Frieda is available for hire
Hire FriedaFrieda Handoko
Verified Expert in Design
Designer
Location
London, United Kingdom
Toptal Member Since
January 12, 2021
With over a decade of experience managing and designing products, Frieda has been working and collaborating with early-stage startups worldwide. Her expertise extends to the learning economy (language learning, tools, and productivity), internal tooling (SaaS), and safety/culture with Grab, the Southeast Asian counterpart of Uber. Recently, she dived into the climate tech industry, collaborating with a solar panel startup company based in South Africa.
Portfolio
Work Experience
Product Manager and Designer (via Toptal)
2023 - 2023
Hohm Energy, Spark Plaid Energy (Pty) Ltd
- Planned a strategy to improve conversion rates for new customers purchasing solar panels in South Africa.
- Led a team of tech and product specialists as we worked on our weekly product goals, following the Lean methodology approach, prioritizing efficiency and customer-centric focus.
- Handled the management of product development, occasionally extending to design responsibilities, and participated in executing solutions for the tech team to implement, ensuring alignment with our overall objectives and strategy.
Technologies: Web App Design, Mockups, Wireframing, Design Libraries
Head of UX
2021 - 2023
Mindstone Learning Limited
- Became the full-time head of UX after initially being brought in as a contractor.
- Managed the end-to-end design and flow, including research, gathering requirements, execution, prototyping, wireframe to UI, and handover to engineers.
- Shaped the design culture within the product team from a very engineering-focused product by introducing design product thinking while improving the relationship between the tech and product team to work together efficiently.
Technologies: UX Design, Figma, User Experience (UX), Usability Testing, UI Design, Mobile Design, Design Leadership, User Journey Maps, B2C, Layout, User-centered Design (UCD), UX Review
Senior Product Designer
2018 - 2020
GrabTaxi
- Redesigned a form builder in a content management system, enabling the operations team to easily make changes to forms without relying on engineers. The registration form had been manual, and it became unscalable as the company expanded quickly.
- Refined the deposit management feature in Grab's rental product tool. The sales team needed to manage customers' deposits, including taking, refunds, and offsets, and the finance team needed to see the holistic view.
- Facilitated workshops with eight country representatives to align with the rental business' vision in the next few quarters and on how the product team can help out with their current pain points.
- Added new features to improve the photo editor in Grab's internal reviewing tool, allowing the reviewing team to check the legitimacy of the documents that the drivers had sent online.
- Improved selfie checks to reduce incidents and complaints about matched drivers being incorrect because registered drivers had rented out their accounts to non-registered drivers. The registered drivers were suspended.
- Played a key role in interviews and hiring designers to work for Grab. Mentored and trained a junior designer intern and a researcher to work on Grab's acquisition platforms.
- Guided and cultivated junior designers to be better product designers by supervising their work processes and checking on their progress fairly regularly without micromanaging.
- Facilitated one-on-one reviews with designers to provide feedback on their vision as a designer and their progression and receive feedback on how I could improve as a manager and mentor. I would also report on this to my line manager.
- Organized administration and logistics for junior designers in terms of contracts, annual leaves, and overseas travel.
Technologies: Miro, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop CC, After Effects CC, ProtoPie, InVision, Figma, Sketch, UI Design, Mobile Design, UX Design, User Journey Maps, B2C, B2B, Layout, User-centered Design (UCD), UX Review
Lead Product Designer
2016 - 2018
Joyz
- Integrated and executed flow, UI, and UX for an English learning app for the Japanese market together with engineers and the COO of the company, who was also acting as a product owner.
- Directed the content team (including contractors) to maintain consistency and quality of the language used across the app because the main focus of the app is to have a conversation with the AI.
- Standardized TerraTalk's design system, pattern, and language for marketing, engineers, and content to use as a guide.
- Facilitated QA and desk review with engineers before we shipped any updates to the iOS and Android versions.
- Streamlined Joyz's internal engineering and product teams to work more efficiently and productively through Agile and sprints.
- Facilitated workshops and design sprints to improve the UX of the app.
- Mentored and trained a junior designer to work on the design guidelines for TerraTalk.
- Fostered our more junior Japanese designers to exercise more critical thinking when working on our product and taught them how to not be afraid to ask questions. They presented their work to me before we presented it to senior stakeholders.
- Guided our graphic designer and marketing team to design our marketing material to be more digital-friendly and inspired the whole team to create a youth branding for our product.
