Chris Ciesielski
Verified Expert in Design
Designer
La Grange, IL, United States
Toptal member since June 22, 2017
Chris is a UI/UX designer with a wide breadth of experience in designing, researching, and testing enterprise-level applications. With 10 years of freelance experience delivering projects for customers big and small, Chris is perfectly comfortable with all aspects of design, from speaking with customers to designing wireframes and tweaking code.
Portfolio
Work Experience
UX Leader
Mayo Clinic
- Handled all research and design artifacts produced by my team members supporting a 7-product, $15 million-run organization. Products are a mix of vended solutions and custom-built web applications.
- Developed a cross-organizational service design blueprint. The blueprint involved 100+ interviews and took nearly six months to compile.
- Established UX content design as a main pillar of our design group. Interviewed, hired, and oversaw the writers' day-to-day activities tasked with creating foundational content templates.
- Presented to a 400+ person executive leadership team on portfolio quarterly metrics and accomplishments.
- Supported Epic MyChart integration across our digital front door, scheduling, digital check-in, and virtual care video visits.
- Built a digital front door using natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence models (AI) to direct patients to care pathways based on primary medical needs.
Senior Product Designer
Clearcover
- Served as a full-stack designer dedicated to the internal policy administration system team issuing and editing auto policies.
- Supported the external-facing agent portal where agents can quote and bind policies on a customer's behalf.
- Interfaced with product management, engineering leads, QA leads, and developers daily. Attended all scrum ceremonies.
- Helped prioritize road map features and enhancements with product and engineering leadership.
- Leveraged quantitative user data from our app to help identify current pain points across the user experience.
Senior Experience Designer
Arity
- Served as a dedicated senior UX architect on Arity's cloud-compute and cloud-storage platform teams, including Arity's SDK, data flow, and API intelligence teams.
- Delivered user journey maps, personas, user stories, static and clickable prototypes (Sketch or InVision), and user research finding reports.
- Facilitated ideation (LUMA methods), contextual inquiry, industry-specific competitive research, and user testing sessions.
- Led the design for Arity's Driving Engine SDK releases (iOS and Android). Most UX deliverables for the SDK included callback diagrams, release notes, implementation and technical guides, and UX/UI recommendations.
- Co-led Arity's pattern library team using atomic design methodology.
UX Design Lead
General Electric
- Led UX research efforts for global HR platforms. Conducted both qualitative and quantitative research in remote and in-person settings.
- Owned a variety of research goals including requirement gathering, assumption validation, and user testing of rapid prototypes.
- Worked comfortably on Waterfall, Agile, and Lean development methodologies with onsite and remote teams.
- Produced user journey maps, user personas, UI mockups (desktop and mobile screens), visual style guides, and research findings reports with recommendations.
- Worked and designed proficiently in responsive HTML, iOS, and Android environments.
UX Lead
GE Capital
- Managed four mid-career employees and mentored two junior UX designers.
- Defined creative direction and overall project deliverables.
- Interfaced with project stakeholders and executives to get buy-in and sign-offs on design direction.
- Conducted the team's performance reviews, annual salary planning, and bonus reviews.
- Managed project budgets ranging from $250,000 to $5 million.
Interaction Designer
GE Capital
- Gathered contextual and virtual research to accurately develop user personas and user flow diagrams.
- Created storyboards, usability studies, wireframes, prototypes, and mind maps to improve information architecture.
- Produced color comps, mood boards, iconography, and infographics to promote visual design choices.
- Collaborated with onshore and offshore development teams regarding UI testing, code compliance, and responsive layouts.
- Served as a project manager on both big and small project teams, comfortably pitching to executive stakeholders.
Lead Designer Interactive Media
Galley Creative Group
- Designed websites adhering to existing or new branding standards.
- Developed websites using WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, PHP, HTML, and CSS.
- Created and maintained Google AdWord campaigns through metatags/keywords and Google Webmaster Tools.
- Designed print collateral that supported digital campaigns and marketing events.
- Pitched projects at local, county, state, and federal levels as design lead to secure new projects and contracts.
Education
Master's Degree in Historic Preservation - Applied Sciences
School of the Art Institute of Chicago - Chicago, Illinois, USA
Bachelor's Degree in Graphic Design
Maryland Institute College of Art - Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Certifications
LUMA Certified Practitioner
LUMA
Skills
Tools
Figma, Sketch, InVision, Axure RP Pro, Google Analytics, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Basalmiq, Microsoft Word, Adobe InDesign, Google Webmaster Tools, Postman, Photoshop CS6, Usertesting.com, Sketch 2, Miro, MURAL, Adobe Creative Suite
Platforms
Axure, WordPress, Drupal, Magento, Google Ads, Dovetail
Industry Expertise
Human Resources (HR), Banking & Finance, Marketing
Other
Prototyping, UX Design, Wireframing, User Research, Responsive UI, UX Prototyping, Mobile UX, User Experience (UX), Apps, Usability Testing, Product Design, UI Design, Mobile Design, Journey Mapping, Healthcare Software, System Design, Design Systems, Optimal Workshop, Usability, Hadoop, Apigee, User Interviews, User Personas, Design Thinking, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Client Management, Information Architecture (IA), Task Flows, Financials, Systems Analysis, UI Specifications, Data Visualization, Nonprofits, Responsive, User Flows, Document Management, UI Style Guides, Mobile UI, Data & Backup Management, Workflow, User-centered Design (UCD), Legacy Code, Telematics, JSON, Data Science, Big Data, Office 365, Materials Science, Return on Invested Capital (ROIC), Business Planning, Legal Research, 3D Animation, Print Design, Print Advertising, Identity Design, Typography, Color Theory, Photography, User Testing, Ethnio, Contextual Inquiry, Web-based Interface, Graphic Design, Enterprise SaaS, Geolocation Detection, User Workflows, Natural Language Processing (NLP)
Experience
How to Work with Toptal
Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.
Share your needs
Choose your talent
Start your risk-free talent trial
Top talent is in high demand.
Start hiring