United Kingdom

UX Design

Product Design

Bachelor of Science (B.S.)

Sandra Gonzalez

Founder & Director

Communication

Collaboration

Problem-solving

Critical-thinking

Empathy

Team player

Organisation skills

Presentation skills

Conflict resolution

Stakeholder management

Leadership

Public Speaking

Negotiation

Product roadmap

Product strategy

Axure

Time management

Project management

Prototyping

Introduce yourself, define mentoring expectations and goals. Learn and grow together.

General mentorship

Making remote and globally distributed teams work for you and your needs.

Working remotely

Learn essential burnout prevention techniques and replenish physical and emotional energy.

Managing burnout

Talk to people who have learned to manage their imposter syndrome.

Dealing with imposter syndrome

Navigating micro-aggression, getting paid what you are worth and finding a community.

Being a woman in tech

Understanding factors that lead to a motivated team - recognition, communication and more.

Keeping team members motivated

Understand the process of training, motivating and directing your team members.

Managing people

How to create a positive workplace culture that drives collaboration and productivity?

Fostering a good team culture

Steps to building and maintaining a strong, cohesive and effective team.

Building an effective team

Learn the tips to successfully manage a team in a remote environment.

Managing a remote team

How to maintain trust, commitment, accountability deliver results while handling conflict

Avoiding common dysfunctions

How to determine what is a good balance of skill sets for your organization's needs

Building balanced teams

Tips for transitioning into a new role or company.

Changing roles

How to successfully prepare and position yourself for a job promotion?

How to get promoted

How to think about design career paths and what progression looks like for designers?

Design career path

Get actionable feedback on your resume or portfolio.

Resume and portfolio review

Practice HR, technical and behavioural interviews with mentors.

Practice mock interviews

How to set up the team for success by defining and measuring team's performance.

Choosing metrics and team goals

Best practices for running productive design critiques.

Running effective design critiques

How to define and execute a successful launch and managing stakeholders expectations. (eg. MVP)

Launching new products or features

Methods of prototyping and solution validation. When to use which kind of prototype (eg. Webflow, Notion, etc)

Prototyping methods and tips

Manage team expectations and get the most out of your meetings.

Running effective meetings

Identify and define potential product problems and generating possible solutions.

Identifying problems vs solutions

Learn how to properly present your work and share ideas and opinions.

Presenting your work with impact

Tips on how to work and collaborate with designers.

Working with designers

How to work with team members with different skill sets but towards a common goal?

Working cross-functionally

Methods and models of exploring, deciding and delivering design.

Building a design process

Managing being the only designer at your company and working with non-designers.

Being the only designer

Ways and resources to improve your design skills.

Improving design skills

Navigating the working relationship with PM's and engineers as a designer.

Working with product and engineering

How to set up product analytics and metrics to track success?

Leveraging Product Analytics

How to create personas, and leverage them in design.

Creating and leveraging user personas

Ways to provide constructive feedback to team members.

Giving effective feedback

How to define an ambitious product vision and how to best communicate it to stakeholders?

Creating a product vision

Tips on how to work and collaborate with engineers and developers.

Working with engineers

What is a successful user onboarding flow and how to achieve it?

Onboarding new users

How to conduct interviews, what to ask, and how to analyze your results? (eg. user interview)

Conducting effective customer interviews

FightForward is a social enterprise focused on using boxing as a tool to help women triumph over trauma. 
I’m working with the C-suite guiding them on their purpose, vision, mission and value proposition to bring measurable social impact to local communities across the UK.

On a mission to nurture world-class customer focused product practices at Trustpilot in a way that is impactful and transformative for the organisation and the hundreds of thousands of businesses we serve.

Established the disciplines of Product Design, including UX Research, at a strategic level. Worked side-by-side with the Exec team to create and showcase the company's product vision to investors; this led to the successful acquisition by US-based equity-growth firm Great Hill Partners. Led the creation of NOTHS' Customer and Partner Value Proposition which was instrumental in defining the company's three-year business plan.

Leading the Product Design vision at Beamly with the focus of connecting brands with millions of customers in a unique and meaningful way. Our ultimate goal is to understand people’s underserved needs and create innovative solutions to their daily challenges. At Beamly we are open to implementing emerging technologies if it makes people’s lives better, we currently are building experiences with Augmented Reality and Conversational UI to enable more engaging customer experiences.

Supported the CTO on creating business cases to invest in UX Strategy and Service Design.

