Dan Emil Balan
Verified Expert in Design
Designer
Bucharest, Romania
Toptal member since September 19, 2018
With over ten years of experience in UI/UX design, interaction, and micro-interaction, Dan has developed unique approaches to versatile projects from different industries, like financial, healthcare, social, fitness, and entertainment. He has had the pleasure of working with a variety of organizations, including Deutsche Bank, Orange, Misys, TotalSoft, and more. Dan eagerly follows the mantra: "Form follows function."
Experience
- Corporate Finance - 10 years
- User Experience (UX) - 10 years
- Mobile Design - 8 years
- Dashboards - 7 years
- Mobile UX Design - 7 years
- Product Design - 6 years
- Data-heavy Design - 5 years
- Artificial Intelligence as a Service (AIaaS) - 1 year
Portfolio
SaaS Gaming Management App
Work Experience
Senior Product Designer
Siemens Energy
- Worked as a UX designer on a mission-critical desktop application used across large-scale energy and industrial engineering projects, where complexity is the default and clarity has to be designed in.
- Contributed to multi-window navigation systems that keep users oriented inside deeply nested project structures, and designed safety-first guidance patterns for high-stakes, version-sensitive operations.
- Took part in shaping product strategy and scope with engineering and stakeholder teams, translating ambiguous technical constraints into confident, usable experiences.
UI Designer
BiG Agency, LLC dba Best Insurance Group
- Streamlined the user flow to simplify onboarding for crypto reward tracking, reducing friction for new users.
- Designed and implemented a modular Figma design system for consistent UI components.
- Created high-fidelity prototypes that improved clarity in wallet-based reward interactions.
Product Designer
MyLogic Inc
- Redesigned the user role selection process, clarifying individual vs. corporate profiles. This streamlined onboarding, reduced confusion, and improved registration completion rates, making the platform more intuitive and user-friendly.
- Optimized the registration process, making onboarding faster and smoother. Improved social features, enhancing user interactions and engagement within the platform, leading to a more collaborative and interactive experience.
- Improved the UX for mobile and web, ensuring a seamless experience across devices. Created high-fidelity Figma designs, improving navigation and accessibility, and prepared the platform for future updates like logistics tracking.
Product Designer
Josh Phillips
- Translated complex crypto investment data into intuitive and visually striking dashboards, enhancing user understanding and decision-making.
- Crafted a sleek, modern, lightweight user interface (UI) with a futuristic theme, delivering a visually appealing experience that aligns with the brand's innovative vision.
- Worked closely with the back-end development team to ensure seamless integration of UI/UX designs, meeting tight deadlines while maintaining high design quality.
- Redesigned the application's information architecture to improve user navigation and data accessibility, resulting in a more intuitive user experience and streamlined interaction with complex crypto data.
Product Designer
NematX AG
- Optimized user flows for an application tailored to aerospace and medical industries, where 3D printing at micron precision is crucial, ensuring the interface meets the specialized demands of producing high-precision, cutting-edge components.
- Designed and implemented new features that expanded the app's capabilities, aligning with the company's vision and functional requirements.
- Worked closely with the full-stack developer to deliver clear design specifications, ensuring smooth and accurate UI/UX enhancements implementation across desktop and tablet platforms.
Product Designer
JShaw Creative Inc.
- Spearheaded the redesign of a financial dashboard, seamlessly integrating charts, graphs, and data layouts into a cohesive and user-friendly interface, enhancing usability and aesthetic appeal in alignment with global design standards.
- Created an adaptable modular design system complete with detailed documentation and specifications. This system facilitates easy implementation by development teams and ensures consistency across the application.
- Conducted extensive UX research, including user interviews, to gather insights and inform design decisions. This resulted in a more intuitive and user-centered interface that effectively addresses user needs and preferences.
Product Designer
Subspace Labs, Inc.
- Designed end-to-end UX process for the Web3 project. I conducted extensive user research, including interviews, surveys, and user testing, to grasp users' diverse needs and challenges in the Web3 environment.
