Margo Dunlap
is a UX researcher, design strategist, & intermittent designer/maker.
For the past five years I have been a design strategist at a consultancy in Boston where all of my projects are under NDA, so what you see on this website is a limited view of the work I do.
I received my MFA in 2016 from Art Center College of Design’s Media Design Practices program. Before graduate school I worked on green infrastructure (green roofs, street-level rain capture), studied human geography at Dartmouth, and spent 18 years in rural Vermont.
This site was lovingly hand-coded by me, and is set in Adelle and Adelle Sans. You can email me at 
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The Emoji Compass
¯\_(ツ)_/¯, 2018-2019
Ask emoji questions. Get emoji answers.
"Truth can be hard to divine, but emoji can guide you on your path. Powered by celestial Dust and earthly React, the Emoji Compass app will answer any question you can pose it. Simply set its three compass needles to the emoji that best express your query, and watch in awe (or impatience, possibly) as the compass provides you with your answer."
The Emoji Compass is an app that offers a working version of the golden compass from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, except the symbols on the edge of the compass are emoji. It is a Bad Idea Factory project, and is available in an app store near you.
Play with the emoji compass ↝ here ↜.
UX
The MVP we were aiming for was a simple flow from a home screen where the user poses their question (by selecting three emoji symbols from the compass) into an answering screen where they could ponder the meaning of the emoji they received in return. For me, a key UX question was the arrangement and interaction design of this second screen.
Initial wireframe sketches exploring different ways of communicating the six symbols and their meanings
Higher fidelity tests of preferred layouts
Final configuration
This solution minimized the explanatory text, both in terms of screen real estate and visually, allowing it to fade into the background when users become familiar with the app. It also allows for exploring the meaning of symbols in both question and answer.
UI/Visual Design
Home
The user poses a question through three emoji
The compass chooses its answer
Pondering the meaning of the symbols
About
The compass -
the backplate is based on 16th century astrolabes
Compass needle variations -
referencing 19th century pocket watches
Backgrounds -
Oxford and The North
App icon
Team
Lead Developer: Lou Huang
Bad Idea Guy: Matt Stempeck
Design: Margo Dunlap
Accomplices: Dan Schultz & Chris Peterson
Higher fidelity tests of preferred layouts
Final configuration
This solution minimized the explanatory text, both in terms of screen real estate and visually, allowing it to fade into the background when users become familiar with the app. It also allows for exploring the meaning of symbols in both question and answer.
UI/Visual Design
Home
The user poses a question through three emoji
The compass chooses its answer
Pondering the meaning of the symbols
About
The compass -
the backplate is based on 16th century astrolabes
Compass needle variations -
referencing 19th century pocket watches
Backgrounds -
Oxford and The North