· Leading the Digital Brand Studio, UX Research Team and UX Team for global partner and consumer products.
· Delivering a unified user experience strategy by seeking consensus among key stakeholders (Product, Tech and Marketing), and driving such strategy across all consumer and restaurant partners touch points.
· Building and fostering a design led product culture based on deep understanding of user needs and supporting the product teams in achieving Just Eat’s mission to create the world’s greatest food community.

Author of courses:
- UX Strategy Fundamentals 
- Responsive Style Guide and Pattern Library Creation in Axure

I defined and implemented the UX vision at Just Eat, ensuring its consistent and cohesive application across all digital consumer touch points.
· Advocating for, resourcing and leading the Digital Brand team during the 2016 re­brand and ensuring its integration with the wider Tech, Marketing and Product teams.
· Minimising the impact of the re­brand on conversion by planning and rolling­out assets before launch in a way that did not disclose the new brand.
· Delivered consensus across the Just Eat UX design community on how to most effectively structure the UX and design resources.
· Acting as an ambassador for Just Eat amongst the external UX community by raising brand awareness, and organising and participating in design conferences and meet­ups.
· Mentoring and coaching my fellow Just Eat UX designers on the latest methodologies
·  Established and championed design processes across the product lifecycle that ensure
consistently high UX standards are achieved.
·  Meeting the needs of a rapidly changing organisation by fulfilling the roles of individual
contributor, COG Lead, Technical Manager and Acting Head of UX & Design as required.

UX for Change mission is to enable positive change in the world by connecting the non-profit sector with the UX community while championing digital design excellence.

During the last eight years we have worked with the following non-profits: 
Charities Aid Foundation, EmpowerHack, CareTech, The Joshua Nolan Foundation, Carefree, Just transcript, Fitzrovia Youth in Action, TALLOM FOUNDATION INC, Mermaids, Action for Children, okayso, Ethical Tech Alliance, Hope4ATRT and Immigration Advocates Network.

Evangelizing the ROI of User Experience at TalkTalk while designing, prototyping and researching, design solutions for our four million customers. Providing an end-to-end seamless experience as customer navigate through the numerous TalkTalk’s customer touch points (call centers, paper bill, engineering visits, responsive websites, cross-platform apps and TV player).

· Practiced Lean UX methodologies (rapid prototyping, guerrilla testing and design studios)  in order to design and test new concepts.
· Prototyped complex interfaces for set-top box (YouView) with a remote control as the only input mechanism, suitable for customer research emulating a genuine living room environment.
· Introduced the Agile process by using SCRUM and Kanban methodologies into the Design organization. 
· TalkTalk ambassador for outreach programs such as Apps for Good and the Young Rewired State.
· Recipient of the “TalkTalk on the spot” award for community and innovation.

My in-depth experience as an educator has inspired me to develop a unique approach to teaching Axure, where trainees are encouraged to learn by following step by step instructions, intentionally designed to teach all levels of Axure and the logic principles necessary to make an interactive Axure prototypes.

As the first in-house UX Practitioner at Kuoni, I led the Web Design team efforts to introduce user-centric-design methodologies, introduced UX artifacts and facilitated design studios into Kuoni’s agile development culture in a realistic and effective way.

• Collaborated with Business Analysts, Program Managers and Developers in order to advocate user-oriented solutions for the design of a Rich Internet Application (RIA) that will replace two of the companies’ B2B legacy reservations systems and eliminates the current 9-month training time for new users.
• Shaped and implemented an agile workflow for the Web Design team and trained the team about agile development and how to integrate it with use experience methodologies and artifacts.
• Worked with a geographically distributed team in Zurich, Kiev and Tokyo and conducted user testing for key sections of the application in Hong-Kong and Jakarta.
• Evangelized to key stakeholders and the upper management team the importance of bringing UX methodologies into Kuoni’s development process by presenting case studies from other companies and findings from the user testing sessions I performed in Asia.

Designed, prototyped and coded Rich Internet Applications (RIA) for two high profile projects at Evolution.ie. Proactively defined and drove the UX design process within Evolution’s agile development environment.

•Designed the Information Architecture for Spar’s Business Intelligence tools, where store managers can easily create promotional messages based on customers’ shopping habits, expenditures, and personal information provided during registration.
•Designed the user flow for BWG’s Ordering Solution system, aimed to bring together inventory from five different BWG depots, one billing system and one sales and image repository.
•Sketched paper wireframes and created low/high-fidelity mockups in Photoshop in order to obtain feedback as well as buy-off from the development team.
•Designed and coded a dynamic prototype using jQuery, HTML5 and CSS for client demos.
•Delivered HTML5 and CSS files to the development team for final implementation and backend integration.

