Amélie Lamont
Verified Expert in Design
Designer
Washington, DC, United States
Toptal member since June 3, 2019
Amélie is a design and product strategist with over two decades of experience in product design, helping startups audit and repair their underperforming products. Prior to consulting full-time, Amélie has led and collaborated on design initiatives at companies like The New York Times, Google, Facebook, Apple, eBay, Adobe, Travelers Insurance, Booz Allen Hamilton, VenueBook, and Lola.
Portfolio
Work Experience
Design Strategist
User Space Craft
- Assisted startups and organizations in auditing and repairing underperforming products.
- Acted as the fractional head of UX for small teams by providing design leadership, sharing feedback, and improving team collaboration.
- Guided teams through complex processes like running design sprints, building design systems, setting up design operations, and planning design reviews.
- Implemented data-tracking tools that help collaborators track business metrics and compare them against high-level goals.
- Advised on UX content strategies for the product team, including micro-copy, UX writing, instructional design, and information architecture.
Senior Product Designer
thoughtbot
- Managed client relationships and expectations by providing solutions that both benefit the client and their users. Clients included early-stage startups, all the way to established companies.
- Acted as an authoritative voice that provided product and design suggestions to clients as needed. This included, if appropriate, research, testing, design sprints, front-end development, product management, and product thinking.
- Facilitated deep discussions and conversations about a design's impact on culture and society via interviews, writing, speaking, mentoring, teaching, and consulting.
Design Mentor
Bloc, Thinkful
- Contributed to the Bloc and Thinkful design curriculum.
- Met with design mentees regularly to provide career guidance and curriculum feedback.
- Provided portfolio reviews and reviewed design assignments for quality and clarity.
Design Mentor | Teacher
Startup Institute
- Contributed to the Startup Institute design and front-end development curriculum.
- Taught students completely new to technology and the basics of front-end development (HTML and CSS).
- Conducted career sessions outside of school hours for students to book.
- Voted top design mentor three sessions in a row by Startup Institute students.
Product Design Lead
The New York Times
- Crafted a modular and accessible design system for The New York Times Customer Product Team that significantly improved design and engineering's ability to ship consistently.
- Acted as the design lead of User Hub, a large, specialty, cross-functional team that shipped features that cultivated a better relationship for subscribers of the Times.
- Managed and led initiatives for at least five projects (since August 2016), including the customer product design system, suspending delivery, reporting missing paper, canceling online, and billing UX.
Lead Product Designer
VenueBook
- Redesigned the VenueBook brand and product, creating a cohesive user experience that resulted in a more than 250% increase in venue bookings.
- Conducted research and user interviews to influence VenueBook's business decisions with market data.
- Created standards that shaped the creation of the first design team at VenueBook.
Education
Master's Degree in Design Research, Writing and Criticism
School of Visual Arts - New York, NY, USA
Bachelor's Degree in Cultural Studies
SUNY Empire State College - Saratoga Springs, NY, USA
Skills
Tools
InVision, MURAL, Usertesting.com, Sketch, Git, GitHub, Middleman, Principle, Lightroom CC, Adobe Experience Design (XD), Adobe Creative Suite, Zeplin, Cinema 4D
Platforms
Figma, MacOS, iOS, Android, Mobile, Web, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), WordPress
Languages
CSS3, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP
Industry Expertise
Professional Services, Luxury Goods, Media, Education, Events
Other
Visual Design, User Flows, Research, User Experience (UX), Quantitative Research, Qualitative Research, SaaS, UX Flows, Copywriting, Design Systems, Web Design, UX Design, Writing & Editing, Wireframing, Prototyping, Information Architecture (IA), User Research, Usability Testing, Design Sprints, Digital Product Design, Interaction Design (IxD), Web Applications, Mobile App Design, User Interviews, SaaS Design, WordPress Design, PowerPoint Design, UI Design, Product Design, Front-end Design, Communication, UX Research, UX Strategy, Systems Thinking, UX Audits, UX Writing, Heuristic Review, Heuristic Analysis, Design Strategy, Strategic Design, Product Strategy, Product Strategy Consultant, UI Audits, Audits, Website Audits, CX Strategy, IA Strategy, Strategy, User Experience Strategy, Usability Heuristics, Heuristic Evaluation, Systems, UX Workshops, Design Workshops, UX Leadership, Design Leadership, User Testing, Ideation Workshops, Discovery Workshops, User Workshops, Workshop Facilitation, Workshops, Customer Experience, B2C, User Engagement, Design Thinking, Design Thinking Facilitation, Product Discovery, User Interface (UI), Responsive Web Design (RWD), Web App Design, User Personas, User Journey Maps, Journey Mapping, User Validation, Quantitative User Research, Storytelling, Research Synthesis, Content Writing, Content Management Systems (CMS), User Stories, MVP Design, Organizational Change Management (OCM), User Experience Design, Web App UX, App Design, Mobile Apps, Mobile Design, Web Portals, Customer Experience Management, Management, Experience Strategy, Design Reviews, Rapid Prototyping, Web Application Design, Requirements, Roadmaps, Web UX, Information Design, Remote User Testing, Feature Analysis, Data Visualization, Sass, Google Material Design, Liquid, Agile, Business Logic, Business Model Canvas, Content Strategy, Content, User Behavior, User Surveys, Ethnography, A/B Testing, Presentations, Market Research, Design Research, Texting, ChatGPT, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Mockups, White Papers, Social Networks, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), Accessibility, News, Publishing, Branding, Accessible Design, Brand Design, Brand Guidelines, Website Redesign, Marketing Design, Event Planning, Two-sided Marketplaces, UI Components, Pencil Sketches, Journalism, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Art History, Curation, Curatorship, CreativeJS, Museums & Exhibits, History, Design, Governance, Technical Writing, Instructional Design, Content-first Design & Development
Experience
- UX Strategy - 20 years
- UX Design - 20 years
- UX Audits - 15 years
- Information Architecture (IA) - 15 years
- User Research - 12 years
- UX Research - 12 years
- User Interviews - 12 years
- Design Systems - 4 years
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