Raymond Sharma
Verified Expert in Design
Designer
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Toptal member since January 30, 2018
In a career spanning 20 years, Ray has expertise in delivering products and services that have captivated and delighted millions. He is an acclaimed leader in creating exceptional experiences, providing consultancy, spearheading international teams, and delivering world-class solutions for Fortune 500 enterprises, small to medium businesses, and startups.
Portfolio
Work Experience
Founder | Director
perBodhi Experience Design
- Established a consultancy dedicated to delivering cutting-edge digital services that harness the power of HCI, research, design best practices, and UX/UI to bring significant value to both end users and businesses.
- Spearheaded the digital strategy for a retail store, orchestrating the design, development, and utilization of analytics in WordPress. This resulted in a remarkable surge of over 32% in eCommerce presence, customer engagements, and in-store visits.
- Provided comprehensive design solutions to enhance customer satisfaction for various clients. Facilitated design thinking workshops that resulted in increased funding and groundbreaking innovations, incorporating user research, UX, and UI design.
- Designed and developed multiple WordPress sites with eCommerce, affiliate links, CRM, and analytics integrations.
- Developed and implemented analytics to drive business growth, elevating SEO and social media influence to secure top Google Search and Facebook rankings within the local community.
- Collaborated with startups to refine their business model canvas through immersive workshops, one-on-one mentoring, comprehensive UX research, and innovative UX and UI design. This involved crafting MVPs and prototypes to bring their visions to life.
- Collaborated with a startup and prototyped a mobile app in Axure to connect young people with offers and services from local lifestyle businesses.
- Mentored and advised entrepreneurs, startups, and students in design thinking, UX, and UI design. This also involved spearheading an IoT community working group and delivering courses on prototyping and business model execution.
- Achieved a remarkable 20% increase in SEO rankings by enhancing user experience, refining site navigation, creating new content, and implementing front-end development for a WordPress website dedicated to a recruitment marketplace.
- Took charge of both online and offline coordination, creative direction, brand, and marketing for a 20,000-capacity festival. Delivered web, mobile, and print assets while managing the build-up and event on the day.
Lead Product Designer
Altos Labs
- Crafted the design strategy and spearheaded the UX and UI design for an all-in-one cloud-based bioinformatics solution that empowered scientists to effortlessly build applications and conduct data analytics to unlock valuable insights in their work.
- Engaged in user research with scientists, developers, and other stakeholders to create interfaces and workflows that encouraged experiential learning.
- Utilized UX and UI methodologies expertly to craft a sophisticated application that caters to the diverse and intricate needs of highly skilled users in specialized fields, allowing for seamless navigation through nonlinear workflows.
- Crafted and implemented a powerful design system for all Altos' applications, resulting in accelerated development timelines and upholding uniform, user-friendly design principles.
- Empowered users to embrace enhanced efficiency through innovative designs, offering adaptable and seamless pathways, and harmonized transitions across various tools and workspaces.
- Revamped the UI to declutter without sacrificing functionality, facilitate a smooth shift between primary and secondary information, and enhance the visibility of essential information.
- Delivered user-driven solutions to support Altos in automating the creation and management of computing resources while reducing the costs and the need to maintain a high-end R&D AWS cloud infrastructure.
CX Expert | Ideation Workshop Facilitator
Koch Industries - Koch Global Solutions
- Organized, planned, and delivered an innovation and ideation workshop with Koch Senti to understand better and explore consumer, product, and market strategies for the Senti intelligent sensing technology.
- Contributed to this workshop that used the virtual whiteboarding Miro and post-presentations, helping to bring a collective understanding from multiple stakeholders to areas for further exploration and a future strategy for the business.
- Worked on this workshop that leveraged several vital questions to identify its customers, evaluate opportunities, and prioritize business focus.
Client Design Services and Strategy Lead | Design Director
Toptal LLC
- Grew design and customer experience services for Toptal to meet the needs of its clients with the top 3% of designers across the globe to accomplish the amazing.
- Worked with enterprises, SMBs, and startups across the globe to bring them the world's top design thinkers, innovators, UX researchers, and UX/UI designers (interaction, visual, and communications).
- Collaborated with revenue teams to grow accounts, which included creating design capability presentations and RFPs.
- Mentored talent and product teams on design best practices and processes.
- Consulted on internal initiatives to increase Toptal core services and revenue and improve its software.
Product Designer
TBTTS, Inc
- Used Axure to design and prototype the world's first blockchain ecosystem for fully compliant issuing, trading, clearing, and settling of tokenized securities.
