I am a design daredevil and I like the challenges the UX field brings. I design Digital Products, go well with User Research and Design Systems and I am in a very serious relationship with Design Sprints. Living the UX dream since 2013.
I work with people, not for people. I’m looking for projects that challenge me, people that inspire, and experiences to remember. Got an idea or need help? You can always contact me via email at hello@blagaoana.com.
Product Designer
Senior UX Designer at Bytex (2021, August – present)
Working with different Bytex clients or on internal projects.
- Working on a fleet management platform:
- building the design system and making improvements on the platform’s user experience based on an UX audit.
- collaborating with the development team on building the design system using design tokens and other dedicated tools
- designing new features and providing all the support to the dev team for implementation
- improving the working process, making the design, development and PO teams to collaborate more, through facilitating different workshops and promoting the UX culture
- helping the company with its research plans, by providing support in organising several user discussions: interviews, usability tests, focus groups, etc.
- Lead and contributed on an icon redesign for a server and site management platform
- provided several versions
- helped management to make a decision, based on user feedback and following the UX principles
- provided all the icon files and documentation at the end of the project
- Designed an internal platform for the employees access to the office building or meeting rooms
- I contribute to the growth of the team and improvement of the working process by facilitating different workshops,
Details about the work and some projects: link.
UX trainer at The Informal School of IT (2020, February – present)
Contributing to the growth of the UX field in Romania, by training and mentoring people willing to make a change in their lives and determined to join this industry, design and develop the best experiences and products; training them into this field, by sharing what I also learned till now.
Very important part of my work with the students consists in people and project management too. From 1:1 sessions with the teams, providing constant feedback on their work and solving all the possible situations. Making sure of each team’s success and of the fact, that after the course, they are prepared for an interview and maybe their first UX job. Also, making sure they have at least one project in their portfolios and they are proud of that.
Details about the work and some projects: link.
Senior product designer at Acuris | Fixed Income division (2019, August – 2021, August)
Building and improving digital products destined to the financial world: trusted data, news and analysis on the global credit markets. Working on Fixed Income Divisional Intelligence (mainly Debtwire, but also xTract Research and Creditflux).
Debtwire reports on corporate debt situations before credit ratings are changed. It offers unique insights and in-depth credit analysis, debt data, and analytics for distressed debt and leveraged finance markets. (Find distressed situations early / Discover restructuring, financing and advisory opportunities first / Identify companies with value opportunities)
As a senior product designer my work consisted of:
- designing new features and always looking to improve the product
- constantly collaborating with the PM team and the Relationship Management and providing support for everything I could help with
- analysing the available quantitative data (Piwick, Hotjar), make reports and look for opportunities
- having interviews with the end users: either discovery interviews to identify possible opportunities for the product, or usability interviews to test/ validate new prototyped ideas.
- collaborate with the Design team on constantly improving the working process.
- Facilitating different exercises (eg. card sorting, mini design sprints, sketching) with different stakeholders / depending on the needs of the product and team
- documenting the final designs and making sure it covers all the uses cases, needed screen sizes and other details.
- collaborating with the Front-end team for a proper implementation
Projects and other work screenshots and details: link.
Senior product designer at Signant Health (June 2019 – August 2019)
Worked on a product called TrialConsent (now eConsent). This product makes the process of enrolling into a medical trial easier for all the parties involved: patients, clinics (doctors, nurses, all medical personnel) and sponsors.
There were 3 different products involved, all focusing on each main user persona. The medical trials field is quite regulated so we had to make sure we are following each rule and provide access to the right and allowed to access data to each of the personas.
My work at Signant Health consisted of:
- designing new features and always looking to improve the product
- constantly collaborating with the PM team and development team
- having interviews with the end users: usability interviews to test/ validate new prototyped ideas.
- collaborate with the Design team on constantly improving the working process.
- documenting the final designs and making sure it covers all the uses cases, needed screen sizes and other details.
- collaborating with the Front-end developers for a proper implementation
- mentoring the other designer from the team (mid level)
Projects and other work screenshots and details: link.
UX Rocks: Co-founder & Product Designer (2018, February – present)
UX Rocks is a disruptive product design studio focused on strategic product design, rapid innovation & growth using the Design Sprint framework and Design Thinking methods. We apply the process on the projects we’re working on, but also do workshops and talks about it. We are Oana, Adrian, Dan and Mihai. 4 UX designers that want to go beyond the common. 4 horsemen that started this to make the designer’s life more challenging.
