"Empathy is the most relevant skill that a UX Designer can have."
— Google UX Design Professional Certificate

WORK EXPERIENCE
Aug 2021 — today // SENIOR USER EXPERIENCE GENERALIST for Talkdesk

User experience is all about users, and I see my responsibility as a mission, bringing evidence that if we care about the users, they will care about our business. I spend my time preparing sessions with users, mainly interviews and usability testing, and building awareness with the evidence that resulted from those activities. I also help to create processes to build maturity in secondary research, for example, through feedback from users and the support team.

Aug 2017 — Aug 2021 // USER EXPERIENCE GENERALIST for Tangível

Tangível is one of the first user-centered companies in Portugal, founded in 2004. As a user experience designer, I was the focal point between product managers, the technical team, and visual and research designers. My main project was working for the Portuguese favorite for mobile payments, called MB WAY. I had the privilege to work with senior UX researchers and visual designers, where I was able to learn and participate in applying UX methods to design better products.

Nov 2015 — May 2016 // USER RESEARCHER for FBA

I was responsible for defining the user experience aspects of a web interface that has the main goal of managing the accounting system for a client that has been in the software development business for 30 years. The main activities were to define the functional requirements, the interaction, interface, and navigation design, the integration, visual design, and usability principles, but also take into consideration the main goals of the end-users of the system.

2011 — 2015 // USER EXPERIENCE GENERALIST for Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology

The Future Mobility Survey was part of a research study for the civil engineering department at MIT Boston. The main goal of this project was to develop tools that can register individual mobility information. My main responsibilities were to understand the requirements and convert them into usable applications by integrating the design principles, interaction, and usability guidelines.

2006 — 2009 // QUALITY ASSURANCE ENGINEER

Change / Configuration Management // Configuration management responsibility throughout the lifecycle of a project, for example, version management, space management, compilation and packaging management, baselines management, integration support, management of new projects, production management, process control and audit.

Internship in Quality Engineering // Training in international quality certifications. Software Quality Assurance responsibilities in order to guarantee that internal projects are being accomplished according to Quality Management System. Maintenance and improvement of the Quality Management System.


EDUCATION

2010 // Masters in Design and Multimedia, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Coimbra, Portugal.
2006 // Masters in Computer Engineering, Faculty of Science, University of Lisbon, Portugal (6 months in Erasmus Programme in University of West Bohemia, Pilsen — Czech Republic).

RELEVANT CERTIFICATIONS

On-going // Google UX Design Professional Certificate, by Coursera.
2019 // UX Certificate, by Nielsen Norman Group.

OTHER CERTIFICATIONS

2021 // Become a UX Designer from Scratch, by IDF.
2021 // Human-Computer Interaction, by IDF.
2021 // User Experience: The Beginner’s Guide, by IDF.
2020 // Design Thinking: The Beginner’s Guide, by IDF.
2016 // User Experience Course (20 hours), by Tangível.
2015 // iOS & Objective-C (66 hours), by Flag.
2015 // User Experience Course (36 hours), by Ideias e Imagens.

PUBLICATIONS

2014 // Dias, I., Pereira, F., Cottrill, C., Zegras, C., Ben-Akiva, M., “Design and usability concepts applied to a web-based prompted recall survey”, The 10th International Conference on Transport Survey Methods, to be held November 2014 in Leura, Australia.

2013 // Cottrill, C., Pereira, F. C., Zhao, F., Dias, I., Lim, H. B., Ben-Akiva, M. and Zegras, C. “The Future Mobility Survey: Experiences in developing a smartphone-based travel survey in Singapore”. Transport Research Board (TRB) annual meeting. Washington, D. C. January, 2013.

TECHNICAL COMPETENCIES

Users Interviews
Field Studies
Usability Expert Reviews
Prototyping
Interaction Design
Visual Design
Interaction Design
Usability Testing
Sketch + Balsamiq Mockups + Figma

INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE

2011 — 2015 // Lived and worked in Singapore.
2006 // Czech Republic in Erasmus Programme.
1998 // Dublin (Irland) an English Course.

MY PERSONAL INTERESTS

Montessori pedagogy + Art and crafts projects + Asana Vinyasa Yoga + Scuba Diving + Traveling