Summary
I am a service designer with 19 years of professional experience, either solo or leading teams of creative thinkers. I have an engineering diploma in information design, with a major in usability and web engineering, and a minor in marketing and psychology. My area of expertise includes user-centered design, front-end development, and visual communication.
My goal is to elevate teams, optimize processes, improve products, and do better than yesterday.
Brace for content
This CV is busy, and there’s a lot to unpack, because I’m a curious guy who loves a good challenge.
There are some great stories behind these lines, and I would love to chat about them!
Employment
Lead ⟶ Principal Product Designer @ WorkTango
Toronto/Austin/Chicago (remote), 2022 – current
WorkTango offers an Employee Experience Platform that enables meaningful recognition and rewards, offers actionable insights through employee surveys, and supports alignment through goal setting and feedback.
- Building end-to-end software solutions across multiple product lines and platforms
- Collaborating with product and engineering leadership to define a roadmap
- Defining research methodologies and presentations the team uses to succeed
- Breaking down complex problems into design solutions
- Working cross-functionally with product, engineering, and other stakeholders to define the design
- vision and implement seamless user interactions
- Tracking user KPIs across multiple products
- Leading the continued refinement of our design system
- Executing wireframes, user flows, presentations, prototypes, diagrams, and high-fidelity visual designs
Senior Product Designer ⟶ UX Lead @ CampBrain
Toronto, 2012 – 2022
CampBrain is a niche software company that creates registration and management software for summer camps, schools, clubs and similar organizations throughout North America.
- worked alongside the Head of Product and the Software Architect to scope, plan, and design every product feature since 2012
- was in charge of prototyping and presenting end-to-end user experiences to stakeholders
- headed a small team in charge of designing, prototyping and implementing all user interfaces in the flagship SaaS product
- led design from discovery and user research, through wireframes and high-fidelity interfaces to usability tests in a Lean UX cadence
- contributed to specific design operations, detailing processes, guidelines, design principles, and best practices in user research
- blueprinted all UX team workflows, designed the UX hiring process, grew the headcount from one to three, and onboarded and mentored multiple team members
Interaction Designer @ Questrade
Toronto, 2011 -2012
Questrade is Canada’s large online brokerage company for trading financial instruments.
- created storyboards, user-flows, mock-ups, prototypes and functional specifications to effectively communicate interaction and design ideas
- worked closely with product developers, business analysts, designers, and PMs to redesign an internal CRM tool
Art Director @ Ad Vitam
Zagreb, Croatia, 2009-2011
Ad Vitam is an advertising company whose focus was developing marketing campaigns for large companies.
- worked hands-on on market segmentation and target-based advertising, artwork, and as a brand developer and copywriter.
- played a key role in pivoting this marketing shop into a successful publishing company during the worst recession in Croatia’s history.
Self-employed @ tadic design e.U.
Graz, Austria, 2008-2009
My start-up focus was on corporate identities, corporate design, and web development.
- mobile app (UI design) – location based promo advertising
- web app (front-end dev) – ERP system
- online shop (DB, back-end & front-end dev, UI design) – personalized gifts
- printed publications (branding, DTP, pre-press) – yearly planners for targeted audiences
Information Designer @ FH JOANNEUM University
Graz, Austria, 2005-2008
FH JOANNEUM is one of the biggest universities of applied sciences in Austria. It’s a home to ca. 4,500 students and about 650 employees. The main campus is located in Graz, and there are two additional campuses in Kapfenberg and Bad Gleichenberg, both in the Styrian province.
- developed an internet/intranet content management system and trained the faculty, staff and employees on how to use it efficiently
- designed and developed a touchscreen and infoscreen driven guidance/signage system for accessing data such as timetables, event calendars and interactive campus maps.
Interaction Designer @ Philips-Sagem
Vienna, Austria, 2004
This arm of Philips developed fax machines in the 90s, and had just adopted a human-centered approach to product design entitled ‘Design for Life’, which harmonized and integrated all aspects of user experience.
- joined Philips/Sagem user interface department to develop an interactive prototype simulator that was then used as a tool for shaping the user experience and for composing the requirements when developing multifunction devices.
- with no prototyping software solutions available at this time, I coded the entire simulator in ActionScript, and was able to turn around spec changes within a day, which sped up development significantly.
User Interface Designer @ Leica Geosystems
Heerbrugg, Switzerland, 2004
Leica is a market leader in lens technology based in Switzerland. This arm of operations augments earth moving machines with technology that allows them to be perfectly located on a construction site, and to be operated semi-autonomously.
