Youngstown, OHMS User ExperienceUX + AI Systems

James Dishman

UX Researcher, Designer, and AI Systems Builder

I research and design systems where people and AI work together, with a focus on creativity tools, accessibility, and agent architectures.

The work below starts with completed case studies, then moves into active builds and longer-term directions.

01
Clarence: Autonomous Agent Ecosystem
AI Systems Design2025–2026

I built a production AI system for persistent memory, task routing, and daily collaboration. Then the platform it depended on changed the rules, and I had to migrate it under a 48-hour deadline. The case study is about designing human-AI collaboration under real trust and platform constraints.

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02
Ableton UX Evaluation Suite
UX Research · Interaction Design2024–2026

Multiple UX evaluation methods applied to three Ableton products, grounded in deep music production experience and a decade leading the Pittsburgh Ableton User Group. The suite revealed a consistent pattern: Ableton designs for insiders, and that works until someone shows up for the first time.

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03
Accessibility Audit Suite: Music Tech Meets WCAG
UX Research2025

I ran a multi-method accessibility audit across music tech, news, social media, and academic sites. The work covered WCAG compliance, hands-on VoiceOver screen reader testing on GroundNews, an Instagram accessibility audit of a university account, contrast analysis, PDF remediation, and cognitive accessibility research. The biggest finding was not any single violation. It was that accessibility best practices for people and machine readability for AI are the same goal, and most teams are failing at both.

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Active work in development. These projects are real, public, and still changing.

01
SensorSynth FM
Product Design · iOS2026

An iPad FM synthesizer that treats device sensors, motion, environment, camera, spatial, and touch as modulation sources. This is the main active build.

02
Oblique Oracle
Product Design · AI2026

A divination app that combines I Ching generation, Oblique Strategies, and AI synthesis to study how people respond when algorithmic output is framed as wisdom.

Planned work and concept direction. These are ideas I think are worth pursuing next.

01
AI Music Education
Vision / Product Design2026

A concept for electronic music learning built from the overlap of production experience, UX research, and AI system design.