- Formulated questions and interaction flows within the NLP system, aligning them with the natural language patterns of the user base. This process included creating user scenarios, developing conversation flows, and conducting usability tests.
- Developed user-centric security features using my UX expertise, involving initial research to understand user concerns and preferences around security.
Product Designer
NestEgg
- Redesigned a user-centric dashboard with modern aesthetics. Conducted user research, resulting in an intuitive journey map tailored for UK lenders.
- Crafted detailed wireframes, fostering clear communication with developers. Utilized Figma for interactive prototyping, accelerating design refinements.
- Prioritized clear data visualization for lenders, offering actionable insights. Collaborated with developers to ensure design translated into functionality.
- Created a robust design system, ensuring UI consistency. Curated color palette, typography, and modular components, streamlining design and development.
Senior Mobile Product Designer
NortonLifeLock (formerly Avira)
- Formed an entire security ecosystem by putting a set of apps under one umbrella.
- Built an entire style guide based on the brand guidelines.
- Created new features for the security ecosystem, like automation that helps the user create different procedures. It also allowed the user to increase the performance of their mobile phone during a time or task they have designated.
Visual and UI Designer
Riddec Estonia OU
- Built and took care of the entire design system based on the requirements.
- Devised a new way to visualize telemetry on the crypto app.
- Created different features that will help users see and understand how to use the crypto app.
Senior User Experience Designer
Rinf Tech
- Designed the full UI and UX of the Innovation team.
- Contributed to different projects that set trends for the company and the competition.
- Created a new software to redact all the financial documents in a smart way.
Senior User Experience Designer
Deutsche Bank
- Created an entire design system fully integrated with all the internal applications developed by Deutsche Bank. It was my biggest challenge and accomplishment to work for this company.
- Analyzed the differences between multiple applications and developed the entire library of components with different cases and scenarios.
- Mentored the entire front-end team about problems they may encounter when implementing the entire list of components, as well as their possible solutions.
- Developed a complete strategy on how to use the new library and how to solve different problems a regular user might encounter using the applications.
Lead UX Designer
TotalSoft Romania
- Coordinated a team of four UI/UX designers. Guided them and assisted them in their work process with the stakeholders.
- Built the UI and UX of the Charisma suite (ERP), including all satellite applications. This included Charisma Medical Software and customer applications that work with Charisma (ERP/HCM).
- Developed different strategies, techniques, and solutions to bring the platform to a much more modern design. This resulted in resolving problems that actual users encounter when using the applications day by day.
Product Designer
T-Me Studios
- Worked on a project called Redraw, a service similar to Photoshop online.
- Designed the application to be as simple as possible, so people with little to no technical or artistic knowledge could use it with ease.
- Worked closely with the business owner and integrated almost all the ideas that he had.
Visual Designer
Kalon Global Group
- Spearheaded and was solely responsible for all existing UI work.
- Designed different web and mobile applications for a wide variety of clients.
- Worked on the McDonald's mobile app and was involved from the presentation stage to delivering B to C.
User Experience Designer
EveryMatrix
- Combined six large CMS applications to form one single platform.
- Redesigned all of the UI and UX to improve user experience.
- Spearheaded the design of their design system with a wide variety of components.
Lead Visual Designer
Finastra
- Created a new visual style guide and worked on the redesign of the Misys products and applications.
- Designed the UI of their new products, like SUMMIT, Open Platform, and Fusion Store.
- Identified patterns between applications and applied them to all of the Misys core products. This effort elevated them to a common and standard line.
Architect Designer
Orange Romania
- Designed and developed the Orange Romania intranet and created the visual identity and e-campaigns for all internal projects addressed to our colleagues.
- Planned and contributed to critical projects, including internal communication and the rebranding campaign: "Today changes with Orange."
- Pioneered all the design work on the company's mobile and web platforms.
