Portfolio


Welcome to my portfolio! I’m currently a PhD student working on User Experience and Accessibility, at the University of Maryland, College Park, and advised by the ever-cheerful Dr. Jonathan Lazar.

I’ve also been working with Adobe as a research intern since May 2025, with Dr. Rajiv Jain as my mentor.

My work consists of things ranging from reports to robots! Below are scientific papers, UI designs, software apps, hardware prototypes, slide decks and evaluations (or any combination of them). I can be reached via email at abhinavk at umd dot edu.


Apps


HotShots 2.0

A webpage containing a tennis court with simulated strokeplay and statistics.


A web-based tool to visualize shot-by-shot strokeplay from tennis match data.

With Arvind Srinivasan and Dr. Niklas Elmqvist, this work was accepted to the IEEE VIS ’22 conference and presented as a poster.

Topics: Data Visualization, User Interviews, Information Architecture, Interaction Design, Lit Review, Figma, JavaScript, Svelte, React, D3.js

Prototype
Poster
Summary


HotShots

A webpage describing tennis player performance with radar charts.


A dashboard to analyze tennis player performance, targeted at tennis analysts and fans.

With Arvind Srinivasan and Dr. Niklas Elmqvist, I’m presently continuing development on this app.

Topics: Data Visualization, User Interviews, Information Architecture, Interaction Design, Lit Review, Figma, JavaScript, Svelte, D3.js

Design
Prototype


SUTE


A community-based app that helps members share tools among themselves.

Built using Figma, and developed individually as part of INST711: Interaction Design Studio at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Topics: Wireframing, User Personas, Figma, Storyboards, Information Architecture, Corporate Design Libraries

Design
Demo


Academic Work



These are my published scientific works available publicly. A couple of papers are presently under review (whose details I’m happy to share separately!).

Lazar, J., Kannan, A., Tigwell, G., Jain, R., Jawili, MJ, Shiva Prasad, Y., Siu, A., and Treitman, R. (2025). An Opportunity to Use AI to Support Content Creators in Creating Born-Accessible Documents. In Christo El Morr, El-Lahib Yahya, Rachel Gorman (Eds). Beyond Tech Fixes: Towards an AI Future Where Disability Justice Thrives. Springer: London. [DOI]

Srinivasan, A., Kannan, A., Elmqvist, N. (2022). HotShots: Visualizing Stroke-by-Stroke Tennis Data. In IEEE Visualization and Visual Analytics (VIS) Posters. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA. [Poster | Summary PDFs]



In 2025, I had the honour of serving as guest editor for ACM XRDS — a quarterly student magazine. I collaborated with the amazing Denise Doig, Frank Schotanus, and many more in the awesome editorial team! Several experts shared their perspectives from across the globe — Canada, China, India, Japan, South Korea and USA — around Technology and Accessibility. Two of my articles are below:

Kannan, A. (2025). Improving digital accessibility: From Awareness to Implementation. XRDS: Crossroads, The ACM Magazine for Students, 32(1), 7–8. [DOI | PDF]

Kannan, A., & Potluri, V. (2025). An Interview with Dr. Venkatesh Potluri: Non-visual Interfaces and Beyond. XRDS: Crossroads, The ACM Magazine for Students, 32(1), 22–29. [DOI | PDF]


The whole magazine is openly accessible, but if you’d like a free physical copy, send me an email!


Product Management


A La Carte

A La Carte Logo


An app providing users with dynamic location of nearby food trucks and carts — allowing for the curious to explore new cuisines at great prices.

Developed in a team of five, as part of IEOR186: Product Management at the University of California, Berkeley.

Pitch Deck | Prototype | Market Analysis | User Studies | Interview Transcripts



Evaluations in Usability & Accessibility


In the Fall of 2021, I evaluated the website of Pixar — an animated motion picture company — for its usability and accessibility. Being a huge fan of their work, which is known for its appeal to a universal audience, I felt it fitting to select their website and analyze it deeper!

The findings below are based on my learnings from INST 631 HCI Fundamentals, at the University of Maryland.



Robotics & Software Development


EnviroCopter


EnviroCopter is an autonomous tricopter created almost entirely from scratch, with parts fabricated at Berkeley’s CITRIS Invention Lab. These were built primarily using 3D printing and laser cutting, and developed in collaboration with Chris Myers.

Flight Tests


Conversational Agents (Public-Facing)


During my time at Avaamo — an Intel-backed conversational AI startup — I contributed to the development of several conversational agents for voice and web interfaces. A couple of these can be found on the following websites (located at the bottom-right of the web pages):

  • Franklin Templeton India
    A financial services assistant for Franklin’s Indian end-user market. Contributed between Jan 2020 – Oct 2020.
  • Wasl Properties, UAE
    A property management conversational service for customers in the Dubai area. Contributed between Feb 2020 – Oct 2020.