- researched and designed a touchscreen user interface for machine automation embedded systems
- met strict requirements for the system to be used in rough atmospheric conditions, direct sunlight, dirt and during heavy vibrations of the machine, e.g. dozer, grader, excavator, or a tunnel boring machine.
Education
M.Sc. Information Design, Web & Usability Engineering
University of Applied Sciences FH JOANNEUM
- Minors in Marketing and Psychology
- Thesis: Building Interactive Prototypes to Optimize User Experience
- Volunteered in Web team, and on the Formula Student racing team
Talks,
Publications,
Awards
Conference Talk
Waterloo, Canada, 2022
- Topic “Thinking Beyond Binary Gender in Software”
- uXperience | Design for Good Micro-Conference, University of Waterloo
Conference Talk
Toronto, Canada, 2019
- Topic “Writing for the Web”
- BRAINSTORM 09 user conference
Article in Trade Association Magazine
Graz, Austria, 2006
- Design of a Mobile Phone for Senior Citizens
- Conducted user research, UI and interaction design
- Published in i-com 1/2006 (“Design for Aging” issue)
BMW Best Student Design Award
Munchen, Germany, 2003
- Design of a Digital Multifunctional Instrument Display (Dashboard)
- Implemented by BMW in 2013 M4 and M6 series models
Volunteering,
Training
UX Book Club KW @ Communitech
Kitchener, Canada, 2018 – current
I co-lead a ~400 bookworms strong Kitchener-Waterloo chapter where 10-12 members gather monthly to discuss a book and participate in exercises to employ proposed methodologies
Ladies Learning Code @ Canada Learning Code
Kitchener, Canada, 2018 – current
As a mentor, I provide support for the learners, helping them gain exposure to coding in a safe and comfortable environment. I love helping people join our small tech community
Advanced CSS Layouts With Flexbox And Grid @ Smashing Conference
Toronto, Canada, 2018
A hands-on workshop with Rachel Andrew, CSS Working Group expert, W3C spec writer, and the main evangelist of the CSS Grid Layout module, helped me gain a deep insight into the next generation of web standards for laying out and styling content.
Smart Responsive Design Patterns @ FITC
Toronto, Canada, 2017
Vitaly Friedman, editor-in-chief of Smashing Magazine, covered practical UX techniques and useful strategies to be employed when designing responsive websites.
Intranet Usability + Email Newsletter Usability @ Nielsen-Norman Group
London, UK, 2008
Learned strategies on how to best support an organization, enable employee communication and increase productivity and satisfaction using intranets. Received training on current trends and best practices.
Evaluated studies to identify key issues that impact an email newsletter’s success.
Usability & Ergonomics in User Interface Development and Design @ Siemens Medical Solutions
Erlangen, Germany, 2003
Introduction to cognitive ergonomics using Siemens “syngo UI” as an example of successful user modeling in HCI. I also learned methods, tools and techniques to improve usability of multi-tenant systems with different access permission levels.
Product Design
Skills
- Devising UX strategies
- Building and leading UX teams
- Nurturing cross-team collaboration
- Supporting product design and development
- Employing Design Thinking and Agile methodologies
- Establishing and refining requirement templates
- Devising neurodiverse meeting formats
- Designing information architecture
- Running Charrettes and GV’s Design Sprints.
UX Skills
- Building design systems
- Conducting usability tests, user tests and UX research
- Organizing focus groups
- Creating personas
- Developing prototypes ranging from paper to interactive
- Performing IA and navigation improving exercises, i.e. card sorting, field tests, eye-tracking
- Mapping user journeys and experiences
- Building service blueprints.
Tools
UX: Figma, Adobe XD, InVision, Axure RP, Balsamiq, Framer, Marvel. Also Macromedia Director and Flash ActionScript, but those are discontinued.
Dev: VS Code, Visual Studio, Git, SVN.
Expert in HTML, CSS, and worked with many UI frameworks. Proficient in TypeScript, jQuery, SQL, XML+XSLT. Developed in MVC and MVVM methodologies.
GFX: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere, After Effects, 3D Studio, Cinema4D. I also sketch on my tablet a lot.
Random
I enjoy cooking, photography and woodworking. I read, draw, and make large format prints from time to time, and small 3D prints with my kid.
I love electronic gadgets, plug computers and SOCs, like Raspberry Pi and Arduinos.
I am a TV series fan and collector from way before Netflix was a thing. Also, big on movies since my first job was a video store clerk when I was 13.
Being somewhat of a coffee geek, I’m powered by espresso during the week, and unwind with Turkish coffee on the weekends.