Melissa is available for hire
Hire MelissaMelissa Quintanilha
Verified Expert in Design
Designer
Location
Seattle, WA, United States
Toptal Member Since
January 27, 2017
Melissa has over 15 years of design experience, having designed cross-platform interactive applications in a wide range of domains, including automotive, IoT, healthcare, social, and IT management. She is a great collaborator, an exceptional individual contributor, and is always looking to design cutting-edge solutions to real-world problems. Melissa has been an award-winning senior UX designer at Microsoft and now runs her own studio.
Portfolio
Work Experience
Principal Designer and Co-founder
2015 - PRESENT
Dupla Studios
- Founded a product design business, offering user experience services to companies ranging from startups to large enterprises. Clients include Microsoft, Microsoft Research, Elektrobit, Ford, and Porsche.
- Designed and researched user experience for Omage Labs, a startup in the area of IoT and healthcare. Omage does predictive analytics by leveraging sensors in the homes of seniors, allowing them to live independently longer and uncover changes in overall health before they become emergencies. Our vision enabled Omage to secure key partnerships for their upcoming launch. www.omagelabs.com.
- Led UX design for ProximityFocal (see next entry).
Technologies: Adobe InDesign, Axure, InVision, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Sketch, UI Design, UX Design, B2B, Product Design, Visual Design, Dashboard Design
User Experience Lead
2017 - 2017
ProximityFocal
- Led UX design for an up-and-coming stealth-mode concierge telemedicine startup. The startup's mission is to connect Saudi Arabian patients with Harvard Medical School physicians.
- Performed remote interviews with Saudi Arabian patients and family members, Saudi Arabian physicians and medical staff, as well as American physicians and staff.
- Devised key user profiles, outlining responsibilities, tasks, workflows, needs, wants, and pain points. The user research helped the project gain traction and move forward while being user-focused.
- Designed the vision for the concierge portal as well as the patient portal.
- Worked with key stakeholders to create and design a pitch deck that was used to raise funds.
- Testimonial: "The quality of Melissa's work in her field is truly World Class. However, I believe that judging Melissa by her work alone would do any future client an injustice to themselves. I had the great pleasure in [sic] working with Melissa in the sensitive and evolving world of healthcare. This project in particular is not only new to Melissa but new worldwide and the way she mastered the project was by being genuine, respectful, attentive and a true champion for the desperate people we serve. Effort and work aside, she not only captured my dream of the project but became a part of the dream and an initiator. The reason why she excels in doing what she does with different projects from automotive interface to healthcare is that she is very adaptable due to her genuine self. She uses her genuine self as a rudimentary tool to turn any blank canvas into a tangible dream. I once told Melissa, in a figurative sense 'I am going to give you the colors and will give you complete freedom to paint on a blank canvas.' That was one of the best decisions I made in this project. I have shown Melissa's work to future partners and investors, in the same field of healthcare, from the West, Middle East and Far East, and am glad to say that their responses indicate a bright future for us." --Mohammed Al-Shair, CEO.
Technologies: Pitch Decks, User Experience (UX), User Research, UI Design, UX Design, B2B, Product Design, Visual Design, Dashboard Design
Senior User Experience Designer
2013 - 2015
Microsoft Research FUSE Labs
- Led the design of Calendar.help, an AI virtual scheduling assistant. We incubated the project, and it is now part of Office 365. Read more at the Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2017/07/how-we-built-a-virtual-scheduling-assistant-at-microsoft.
- Led user experience design for mobile projects around objects of conversation, working closely with a partner architect in Outlook.
- Designed the UX for artificial intelligence/bot projects around social productivity.
- Worked on all stages of the UX process, from early ideation with technologists, researchers, and scientists to wireframing, prototyping, and visual design.
- Headed Microsoft Design Expo 2015, coordinating among eight top international design universities. Served as the Microsoft liaison with two Brazilian design universities for Design Expo 2014 and 2015.
Technologies: Storytelling, Envisioning, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, UI Design, UX Design, Product Design, Visual Design, Dashboard Design
Senior User Experience Designer
2011 - 2013
Microsoft Connected Car
- Envisioned the next generation of Microsoft automotive experiences, from early ideation to wireframing and visual design.
- Designed the entertainment area of the Microsoft Connected Car product.
- Actively participated in generative and evaluative user research, including contextual inquiries, competitive reviews, and iterative usability studies.
- Designed for touch and remote interactions via voice, controller, steering wheel controls, gaze, and gestures.
- Represented Microsoft and presented the Microsoft Automotive user experience vision to Fiat/Chrysler, Ford, Mercedes, BMW, and IDEO.
- Selected to be featured on a Microsoft video series about designing the future of the intelligent car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et0mhQLwD3s.
Technologies: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, UI Design, UX Design, Product Design, Visual Design, Dashboard Design
User Experience Designer
2008 - 2011
Microsoft System Center Service Manager
- Led the UX design of award-winning enterprise-level software for management of IT services spanning desktop and web.
- Created and led a team of design integrators, transferring ownership of the UI layer to the UX team for the first time in the team’s history.
- Delivered WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation) and Silverlight control libraries that were used across the entire product suite, reducing the number of UX bugs by the hundreds.
- Actively collaborated with user research through rapid prototyping and attending usability tests as well as field research.
- Implemented a process that outlined the interactions between the UX team and all other product team disciplines: PM, development, and testing (QA).
Technologies: XAML, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, UI Design, UX Design, B2B, Product Design, Visual Design, Dashboard Design
User Experience Designer
2007 - 2008
Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD)
- Led UX design for project Synchronous Objects, an award-winning website for visualizing movement and dance.
- Designed several visual and interaction concepts for the website. Owned the UX for the overall site and its family of built-in tools.
- Worked on a multidisciplinary team with collaborators from computer science, dance, design, animation, philosophy, geography, and architecture.
Technologies: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, UI Design, UX Design, Product Design, Visual Design
Education
2005 - 2008
Master of Fine Arts Degree in Interaction Design
The Ohio State University - Columbus, OH (USA)
1997 - 2003
Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Experience
Collaboration That Works
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