user feedback and usability testing.

TI-Nspire makes it easy for students to explore mathematical relationships by directly manipulating objects and seeing the results of on screen.

More TI-Nspire screens...

TI-Navigator™ Activity Center
TI-Navigator's Activity Center is a component which allows the teacher to create a collaborative leanring environment in which students can contribute lists, equations, coordinate pairs, and other mathematical objects to a shared public workspace. The teacher can then use the the Activity Center to illustrate concepts, play games, or aggregate class data.

Activity Center Screen was designed to be displayed to a classroom via digital projector. The tabs display different representations of the data.

Activity Center also includes activity configurations for middle school students including visual fractions and numberline activities.

TI-Navigator™ Quick Poll and Screen Capture
TI-Navigator also contains Polling and Screen Capture capabilities which allow the teacher to quickly gauge classroom understanding, monitor student progress, and keep students on track.

TI-Navigator's Quick poll and Screen Capture components provide a quick way for the teacher to assess student learning and keep them on task.