- Led and guided the design process through paper concepts, rapid prototyping, and higher-fidelity designs to convey information architecture, visual design, and interaction.
- Managed the project and collaborated remotely across time zones with the client and key stakeholders to realize the system vision.
- Leveraged Axure, online collaboration, and Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat to convey various stages of the deliverables and final concepts.
Principal User Experience Consultant
Tobias & Tobias Consultancy
- Took responsibility for leading simultaneous projects while working closely with clients, stakeholders, and developers (often global) from the pitch to inception and execution.
- Facilitated a client’s product visions by researching, conceiving, wireframing, sketching, prototyping, and mocking up user experiences for digital products.
- Served as a subject matter expert and evangelist in meeting business, customer, and user needs.
- Collaborated and actively participated with multidisciplinary teams to deliver successful outcomes within tight deadlines.
- Led and worked hands-on to deliver desktop and mobile solutions for Deutsche Bank Autobahn, Fidelity UK Investments' investment app, and First Western Trains.
Senior Architect: User Experience
Finastra
- Led and worked hands-on with the global UX team to deliver usable, functional, and intuitive software applications of high complexity for the banking, treasury, trading, risk, and healthcare industries across desktop, web, mobile, and cloud.
- Led the design program for a white-label experience banking platform for Misys that consolidated legacy financial technologies into a new flexible, unified, and highly configurable experience platform.
- Designed the UI and interaction patterns for a cloud-based carbon emission certificate trading and compliance SaaS-based platform.
- Consulted on and assisted in designing an electronic health record (EHR) for Allscripts, working with the US design team to conduct qualitative research and create journey maps and design concepts.
- Program managed projects, including obtaining funding, conducting strategic requirements gathering, program planning, business case development, stakeholder engagement and leadership, vendor selection, definition management, and design management.
- Followed an iterative design process, progressively creating detailed designs and higher-fidelity prototypes through sketches, wireframes, and prototypes to refine the best design solutions.
- Led and mentored interdisciplinary, distributed teams with members in London, India, Manila, and the United States. Worked directly with clients, end-users, managers, and senior stakeholders for a worldwide distributed user population.
- Reduced operational costs and improved usability and brand value through a common user interface, interaction patterns, training, standards creation, implementations, and governance.
Head of Information Architecture and User Experience
Euromonitor International
- Increased business revenue streams, reduced operating costs, and improved brand awareness through research and user-centric redesign of Euromonitor's market research, business intelligence reports, and data on industry products.
- Developed business cases, elicited business, and did a usability analysis to determine the acquisition and implementation of a SaaS architecture.
- Translated ideas and prototypes into production-ready designs while understanding the high-level constraints of the user, technology, business, and brand.
- Rolled out new web products and features within this environment, improving the overall architecture, usability, and design for users while also improving internal processes, increasing productivity, and reducing overhead.
- Delivered collaboration, personalization, publishing, search, knowledge management, and other web 2.0 and 3.0 technologies to clients and businesses.
- Led workshops and conducted usability research to identify and document requirements.
- Spearheaded the development of Passport, which became Euromonitor's flagship product and won numerous awards in its market for content and usability.
Head of Information Architecture
Centrica
- Reduced operational costs and improved work practices and knowledge sharing to all group employees across the corporate center, British Gas, Centrica Energy, Direct Energy (USA), Automobile Association, One.Tel, and Dyno.
- Led the information architecture and taxonomy in designing, developing, and implementing the global intranet and extranet across various mediums and technological platforms, including desktops, laptops, mobile, and navigational systems.
- Improved knowledge-based sharing through improvements in the overall search and findability of information.
- Ensured that the intranet and related products complied with the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) for accessibility through forums, documentation, and user testing.
Lead Information Architect
Object One (Now Digitas)
- Worked on RFPs, met with clients and end users to gather requirements, and led research and UX activities for a range of clients, primarily within government services.
- Conducted end-user interviews at the start and end of delivering client solutions.
- Delivered task flows, information architecture, sitemaps, wireframes, user interface designs, and requirements for one of the UK’s best-regarded internet agencies.
- Pitched, won, and delivered information architecture and user experience design for the award-winning Stockton Borough Government Council site serving 180,000+ people and many personas.
- Delivered the UK government education standards website and the UK government drugs intranet.
Head of Design
LineOne (Now TalkTalk)
- Reported to the CEO while providing creative direction in visual and interaction design and managing resource allocation, hiring, budgets, and schedules.
- Increased click-through rates and commercial value through the redesigned LineOne and Tiscali websites.
