Axel Johnston
Verified Expert in Design
Designer
Bordeaux, France
Toptal member since October 19, 2020
Axel is a sought-after design expert with 11 years of experience in UX design, service design, and DesignOps, and seven years as a design leader. He has designed the user experience of an eCommerce website with 190 million users and $5 billion in revenue; huge B2C, B2B, and B2E platforms; video games, military cockpits, space and satellites, and music festivals. Axel has managed creative teams of up to 30 designers for a large organization, a design agency, and a fast-growing startup.
Experience
- Prototyping - 11 years
- User Experience (UX) - 11 years
- Workshop Facilitation - 11 years
- Design Leadership - 7 years
- Service Design - 7 years
- eCommerce - 6 years
- Wearables - 4 years
- Design Systems - 4 years
Portfolio
Transforming the Design Practice of an Airline with 100 Million Travelers
Work Experience
Vice President, Brand, Design, and Experience
Gloo
- Created the entire user experience, from scratch, to create a smooth and innovative experience in a new kind of social network.
- Led the brand, design, and experience activities for B2C and B2E products.
- Created the design system to support the practice and workflows for the mobile B2C components.
UX and Design Lecturer
Universities and Design Schools (Self-employed)
- Lectured in several design schools on digital project management, ethnographic research, user experience, design thinking, co-design, prototyping tools, design tools, cognitive psychology, human factors, ergonomics, service design, and more.
- Created a 1,000-hour training program to train non-designers to be UX designers. Topics ranged from psychology to prototyping.
- Delivered over 1,500 hours of training to more than 500 students and professionals on the UX design and other topics listed above.
Head of Design and Global Head of DesignOps
Air France
- Led a team of 15 designers focused on service design, UX design, and UI design.
- Spearheaded a design team during the rebranding and redesign of a major eCommerce website with $5 billion in revenue.
- Created a DesignOps department to support 70+ designers by providing tools, workflows, career paths, skills, and more.
VP Design, Co-founder
Akiani
- Co-founded a design agency ranked in the top-10 UX agencies in France. Focused on hiring, sales, methodology, and design leadership.
- Managed and hired a team of 16 talented designers, a PhD in cognitive science, and user researchers.
- Designed extraordinary digital experiences and services for military, avionics, eCommerce, B2B, B2C, B2E, and innovative early-stage startups.
Principal User Experience Designer
Oui.sncf
- Designed the experience of an eCommerce website with 190 million users, covering every international market.
- Designed the experience of a mobile app with 13 million users, ranked as the top eCommerce app in France.
- Designed an innovative experience for Google Glasses and Android wearables.
Human Factors and Cockpit Designer
Thales and CNRS
- Co-animated research for simulator and real flight observations.
- Designed the wireframes and first UI concept for the military and civilian cockpit interface.
- Led a European project work package through 22 European partners.
User Experience Designer
Air France
- Designed the new yield management tool for one of the biggest airlines in the world.
- Created complex dashboards to monitor the demand for 500+ planes.
- Created the design system for a complex B2E application.
UX Designer
Axance
- Designed digital user experiences for a chain of retail shops.
- Designed digital user experiences for one of the five biggest pharmaceutical groups in the world.
- Wrote design specifications and guidelines for developer handovers.
User Experience Researcher
F4 Group
- Directed the user research facilities for a massively multiplayer online game (MMO), overseeing lab user testing and online feedback from players in Europe and China.
- Led enterprise customer success service in China for an MMO game.
- Executed QA and user testing on the MMO game to validate acceptance from an ergonomics perspective.
Augmented Reality Designer
French Army
- Designed augmented reality interfaces for army vehicles.
- Wrote UX specifications of augmented reality interfaces in army vehicles.
- Prototyped augmented reality interfaces for army vehicles.
Education
Master's Degree in Cognitive Engineering
École Nationale Supérieure de Cognitique (ENSC) - Bordeaux, France
Skills
Tools
Sketch, Slack, Axure RP Pro, InVision, Zeplin, Zoom, Principle, Flinto
Platforms
Mobile, Apple Watch, Webflow
Industry Expertise
Aircraft & Airlines, Entertainment & Leisure, Pharmaceuticals, Retail & Wholesale
Other
Human Factors, Human-centered Design (HCD), Human-machine Interface (HMI), User Experience (UX), Design, UX Design, Wireframing, User Testing, Design Systems, eCommerce, Leadership, Travel, Design Leadership, Experience Maps, Personas, Service Design, Focus Groups, Workshop Facilitation, Prototyping, Startups, UX Strategy, User Flows, Sitemaps, Mobile Apps, Ideation Workshops, User Needs, MVP Design, DesignOps, Mentorship & Coaching, Design Principles, SaaS, B2B, Dashboards, Design Workshops, UX Flows, UX Prototyping, Holistic UX Design, Benchmarking, Training, UX Mentoring, UX Specifications, Training & Training Content Development, User Research, Cognitive Science, Wearables, Festivals, Spatial Design, Organizational Design, Hiring, Budget Management, Digital Kiosks, Conversational Design, Chatbots, Android Wearables, Funnel Optimization, Checkout, Immersive Experiences, Avionics, Google Glass, Augmented Reality (AR), Early-stage Startups, User Interface (UI), Gamification, Rebranding, Robotics, Politics, Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs), DataViz, Surveys, Video Games, Online Games, QA Testing, Customer Success, Military, Virtual Reality (VR), Cockpit Design, Aviation, Information Architecture (IA)
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