Technologies: Axure, Marvel, After Effects CC, InVision, Adobe Illustrator, Sketch, UI Design, Mobile Design, UX Design, Figma, User Journey Maps, B2C, Layout, User-centered Design (UCD), UX Review
Senior Product Designer
2015 - 2016
Outware Mobile (Now ARQ)
- Redesigned Latitude's (then GE Money) mobile app product. Latitude had online banking but to make it more secure, they wanted to translate the desktop web version into an app format.
- Collaborated, presented, and influenced Latitude's internal team working on the mobile app project to come up with appropriate designs. The team included engineers, QA, business analysts (BAs), and product managers.
- Integrated and built a prototype to share with the engineers and BAs as a guide that includes patterns and any motion graphics and preloaders that needed to be designed up.
- Transformed Latitude's design system for their new app, including style sheets, patterns, tone of voice, and choice of stock images (if there are any).
- Streamlined a responsive website for the Snap Send Solve product for Melbourne residents to report anything around their communities to their local councils.
Technologies: InVision, After Effects CC, Marvel, Adobe Illustrator, Sketch, UI Design, Mobile Design, UX Design, Figma, B2C, Layout, User-centered Design (UCD), UX Review
Senior Interactive Designer
2015 - 2015
Precedent Communications
- Collaborated with a team at the University of Western Australia (UWA) to redesign its website (uwa.edu.au) while serving as a contract designer in Perth.
- Designed and organized a project for UWA's Open Day website. Open Day is an event where potential students visit the university to find out more about the courses they offer. Here, users could schedule their day before they arrived at the Open Day.
- Managed the internal team at UWA to show design progressions and secure approval from senior stakeholders.
- Overhauled the Future Students page where potential students could get more information about the university's culture and more information about the courses they would like to take.
- Mentored one of UWA's internal designers to work on digital products, including how to approach UX work within the university.
- Collaborated with Perth Airport to refine the user flow and persona creation to understand its onboarding process.
Technologies: Marvel, InVision, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop CC, Sketch, UI Design, Mobile Design, UX Design, B2C, Layout, User-centered Design (UCD), UX Review
Senior Interactive Designer
2011 - 2015
Whybin/TBWA
- Designed McCain's main website by revamping their existing website. One of the goals was to include recipes to inspire customers to cook with McCain's products.
- Collaborated with internal engineers to design an interactive tennis app for Medibank, a health insurance company in Australia. The concept was to allow users to use the app to play tennis with another player on-screen when the ad played on TV.
- Designed a digital campaign for ANZ (one of the largest banks in Australia), which were mostly websites that provided information about its financial products.
- Designed and collaborated with the engineers of a website for Nissan's 4W anniversary, showing users how Nissan's 4W vehicles started in Australia and evolved to the most recent models.
- Designed a responsive website in WordPress for Coles' (one of Australia's largest supermarkets) meat products branded as Graze—locally and ethically sourced by Melbourne's farmers.
Technologies: Axure, InVision, Photoshop CC, Adobe Illustrator, UI Design, UX Design, B2C, Layout, User-centered Design (UCD), UX Review
Interactive Designer and Developer
2010 - 2011
Ogilvy Australia
- Designed a digital campaign website for BMW's future concepts and translated the interaction into a website format with assistance from 3D artists.
- Designed digital campaign assets for BMW, Puma, Bunnings, Officeworks, and AAMI.
- Designed a website for the cabinet-making product of Bunnings, a warehouse and DIY company in Melbourne. Users could use it as a guide to the overall size when it was all built up.
Technologies: Flash, Axure, InVision, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop CC, UI Design, B2C, Layout, User-centered Design (UCD), UX Review
Designer
2009 - 2010
Freelance Designer
- Guided projects with different agencies, such as Sputnik, BBDO, and other smaller agencies. Clients included NAB, Dulux, Carlton, Yellow Pages, Cotton On Group, and Government offices and councils.
- Designed electronic direct mail (EDM) and digital campaigns, including websites, flash banners, and everything related to ad campaigns.
- Aligned digital projects with traditional creatives (art directors and copywriters) to come up with digital campaigns.
- Designed a website for a city council in New South Wales, Australia, called Wagga Wagga, to host its physical products in a digital format.
- Designed and developed Google Ads Campaigns, from concept to development and deployment.
Technologies: Axure, Adobe Illustrator, Flash, Photoshop CC, B2C, Layout, User-centered Design (UCD), UX Review
Education
2005 - 2008
Bachelor's Degree in Art & Design
RMIT University - Melbourne, Australia
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