- Designed the mobile presence and template-driven sign-up CD products.
Senior Designer and Web Master
Multiactive Software (Now Maximizer, Inc.)
- Joined the company to lead the design team right after completing my Vancouver Film School Multimedia Diploma. Delivered UX and UI designs for Concord Pacific and Dunn & Bradstreet.
- Led the design of the UX and UI of Canada's first MLS realty website with a team of designers.
- Led the architecture, user testing, interface design, prototyping, and XML/HTML coding of templates for the CRM and eCommerce software for web and desktop.
- Delivered the COMDEX award-winning ecBuilder while recruiting and managing a team of five designers.
- Designed a user- and action-based navigation system to funnel users based on their choices within a website that integrated with Maximizer CRM and ecBuilder eCommerce website builder.
Education
Diploma in New Media
Vancouver Film School - Vancouver, Canada
Diploma in Retail Management
Sainsbury's PLC Management Program - London, England
Bachelor of Arts Degree in Product Design
Ravensbourne College of Design and Communications - London, England
Certifications
Agile Scrum Product Owner
Mountain Goat Software
Skills
Tools
Axure RP Pro, Illustrator CC, UX Tools, Adobe CC, Microsoft OneNote, Prototyping on Paper (POP), Microsoft PowerPoint, Figma, InVision, UXPin, Visio, Dreamweaver 2018, InDesign CC, Microsoft Outlook, Sketch, 123D Design, Excel 2016, Flash, Slack, Adobe Experience Design (XD), Adobe, Google Analytics, Adobe Creative Suite, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, OmniGraffle, Microsoft Word, Pencil & Paper, Microsoft Excel, Asana, Google Workspace, Photoshop CC, Premiere Pro CC, Miro, Jira, Spreadsheets
Platforms
Mobile, WordPress, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Apple, Windows, Web, Microsoft, iOS, Android, Chrome OS, PC, MacOS, Axure, Apple Watch, Salesforce
Industry Expertise
Banking & Finance, Healthcare, Events, Retail & Wholesale, Marketing, Investments
Languages
HTML5, HTML, CSS4, CSS, XML, PHP, JavaScript
Other
Software Interfaces, Interactive Web Design, Interface Design, Interaction Design (IxD), Ideation, Inspiration, User Interface (UI), Device Interaction, Interactive UX, Interactive UI, Wireframing, Navigation, User Analysis, Analytics, Proposal Design, Task Flows, Task Analysis, Portals, Personalization, Consumer Banking, Mobile Banking, Online Banking, Commercial Banking, UX Flows, Ideation Workshops, User Journeys, User Journey Maps, User Paths, Customer Research, Usability Guidelines, Usability Engineering, Interviewing, Client Interviews, Customer Interviews, Stakeholder Interviews, Personas, Card Sorting, Use Cases, Field Studies, Usability Testing, Ease of Use, User Roles, Usability, Usability Heuristics, Web Usability, User Flows, Prototyping, UX Research, User Research, Rapid Prototyping, Design Leadership, UX Leadership, Design Research, Web Research, Low-fidelity Mockups, Information Architecture (IA), User Experience (UX), Story Mapping, Web Portals, Navigation Design, eCommerce UX, Agile UX, Design, Graphical User Interface (GUI), Visual Design, App UI, UX Strategy, IA Strategy, Digital Strategy, App Design, Desktop App Design, Android App Design, Web App Design, Responsive UX Design, Responsive UI, Accessibility, Complex Web Systems, Complex Application User Interfaces (UI), Dashboard Design, SaaS Design, WordPress Design, Mockups, UI Design, Mobile Mockups, UX Prototyping, High-fidelity Mockups, Sketching, PowerPoint Templates, Research, Financial Design, Interviews, eCommerce UI, Portal Design, UI Patterns, App UX, Lean UX, UX Analysis, Adobe UX, Needs Analysis, UX Design, Banking UI Design, Freelancing, Design Thinking, User-centered Design (UCD), Product Design, Discovery, Web Applications, Customer Experience, Visual Storytelling, Enterprise Design, Payment Gateways, Web App UX, Web App UI, Workshop Facilitation, UX Audits, Workshops, B2C, Responsive Web Design (RWD), Web Design, Agile Product Management, Product Management, Product Roadmaps, Product Strategy, Scrum, Finance, B2B, Data Visualization, User Personas, Intranets, Responsive Web Apps, Mobile Design, Social Networks, Employee Engagement, Component Libraries, Enterprise Application Design, Layout, Layout Design, WebApp, Productivity, User Testing, UI Components, User Validation Testing, