rioleo.org is the digital playground of Rio Akasaka, a product manager at Google with user-centered design (IDEO) and technical background (MSCS, Human Computer Interaction, Stanford). I've shipped features in ads (YouTube), consumer (Google Maps), and enterprise (Google Drive). My current responsibilities and experience are in mobile and Web platform for a 1B+ MAU product, deep product integrations with 3rd parties, metrics, experiment analysis and logging, building strong relationships with ads sales teams. I'm passionate about accessibility, fluent in French and Japanese.

Anything I say here is outside my capacity and does not represent the company.

In prior life, I used to be a professional web designer working under the banner of Helvetic Design. With extensive experience in Photoshop, CSS and web standards, I had particular expertise in blogging platforms and content managing systems. I graduated in 2009 from Swarthmore College with a double major in Engineering and Linguistics. My main focus then was developing and maintaining a clutter-free web experience using strict adherence to web standards, cutting-edge technology and cross-browser compatibility. I have been working with websites since the fall of 2000.

I also used to be a volunteer firefighter, am now an avid cyclist, photographer, and a self-published author. I have previously lived in Switzerland, Japan, France and Brazil.

My favorite pen is the Pilot Razor Point, which I became acquainted with as an intern at IDEO.

My blog has existed since May of 2003. Feel free to browse through the monthly archives or through some of the more notable entries here.