Laura is available for hire
Hire LauraLaura Vilar Ruiz
Verified Expert in Design
Digital Product Designer
Location
Barcelona, Spain
Toptal Member Since
July 18, 2020
Laura is a versatile product designer and engineer who has helped startups and corporate firms research, advise, ideate, define, and design custom digital experiences and enjoy smooth, successful market launches of their products. She has in-depth expertise in banking and finance, artificial intelligence, and connectivity-based mobile applications. Besides winning a CES award, Laura is an Innovation Awards Honoree for Jacoti Hearing Suite, a cloud-enabled app supporting the hearing impaired.
Portfolio
Work Experience
Product Designer
2021 - PRESENT
HelloFresh
- Helped to grow one of HelloFresh's new verticals called Good Chop in terms of retention and acquisition.
- Worked closely with UX researchers, product owners, engineers, other product designers, and UX writers in giving and receiving feedback.
- Generated low-fidelity user flows, diagrams, user journeys, wireframes, and prototypes.
- Designed high-fidelity design solutions using current brand guidelines.
- Ideated and prototyped several variations to help solve a specific problem for the user.
- Worked at a fast pace to quickly launch experiments, measuring and iterating as fast as possible to achieve growth goals.
Technologies: Product Design, Web Design, App Design, UX Design, UI Design, Illustration, Icon Design, Microinteractions, Animation, Qualitative Research, Quantitative Research, Figma, Design Thinking, Product Growth, User Flows, Mobile Design, Web App Design, User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX)
Senior Product Digital Designer
2014 - PRESENT
Freelance
- Assisted a startup with researching, planning, ideating, defining, designing, and delivering a web browser-based product that helped first-league football teams improve their performance. It is a solution that uses AI to detect football patterns in real-time games.
- Redesigned a mobile app for iOS and Android that creates a virtual fence for dogs by using a Bluetooth-based collar with GPS connectivity.
- Proposed and designed web and mobile solutions that reduced friction in obtaining leads for an educational platform to help students find the right university for their careers.
- Helped to redesign a mobile app feature to send and receive money among friends with the goal of improving usability and increasing engagement. Also, I contributed with conceptualizing and defining new features for this service.
Technologies: Sketch, InVision, User Interface (UI), Visual Design, User Experience (UX), Product Design, User Flows, Mobile Design, Web App Design
Senior UX/UI Designer
2021 - 2022
Form Energy
- Identified the primary target users and interviewed them to map their processes and tasks into a single document as the main source of truth.
- Interviewed different types of scientists to understand their needs and tasks within the tool.
- Designed new processes within the web application requested by scientists.
- Improved the current design system to allocate new components and add consistency across the product.
- Wireframed and prototyped several complex solutions to gather feedback and iterate for a solid final proposal.
- Collaborated constantly with developers and stakeholders.
Technologies: UX Design, Web App Design, UI Design, User Interviews, User Research, User Testing, Wireframing, Project Management, Product Design, User Flows, User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX)
Senior Digital Product Designer
2021 - 2021
Reviewpad (via Toptal)
- Analyzed the developer's and product manager's main pain points with the current product by performing user interviews and informal chats. Also identified potential patterns of use among the users that could help design easier processes of doing things.
- Detailed the experience of both types of users in a customer journey to map needs, tasks, and timing.
- Redesigned the current product including new ways of performing tasks that accommodate better users' needs.
- Added new features to provide more value to developers and managers such as a board view of current code reviews to make it easier when planning the sprint inside a team.
Technologies: Figma, Miro, Web UX, SaaS, Web Technologies, Customer Journeys, User Interviews, User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX), Design Systems, Product Design, User Flows, Web App Design
Lead of Design
2020 - 2021
Bnai Zion Foundation (via Toptal)
- Prototyped in high-fidelity a concept of the product to be tested by real users in two weeks.
- Conceptualized and designed an MVP version of the product (The Joshua Project). A totally responsive web application for the desktop, portrait-tablet, and portrait-mobile.
- Helped to conceptualize and design the first version of the product for The Joshua Network, an online platform for communities of faith to remain connected. A responsive web application with podcast integration which was the main form of content.
Technologies: Sketch, Figma, ProtoPie, Product Design, User Flows, Web App Design, User Interface (UI), User Experience (UX)
Head of Product Design | Co-founder
2013 - 2016
Apiumhub
- Designed new features for a feedback collection online tool (NPS-based) to increase value.
- Created and designed an ecosystem of online products that allows 3D architects and designers to view 3D scenes in the browser and collaborate and make presentations.
- Built several mobile apps to help kids with hearing loss communicate better using their mobile phones at school, which got a CES Innovation Award Honoree in 2016.
- Designed from scratch a responsive e-learning platform mainly for the LATAM niche.
- Redesigned a web app to easily manage books and share them with others across devices.
Technologies: Sketch, InVision, User Interface (UI), Visual Design, User Experience (UX), Product Design, User Flows, Mobile Design, Web App Design
Head of UX Design
2011 - 2013
Semantix
- Designed a responsive contextual dictionary cross-device.
- Prepared, documented, and present all mock-ups, architecture files, and technical information to access the Norman Nielsen Yearly contest.
- Awarded the Best Design Multiplatform Application for Dixio. http://www.nngroup.com/articles/best-application-designs/.
Technologies: User Interface (UI), Visual Design, User Experience (UX), Product Design, User Flows, Web App Design
Education
2007 - 2008
Technical Engineering Degree in Industrial Design
Fachhochschule Düsseldorf - Düsseldorf, Germany
2004 - 2007
Technical Engineering Degree in Industrial Design
Polytechnic University of Valencia - Spain - Valencia, Spain
Certifications
JANUARY 2022 - PRESENT
Cryptocurrency Professional Investments Master
Cryptomaster Academy
JUNE 2020 - PRESENT
Business Thinking Intensive Course
Second Wave Dive
MAY 2012 - PRESENT
Wireframing and Prototyping
Norman Nielsen Group
MAY 2012 - PRESENT
Information Architecture II
Norman Nielsen Group
MAY 2012 - PRESENT
Information Architecture I
Norman Nielsen Group
MAY 2012 - PRESENT
Visual Design for Mobile and Tablet II
Norman Nielsen Group
MAY 2012 - PRESENT
Visual Design for Mobile and Tablet I
Norman Nielsen Group
MAY 2012 - PRESENT
Application Usability 1: Page Level Building Blocks for Feature Design
Norman Nielsen Group
JANUARY 2003 - PRESENT
Master in Designing and Creating Websites
CEDECO
Experience
Collaboration That Works
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