Maria Newman
Verified Expert in Design
Designer
Los Angeles, CA, United States
Toptal member since July 25, 2022
Maria is an LA-based product designer specializing in marketplaces, B2B dashboards, and consumer wellness apps. She has designed and shipped multiple profitable and beloved consumer apps and created desktop web dashboards. She has an MA in clinical psychology. Her experience includes working with clients to design 0->1 products and leverage existing design systems to improve and iterate features. Maria's areas of interest include mental health and B2B product design.
Portfolio
Design System for Healthcare Practice SaaS App
Restaurant Supply Chain Web App
Desktop Web Portal/Dashboard for Hotel Marketplace
Work Experience
Senior Product Designer and Manager
Freelance
- Designed the v.10 of a consumer psychology email-based product that links a user account with an OpenAI GPT, providing customized healthcare and mental health insights for the user in a weekly email digest.
- Redesigned the MVP of a healthcare back office cloud app, improving the UI design of the cloud-based healthcare practice software.
- Designed the MVP of a rank and review consumer social app for beauty fans, preparing the product for engineers to build it and the founder to raise money.
- Directed all UI/UX for an AI-powered medical transcribing/consumer health app, doing customer research, industry analysis, branding design, and all product and content design for the app.
- Redesigned the MVP of a B2B restaurant supply chain app, improving the back-office operations of both restaurants and vendors.
- Led end-to-end product design for a Gen Z-focused dating app. Redesigned brand identity. Performed customer research and industry analysis to identify the problem, led iterative design work in Figma, and served as project manager for the build.
- Strategized, led UX research, and designed habit-tracking features in the productivity app Happier, which won a Webby for best interaction design.
- Conducted generative and evaluative user research to gain insight into the app user experience and surface recommendations on which UX flows, UI designs, and features to iterate, fix, or eliminate for all clients.
- Redesigned landing pages and lead-gen tools to improve brand presence and drive customer acquisition goals.
Design System Designer
Checkups Dental
- Redesigned a dental practice cloud-based SaaS app to modernize their UI, developing a new design system in Figma and deploying it across 50+ screens.
- Improved the usability and efficiency of the app's UX to speed up in-person productivity and jobs to be done.
- Supported the vetting of the app's tech stack to integrate features and functionalities that expand the app's customer offering.
Senior Product Designer
Hopper
- Led product design for Hopper Homes, Hopper's short-term rental offering that places travelers with lodging around the world. Focused on mobile designs for iOS, Android, and desktop web.
- Was the head designer for 70+ features that improved performance, including a search funnel redesign that increased conversion by 30%, a checkout redesign that increased conversion by 18%, and growth campaigns that increased repeat buyers by 20%.
- Developed MVP designs for Hopper's hotel supply desktop portal, creating an easy-to-use B2B desktop web experience to support Hopper's business goal of signing 100,000 independent hotels to list properties directly on Hopper.
- Delivered work with a focus on a great UX for Hopper Homes and Hotels, balancing goals, design cohesion, and ease of implementation. Owned end-to-end user journey, from ideation to design, copywriting, prototyping, QA to final product.
- Worked autonomously across several cross-functional product development groups with product managers, front- and back-end engineers, and data scientists to prioritize and build new features.
Founding Product Designer and Product Manager
Chani Nicholas Inc
- Designed and launched the iOS app that increased company revenue ten times by performing the PM, UI/UX designer, and marketing lead tasks.
- Carried out other activities such as creating user stories, identifying features, mapping out information architecture, designing wireframes, conducting user research, and more.
- Built the mobile app visual identity and design system in concert with the creative director and illustrators, which resulted in the design system being extensible and still in use today.
- Led the go-to-market strategy execution, hitting user acquisition goals within 24 hours of launch.
Product Communications
Microsoft
- Led the communications strategy as part of the marketing workstream to launch significant products such as Windows, Office, Surface, and many others.
