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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

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