Mike Solomon

Hi, I'm Mike. I help move businesses forward with user-centered design and rapid prototyping. Thanks for stopping by.

Featured Work

HANS - Hearst Answers

HANS (Hearst Answers)

It's great to have a lot of data, but it's a shame when it doesn't reach the right people at the right time. So I helped build a lovable Slackbot named HANS that helped solve Hearst's last-mile data woes, increase revenue, and create a more data-driven culture.

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Pattern & Shape

Pattern & Shape

I helped Hearst Magazines organize an overwhelming amount of data in such a way it can be understood and leased to third parties by developing a Chrome extension and custom dashboard, resulting additional affiliate marketing revenue.

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Esquire Challenge

Hearst Challenge on MSN

I worked with Hearst Digital Media to envision, prototype, design, and develop a suite of web-based games and quizzes that we partnered with MSN to syndicate, generating millions of ad impressions in the process.

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Esquire Music Quiz

Esquire Music Quiz

As a passion project, I built a music quiz that was featured on Esquire.com and became one of their most-shared pieces of content of all time.

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Immersive Storytelling

Immersive Storytelling

I've been helping the brands at Hearst Magazines tell richer, more interactive stories online by building functional prototypes and proofs-of-concept.

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Polls

User Insights Polling Unit

I helped the marketing and editorial teams at Hearst Magazines develop a wildly successful poll embed that collects valuable first-party data in a fun and engaging way.

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Polls

Judge Fake People

Fascinated by generative adversarial networks, I made a website where you can vote on the appearance of computer-generated faces and view results from the community. It's like "Hot or Not" but for fake people.

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Featured Talks

Talking about HANS at Slack Frontiers 2019

Watch me explain how we applied research, user testing, and rapid prototyping to develop a natural-language chatbot to help democratize data and move Hearst's business forward.

Using AI as a force multiplier for your talent

A presentation and workshop from February 2024, designed to show Hearst employees the power of generative AI.

Prototyping with AI

A presentation and workshop from September 2024 for the Hearst UX Guild, showcasing some modern prototyping approaches that leverage generative AI.

Building your ideas with the help of AI

A presentation for SVA design students from March 2024.

Featured Articles

CSS Tricks Article

Chris Coyier from CSS Tricks wrote a nice little summary about a CSS technique I developed for an Esquire immersive storytelling article.

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Guest article on Petapixel: How to Spot Fake Photos of Fake People Online

After doing some research on generative adversarial networks, I wrote an article for Petapixel that highlights what to look for when looking at people's profile photos online.

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Gothamist article about my NYC subway game

I built a fun little website that lets people share their "subway score" - the total number of subway stations they've been to. It was covered by Gothamist when it launched in 2015.

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About

Wow, you made it all the way to the bottom. Nice. So a little more about me... I've always enjoyed building things that people love. Professionally, I've been able to channel that passion into roles where I can listen to users and their needs, try out new ideas and approaches, and measure how well a proposed solution can move the needle. When I'm not working, you can find me spending time with my wife and 2 kiddos in the outskirts of NYC.

Thanks for visiting 😘