Created a Windows Phone app promotion platform consisting of an app review site, app discovery application and social media. Built and maintained a curated app database geared towards parents looking for kid- and family-friendly applications. Rated every app entered into the database based on UX principles such Nielsen's heuristics and Metro Design Principles.

•Designed and marketed WindowsParent.com brand.
•Wrote and published application reviews from a tech-savvy mother’s point of view.  
•Designed, developed and published mobile application “App Discovery by Windows Phone Parent” with the main purpose of providing a cross-platform experience to our followers.
•Launched Spanish-sister site and application, Familia Windows Phone, in order to provide English speaking developers with the opportunity to promote their apps in the seventeen Spanish-speaking Windows Phone markets.
•Staffed and managed an offshore team composed of a developer, an editor, a content researcher and a translator.
•Created and produced Windows Phone Tales, an ambitious video review concept where kids apps elements come to life through a child’s imagination.
•Created and published detailed rating guidelines in order to provide developers with a detailed report of their app’s rating and to give them the opportunity for improvement.

Designed user-facing features, determined dependencies, wrote feature specifications and communicated with feature partners to drive deliverables for the fast-moving world of Bing search. Conducted and incorporated usability and slip testing (A/B testing) findings into feature release designs and recommendations to management team. 

•Designed UX features for Bing’s search box and autocomplete features, and oversaw the syndication of the Bing search box on partner websites including Microsoft.com, Windows Live and MSN.
•Designed and drove experimentation for Bing’s captions (the “10-blue-links”) including rich Multimedia and Facebook integration.
•Created feature wireframes, mockups and prototypes in order to prove and validate design concepts early in the planning and design process, and during usability testing. 
•Ensured that each feature was divided into smaller work items to guarantee that all aspects of the design, development and testing were appropriately resourced.
•As SCRUM Master, drove feature design, technical planning and execution across 3 cross-functional teams (3 designers, 5 developers, 6 testers) over 3 major releases and 12 sprints
•Managed schedules for design, development and test resources and drove the release sign-off from design, dev and test leads to ensure on-time delivery of each feature. 
•Led efforts to ensure every feature on site met accessibility standards as Bing’s accessibility driver.

Taught math to students in grade levels 8-10 at Coral Reef Senior High. Coral Reef has been rated one of America’s Top 20 high school by US News & World Report.

•Placed as one of only two Gifted program math teachers.
•Design lesson plans composed of hands-on activities with step-by-step instructions to guide students to discover geometric concepts by themselves.

Developed websites for all Scholastic content channels. Coded HTML newsletters for email marketing campaigns. Verified that all Scholastic websites and their published content complied with coding and design guidelines.

•Coded HTML and CSS files to match Photoshop comps. 
•Maintained and updated HTML, JavaScript and JSP content for Scholastic’s Teacher, Kids, Parents and e-commerce channels.
•Produced XML feeds of Scholastic content for syndication on Microsoft’s MSN Parenting channel.

Executed online marketing plans and managed visual design and web development resources for games and educational activities for Scholastic.com.  Wrote functional specifications and created wireframes for numerous Scholastic’s book sites. Gathered user experience data from focus groups, usability studies and surveys. Brainstormed game ideas, feature names and editorial content creation.

•Produced content and games for Harry Potter, Clifford, Goosebumps and I SPY among many other renowned Scholastic brands.
•Designed an asset management system to facilitate management of multimedia assets between the marketing and development teams.
•Assisted Senior Producer with the redesign of the Kids Channel Homepage from brainstorming to launch.
•Led competitive analysis efforts and collaborated in the creative process to generate key ideas that would differentiate the Scholastic Kids Channel from other websites targeted at school-age children.

Developed and expanded the Math Outreach program at the University of Florida, called GATORTRAX, funded by General Electric.

•Designed and co-developed a computer program that allows students with no programming background to create Java programs using a graphical interface.
•Wrote GATORTRAX’s Engineering Learning Modules introducing engineering related disciplines by demonstrating the connection between math and real world problems.
•Trained over 100 Middle and High School teachers in the cities of Miami, Orlando, Tampa and Gainesville, Florida where GATORTRAX was implemented.

Sandra Gonzalez🇬🇧

About Sandra Gonzalez

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