Aaron
Wheeler

MFA Racing logo

MFA Racing

Mamaroneck Frostbite Association (MFA) is my local community sailing organization. Over 65+ year old, I've been winter sailing with them since 2015.

I volunteer annually as scorekeeper and webmaster.

My work includes:

Mobile header LocalBy

LocalBy

I cofounded LocalBy with Jackie Bernhelm to help support local makers and preserve their craft.

I lead product, engineering, and design to launch successful ā€œdigital popupā€ marketplaces, proving our ability to attract both local buyers and sellers.

I hired, managed, and worked alongside multiple engineers and designers to implement the IA and eng designs I created.

Emoji Everywhere

šŸ¤£Emoji Everywhere

Emoji Everywhere is a passion project that solves a simple problem: emoji support in Google products.

Itā€™s a Chrome extension that provides Slack-style emoji support when typing a ā€œ:ā€

The code is open sourced and can be installed from the Chrome web store.Ā 

Responsibilities

I'm the sole designer, engineer, and maintainer.

Meet Polls Meet Polls animation

Meet Polls

Polls in Meet addresses the work-from-home needs of over 100M customers due to 30x growth in Google Meet in the spring of 2020.

As design lead, my designs and robust prototype empowered the launch of Polls in Meet in six months, as well as its sister feature Q&A.

This feature launched in Oct. 2020.

Connected Sheets animated gif Laptop

Connected Sheets

Connected Sheets is a flagship feature for Google Sheets that enables spreadsheet access and analysis of big cloud data.

As prototyping lead, my end-to-end prototype brought to life the highly complex experience of connecting, browsing, filtering, charting, and pivoting cloud data in a spreadsheet.

This feature launched in H1 2020.

Teaching, speaking

Presentations, curriculum, roadmaps and overviews on topics about UX engineering, hiring, productivity, and user-centered design.

Hiring, evangelizing

Conducted 200+ interviews for UXE roles, culminating with leading and delivering a revamped hiring process, complete with new interview questsions, standardized rubrics for evaluation, and alignment with company-wide DEI efforts.

Accessibility UX lead

Created and conducted training, filed and prioritized bugs, and organized A11y bug bash week.

blog-localby
blog-craft

Postcards

Since 1997, I've designed and printed holiday postcards that I've sent to friends and family. Working across mediums from watercolor, screen printing, collage, digital art, and more, the subject is thematic to the year and semi-biographical.

2023 postcard of Lego Aaron riding a mountain bike 2022 postcard in a classic style reading GREETINGS FROM MMXXII 2021 postcard of ink wash portraits of Emma the long haired black cat 2020 postcard of a Tintin-style Aaron surfing and sweating in a sauna 2019 postcard of a ASCII portrait of Aaron done with a typewriter

Finish sauna

As a pandemic project, I designed and built an off-grid, wood-fired Finish sauna in my backyard over the course of 3 months.

CAD drawing of the sauna Foundation of the sauna Framing of the sauna Siding on the sauna in the snow Finished sauna

Fiber art

I enjoy knitting and crocheting. I mostly knit wool beanies for myself and crochet stuffed animals for friends' children.

Croched octopus stuffed animal Croched elephant stuffed animal Croched Minion stuffed animal Croched owl stuffed animal Croched bunny stuffed animal

Background

Aaron Wheeler

With a background in math and computer science, as well as a life-long interest in art and craft, I've worked at the intersectoin of design and engineering as a UX engineer, prototyper, and creative technologist for more than 20 years.

Experience

Professionally, I've done everything from tech-co-found and work at startups, lead design for 100M+ consumer apps, lead prototyping for complex enterprise software, and worked on bleeding edge tech on wearable and large format platforms. My work has been featured at Google Cloud Next, and Google I/O. See LinkedIn for more details.

Skills

Specifically, this makes me an experienced full stack engineer, UI architect, and UX designer. I'm fluent with Next.js / React, Typescript, and Ruby on Rails, but sometimes prefer to work quickly in Figma if it solves the problem faster.

Hobbies

Away from the computer, I like making things with my hands (woodworking, drawing, knitting) and playing in the water (surfing, sailing, skating). I split my time between New York City and the Upper Delaware Watershed.

Leadership

Engineering

Design

Startups

LocalBy

Technical co-founder, product lead

Sept 2023 - Sept 2024

Designed, architected, built, and launched this consumer marketplace for finding local handmade goods and items. Managed a team of 4 eng + 1 UX to successfully launch for winter holiday '23. Currently on pause.

Google

Area 120

UX lead, Staff UX Engineer

Oct 2021 - Jan 2023

Designed IA and UX for internally incubated consumer cyber security app that was successfully "graduated" into Google One in only 7 months. Managed team of full time, contract, and volunteer design and researchers.

Google Forms logo

Google Forms

UX lead, Staff UX Engineer

Aug 2019 - Oct 2021

Lead design for Google Forms logo Google Forms for 2 years, used by 400+M people worldwide. Launches inlcude Polls in Meet, Rich Text, and Auto-save.

Google Workspace logo

UX lead, Staff UX Engineer

Aug 2016 - Aug 2019

Lead design for Google Forms logo Google Forms for 2 years, used by 400+M people worldwide. Launches inlcude Polls in Meet, Rich Text, and Auto-save.

Prototyping lead and designer for Google Sheets logo Google Sheets, launching connected big data and defining data cleanup features.

Accessibility lead and designer for Google Docs logo Google Docs working cross-functionaly to prioritize work and create and deliver training.

DoubleClick logo

UX Engineer

Nov 2014 - Jul 2016

Built prototypes, created designs, and ran UX sprints across both buy and sell-side digital advertising tools and marketplaces.

YouTube logo

UX Engineer

Mar 2012 - Nov 2014

Led prototyping efforts for embedded YouTube on smart TVs, video game consoles, and set top boxes. Designed and built internal design tools.

Google Glass logo

UX Engineer

Jan 2011 - Mar 2012

Created hardware and software prototypes that defined the form factor and experience for Google Glass. Filed and received 40+ patents.

Previous

Yahoo! logo

Design prototyper

Jun 2008 - Aug 2010

Rapid development of new designs and functionality for internal testing, spanning current and future products from Yahoo! Search.

Links

Contact

I can be reached at aaron@fightinjoe.com.