Within UX Rocks I focus on:
- UX Research (adapt the process to fit our projects, decide the research strategy, plan and execute)
- Facilitating Design Sprints
- UX plan and strategy
- UI
- Facilitating workshops
- Do presentations showcasing our work
1. MUSIC FESTIVAL APP – CASE STUDY
- first project to showcase the Design Sprint Process
- took the challenge of a mobile app and tried to improve the overall experience of the festival participant
- did a research survey to learn about the festival participant, to see the pain points and what are the possible features we can focus on, beside secondary research (competitive analysis, other studies)
- presentation of the project: Fast Ways to Create Better Products
2. [PROJECT NAME] DESIGN SPRINT
- main challenge: to validate the product idea and to have a starting point for the project
- solution: Design Sprint
- result: idea was validated, the team has a plan to start the development (the MVP and future features to be implemented)
- tools: Miro (Realtime Board) for remote work, Figma – prototyping, Skype – meetings, pen and paper.
Other projects and work screenshots and details: link.
Optymyze: Senior UX Designer (2016, July – 2019, May)
My work with Optymyze implied to:
- Improve the Design process
- Facilitate Design Sprints within the company
- Insert the Design Sprint into the Agile/ UX process
- Build the Optymyze Design System
- Collaborate with the Front-End, Back End and Testing departments.
- Research, create common understanding of complex concepts
- Sketch mock-ups and flows
- Validate, implement and test products and features
- Run or participate in usability tests, interviews and surveys with users.
- Improve the accessibility of the web and mobile app
Features/ Products I worked on:
- Mobile app (together with the development team worked on adapting the mobile web platform into a mobile app, developed mobile specific features, provided accessibility features; provided support for the development team on the migration from Cordova to React Native). // Android app // iOS app
- Collaboration. Chat capabilities over specific sales components.
- Integration with third party apps. Adapted existing apps to our design system and capabilities while integrating them into our app. Worked together with the development team to decide on prioritising what to be integrated or not.
Details about the work and some projects: link.
Namogo: UX Designer (2015 – 2016)
Worked together with the Namogo team on (mostly) local projects. Collaborated with local business to design their websites or mobile apps. Did work on research, user personas, customer journey maps, empathy maps, sketches, wireframes, UI, prototyping and little user testing. Followed the brand guidelines through the process.
Some projects I worked on:
[Attached case studies (the presentations) are all the work of the Namogo team. I am adding them as reference for the projects I worked on]
- Simap mobile app. For this project I worked on the mobile app (both iOS and android) and did the research part, sketches, wireframes and UI. Supported the development team along the way for a better implementation.// Case study presentation: Design for an artistic mediation mobile app.
- Vezuvian. For this project I worked on the website and did the research part, sketches, wireframes and UI. Also, worked on the illustrations. Alongside the development team, we decided on the best animations and overall experience of the website. // Case Study presentation: Unquenchable.
- Adaptabi. For this project I worked on the website and did the research part, sketches, wireframes and UI. Alongside the development team, we decided on the best animations and overall experience of the website.
Older (2012 – 2015) UX positions: LinkedIn profile
Presentations & Workshops
Presentation: How to: Research
For the UX students from Scoala Informala de IT. Individual presentation.
- introduced students to UX research
- talked about best practices
- chose 2 specific methods to focus on: Surveys and user testing interviews
- did a practical exercise on how to better define the objectives and the hypotheses of the research phase of a project
Presentation: How to: User Testing [Fail Fast and Fail Often]
During Codecamp Cluj (April 2019). Individual presentation.
- introduced audience to user testing
- talked about user test plan, script, selecting users, finding patterns and problems
Workshop: Jamming with UX rocks: make problems work for you.
In collaboration with Startups Iasi community, during the monthly meetup. Team workshop.
- applied the Lightning Decision Jam Workshop to find problems of the startup scene in Iasi and come up with action items to solve the most important ones.
- found solutions from simple ones (to help people to validate first their ideas, and then invest in development using Design Sprints) to complex ones (change the educational system).
Workshop: Jammin’ Workshop
For the People of Design Iasi community, to showcase the Lightning Decision Jam exercises. Team workshop.
- applied the Lightning Decision Jam Workshop to find the problems of the design community and solutions of how can we bring the innovation to our city and not only the execution.
- Story told by Mihai Balea: UX Rocks “Jamming Workshop” — a Lightning Decision Jam case study.
Presentation: Faster Ways to Create Better Products
During Codecamp Iasi (October 2018). Team presentation.
- showcased the Design Sprint process with the practical application of our Music Festival mobile app.
- Slides: Fast Ways to Create Better Products.
Presentation: Research First. Design later.
During Codecamp Iasi (April 2016). Individual presentation.
- talked about the importance of asking WHY, before starting working on designs, the importance and the impact of research on digital products.
- Slides: Research First. Design Later.
Community Management
Design Sprint Romania
Together with my colleagues from UX Rocks we started the Design Sprint Romania group. Together with other agencies/ people that do Design sprints, we are trying to grow the community.
People of Design Iasi
Working with the whole team to grow the community, organize meetups and presentations. Also collaborating with other local communities for common gathering, or to promote local events.
Trance IS*
Started the local Iasi Trance community alongside other fans and trying to grow it by organising events, meetups or travel groups to other big events from Romania, or the rest of the world.