Skills
Tools
Sketch, Principle, Adobe Experience Design (XD), InVision, Confluence, Jira, Interface Builder, ProtoPie, Axure RP Pro, Miro
Platforms
Mobile, MacOS, iOS, Figma, Web, Android, Axure, X (formerly Twitter)
Industry Expertise
Security, Cybersecurity, Banking & Finance, Information Technology, Media, Professional Services, Healthcare, Consumer Products, Technology
Other
Mobile UI, UX Prototyping, Mobile App Design, Product Design, Dashboards, Mobile Apps, Antivirus Software, User Flows, Clean Design, IoT Security, Minimalism, Finance, Fintech, Analytical Dashboards, Rich User Interfaces, Online Banking, Web App UX, Web App UI, Web Dashboards, Cryptocurrency, Cryptocurrency Exchanges, Cryptocurrency Wallets, Cars, Car Dashboards, Financial UX, Design Systems, White Labeling, Prototyping, Rapid Prototyping, Pixel Perfect, Personas, User Personas, Social Media Apps, Agile UX, Dark UIs, Scalability, Dark Design, Cryptocurrency Payments, Corporate Finance, Medical Billing, Medical Reports Design, Rich Internet Applications, Digital Product Design, Heuristic Evaluation, UI Audits, UX Audits, Usability Heuristics, Responsive Web Design (RWD), Web Design, Visual Design, Data Visualization, User Experience (UX), User Interface (UI), Interaction Design (IxD), Minimal UI, Material UI, Design, Design Principles, UX Principles, Wireframing, UX Flows, Mobile UI Design, Web UX, Mobile UX, Mobile UX Design, Web App Design, Mobile Design, UX Design, UI Design, Dashboard Design, B2B, Visualization Design, Mobile App UI, User Experience Design, UX Architecture, SaaS, Financials, System Design, Complex Application User Interfaces (UI), Medical Applications, App Design, Design Workshops, Product Strategy, Layout Design, Web UI Design, SaaS Design, UX Wireframes, Data-informed Visual Design, Complex Data Analysis, Agile, Web Applications, Low-fidelity Mockups, High-fidelity Mockups, Interactive Design, Layout, Mobile First, Journey Mapping, High-fidelity Prototypes, User Requirements, Information Architecture (IA), Usability, Business Intelligence (BI), User Journey Maps, Responsive Web Apps, Interactive Prototypes, Enterprise Design, Enterprise, Analytics, Web UX Design, Interactive UX, Usability Testing, Onboarding, User Onboarding, MVP Design, Annotated Wireframes, Typography, Color Palettes, Mockups, Content Management Systems (CMS), User Research, Data-heavy Design, Data-driven Design, Vibe Coding, User Stories, Diagrams, UIKit, Style Guides, Research, User Needs, Windows App Design, ServiceNow, Esports, Mobile Payments, Component Libraries, Industrial Design, Social Networks, User Journeys, Design Thinking, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Artificial Intelligence as a Service (AIaaS), Stakeholder Management, Design Leadership, Medical Software, App UX, App UI, Mobile Data, Mobile Wallet, Management, Data, Fuel, Graphical User Interface (GUI), Accounting, Interface Design, Grid Systems, Invoice Management, Data Grids, Google Material Design, Business Services, Jobs, Project Timelines, Service Design, Icon Design, Mobile Web, Mobile Web Design, Web UI, Overflow, Public Companies, UI Style Guides, User, US Venture Funds, Software, Digital, Storytelling, Storyboarding, Platforms, Desktop App Design, Software as a Service (SaaS), Collaboration, Workflow Optimization, Market Trends, UI Prototyping, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI), Large Language Models (LLMs), Validated User Research, Blockchain Wallets, Fintech Consultant, Complex Problem Solving, Financial Design, Financial Products, UX Research, Blockchain & Cryptocurrency, Trading, Web3, UI Components, Usability Analysis, Web Application Architecture, 3D Printing, B2C, B2B2C, Web Components, Complex Web Systems, Web & Mobile Applications, Fintech Design, User Retention, Artificial Intelligence Product Manager
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