- Worked in synergy with other functions across the company, both horizontally and vertically, to get feedback, reviews, and approvals on writing and communications materials.
- Conducted industry research and analysis, identified trends, and prepared reports for executives on any white space opportunities.
- Presented campaign ideas to executives for feedback and review on strategy and plans.
Education
Master's Degree in Clinical Psychology
Antioch University - Los Angeles, CA
Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communications
University of Washington - Seattle, WA, USA
Certifications
UI Design Program
CareerFoundry
Skills
Tools
Adobe Experience Design (XD), Usertesting.com, Google Analytics, Mailchimp, Principle, Asana, Jira, Illustrator CC, Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, Sketch, Miro
Platforms
Figma, iOS, Web, Mobile, Android, WordPress, Mixpanel, Contentful
Industry Expertise
Psychology & Mental Health, Healthcare, Health & Wellness, Food & Beverage
Other
Google Cloud/Suite, UX Design, UI Prototyping, Rapid Prototyping, Wireframing, Responsive UI, User Research, UI Style Guides, Mobile App Design, Information Architecture (IA), Design Systems, User Interface (UI), Information Design, Responsive Web Apps, UX Research, User Testing, Writing & Editing, Research, User Experience (UX), User Workshops, Desktop Web Design, Product Design, UI Design, Web App Design, Mobile UI Design, Mobile UX Design, Web Design, Mobile UI, Mobile UX, B2C, Consumer Applications, Mobile Design, App Design, User Engagement, Mobile Apps, Early-stage Startups, Habit Formation, B2B, Prototyping, User Journeys, User Flows, Landing Page Design, System Design, User Validation, High-fidelity Prototypes, Low-fidelity Prototypes, Workshops, Design Workshops, UX Workshops, Ideation Workshops, Discovery Workshops, User Personas, Mockups, UX Wireframes, Interactive Prototypes, Usability Testing, Collaboration, Leadership, Marketplace Platforms, Marketplace Design, Multi-sided Marketplaces, Interactive Design, Dashboards, Qualitative Research, User Interviews, Storytelling, Responsive Web Design (RWD), Web Dashboards, High-fidelity Mockups, Data Visualization, Stakeholder Management, iOS App Design, Android App Design, Web Applications, Design Leadership, SaaS Design, UX Audits, Complex Web Systems, Complex Application User Interfaces (UI), User Workflows, Web UX Design, Design, Web UI Design, Web UI, Web UX, Copywriting, UI Elements, User Psychology, Product Requirements Documentation (PRD), Design Principles, Heuristics, Visual Design, Websites, Web App UX, Web App UI, eCommerce, Loyalty Programs, Quantitative Research, Quantitative User Research, Iconography, Amplitude, Apple Design, Mobile App UI, Animation, Style Guides, UX Branding, Progressive Web Applications (PWAs), APIs, Productivity Improvement, Mindfulness, Tracking, Journal Design, Quizzes, Meditation, Rich Media, Wellness, Reading Interfaces, Lead Generation, Fintech, Desktop App Design, Debt, Loans, Personal Finance, Personal Finance Management, eCommerce UX, eCommerce UI, Mobile eCommerce, eCommerce Design, Social, Social Commerce, Circular Economy, Sales, User-generated Content, Foodtech, Food Photography, Food Styling, Recipes & Cooking, Grocery Delivery, B2C Marketing, Headless Commerce, Web3.js, Technical Writing, News Media, Paid Media, Annotated Wireframes, Content Strategy, Marketplaces, Web Portals, Portal Websites, LaunchDarkly, Healthtech, Consumer Health, Learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), Brand Design, Rebranding, Tailwind UI, Clinical psychology, behavioral health, Health IT
Experience
- Research - 12 years
- Writing & Editing - 12 years
- Design Principles - 10 years
- Figma - 7 years
- UX Design - 7 years
- Information Architecture (IA) - 6 years
- Product Requirements Documentation (PRD) - 5 years
- UI Prototyping - 4 years
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