Aklilu Bizuayehu
User Experience designer
PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY
I'm passionate about creating experiences that are not only eye-catching, innovative, and simple, but also truly functional and problem solving. Regardless of the final deliverables, I consider finding common ground between users and stakeholders (the business) to be my most important focus.
• Experienced with Figma, Adobe CS, Sketch, Axure, Balsamiq, and InVision
• More than 8 years of experience in various design-related roles
• More than 5 years of experience in UX/Product design
• Strong presentation, communication, and ideation skills
• Self starter and problem solver, but able to ask for help when needed
EXPERIENCE
September, 2022 - Present
UX Design Specialist
Leidos
Baltimore, MD
• Work closely with Product Owners, Product Managers, Developers, Validators and Scrum Master to provide guidance for application development and enhancement for SSA (Social Security Administration).
• Participate in daily Stand-ups, Scrum sessions and Agile sprints, product discovery, weekly grooming meetings and weekly design team meetings.
• Create adaptive and responsive wireframes and clickable prototypes for Enterprise level desktop software applications using AxureRP.
• Work on UX for software with over 80,000 users.
• Create and use personas in software development.
• Go on-site to observe users environment for software use.
• Conduct user research, such as requirements elicitation, field observations, heuristic evaluations, and usability testing.
• Generate and develop ideas for a better UX design solution in updating the social security web app.
• Apply user-centered design solutions that satisfy both explicit and implicit requirements from various users.
• Develop UX/UI solutions that are compliant with 508 / Accessibility standards.
March, 2022 - September, 2022
UX Specialist
Peraton
Baltimore, MD
• Work with Product Owners and Product Managers to provide guidance for application development and enhancement for SSA(Social Security Administration).
• Participate in Scrum sessions and Agile sprints.
• Create adaptive and responsive wireframes and clickable prototypes for Enterprise level desktop software applications using AxureRP.
• Work on UX for software with over 80,000 users.
• Create and use personas in software development.
• Go on-site to observe users environment for software use.
• Conduct user research, such as requirements elicitation, field observations, heuristic evaluations, and usability testing.
• Apply user-centered design solutions that satisfy both explicit and implicit requirements from various users.
• Develop UX/UI solutions that are compliant with 508 / Accessibility standards.
Sept, 2016 - Feb 2022
UX/Visual Designer
Blen Corp
Washington, DC
Acted as a UX Designer, Researcher and Strategist on assigned projects. Worked with
software engineers, product managers and designers to create the visual language and user
experience across various lines of business.
I have been a part of the full design team including research, brainstorming, wireframing, and high
fidelity design. Developed product solutions in B2B, B2C. Using creative processes, including
Lean UX, LoFi to HiFi prototyping, and standardized tools (Figma, Adobe XD and Sketch).
Wireframing using Sketch, Figma, Adobe XD, Balsamiq, Photoshop, Illustrator, InVision, and Axure.
Designing mobile App and Web app.
Created visual concepts that match the content of the project that fit in the business goal; ensure
that sites are easy to navigate. Hand off development including creating documentation and writing
feature outlines and user stories. Made design suggestions while considering implications for visual
hierarchy, accessibility, and business goals. Compiled reports from user research in order to share
findings with stakeholders.
Conducting user research, creating persona, Empathy map, Journey map, low and high fidelity
wireframing, creating mockups, prototyping user testing. Crafted ground-up website architecture,
UX Design, creative direction, and deliver. Advocated for user experience improvements in both web
and app designs.
Worked on a recent project on a start-up called Snapbrillia, San Fransisco, CA. Creating
experiences for the website and web app in developing content and design strategies including
research, ideation, wireframing, prototyping, user testing, and creating the design system. Designing
user experiences to help recruiters on the DEI solutions. Conceptualized future experiences for
Snapbrillia. Closely working with the development and product team.
Sept, 2013- Aug, 2016
UX Designer
Custom Ink
Fairfax, VA
Researching, designing, updating and maintaining the company’s website to the best interest of the company goals. Designing user experiences aligning with business goals for the company, advocated users in meetings the business goals with development and marketing strategies of Custom Inc.
Prototyping, wireframing with the help of tools such as Figma, Invision, and Sketch. Created annotated visual artifacts and wireframes to show ways to improve user acceptance and willingness to using existing system.
Researching, created persona, user empathy, Journey map, low and high fidelity wireframing, creating mockups, prototyping and user testing. Created detailed business and product requirements based on stakeholder and user interviews.
Jan, 2011 - Dec, 2012
Graphic Designer
Blen Corp
Washington, DC
As a graphic designer I was responsible to translating client needs and branding strategies into design strategies. Creating concepts that speaks to the brand identity and company goals. Designing visual concepts using graphic design tools. Selecting The visual design elements including the logo, color, typography, font, image, layouts and other design elements to communicate creative concepts.
Collaborated with multiple brands to help them meet conceptual and visual business goals with a particular focus on meeting the needs of both project stakeholders and end users. Offering consultation services in Graphic Design, Web Design, and Visual Design. Collaborating with art directors, branding experts, front end developers, marketing, content and other professionals to create media.
Working with the team of designers in helping with customers to establish better work space of the company and customer needs towards creating brand, print, and web materials.
Jun, 2008 - Dec, 2010
Art Director
Five Art Studios
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Headed the creative team, brainstorming sessions and spearheading the initial concepts of a project. Guided the professionals with the final say on what goes to the client and make important upper-level managerial and creative direction decisions.
Organizing art related events including exhibitions, workshops and residencies. Leading a team of artists, to determine which artistic elements to use, review and approve artistic concepts to determine how to best represent the creative industry.
Provided creative direction for a team of staff, artists, designers, managed personal and staff meetings, facilitated exhibitions, discussions and other related events and creating relationships between the artist and customers to establish better communication among the art community.
EDUCATION
M.A. in Culture, Media and Society from University of Lancaster, UK.
B.A. in Fine Arts from School of Arts and Design, Addis Ababa University.
Certificates in User Experience TechDegree from the Treehouse, Creating great user experience for web and mobile apps from University of Leeds Via Futurelearn, Digital skills: User Experience from Accenture, Learn to Code from university of Leeds via Futurelearn.
SKILLS
User research
Stakeholder Interviews
Information Architecture
Usability Testing
Sketching
Wireframing
User-Centered Design
Responsive Web
Prototyping
Mockups
Interaction Design
Layout Design
Brand Management
Motion Graphics
Presenting Ideas
Project Ownership
Copywriting
Expertise in Balsamiq, Axure, Sketch, Figma, InVision, Zeppelin, Adobe Creative Suite, HTML/CSS/JS, SQL
Familiar with Java, C/C++
Knowledge of U.S. Section 508 compliance, accessibility
REFERENCE
Available Upon request