When Is Now (time.piece)

What is time to a mind that forgets?

Where

Stanford d.school

What

Multimedia installation

Duration

1 month

Skills

Interaction Design
Fabrication
Physical computing

Overview

When Is Now? is a suspended multimedia kaleidoscope built around my grandfather's experience with Alzheimer's. A hanging dodecahedron holds fragments of him, and as a viewer approaches, their presence surfaces footage of my grandfather from within the form, so that memory appears and slips in response to your nearness.

It turns the disorientation of a disappearing mind into something you move through rather than watch.

As Cardon’s E-commerce Growth Manager, I spearheaded the brand’s first comprehensive website overhaul to beautify and optimize both the user experience and the backend of the entire e-commerce ecosystem.

Disclaimer: High-fidelity wireframe designs displayed in this case study were created by a third-party agency.

Context

One of my first projects at the Stanford d.school was to investigate an element of time and how we might measure it. When we were given this assignment, I was immediately transported back to the nursing home where my grandfather was battling severe Alzheimer’s. Over the past two years, visiting him has been one of the most difficult and deeply impactful experiences of my life. It was a journey through time marked by loss, confusion, and fragmentation.

Before I joined, Cardon’s site had UX friction, and the internal team was doing a lot of manual work managing an overflowing backend of disjointed tools. Working closely with a design and development agency, I scoped a full revamp to revisit brand strategy and messaging, optimize product discovery, and rebuild the backend around a fluid CMS.

Exploration

To the outside world, individuals affected by Alzheimer’s may appear fragmented or disjointed in their thoughts and memories. However, within their experience, there is no clear past or future. They live moment to moment, in a present that often feels intangible and elusive. My piece seeks to capture this perspective of time as experienced by my grandfather.

The team had a backlog of requests but no clear picture of the “why, how, and where” behind the user pain points so I ran preliminary user research. I designed usability tests for both new and returning customers, a first-impressions test and a subscription-journey test, then affinity-mapped the findings against our business goals. The mapping helped illuminate where to focus the redesign.

The Time.Piece

My piece takes the form of an infinity mirror kaleidoscope, a suspended, fragile object meant to evoke caution and curiosity in its audience. The intent was to have people approach it carefully, compelling them to figure out what they were seeing and how to peer into a disoriented mind – a reflection of the fragile reality Alzheimer’s creates.

Exhibition

When Is Now? was selected for time.place, a group exhibition on time as material at tiat gallery in San Francisco, California (March 20 to April 5, 2026).

Article

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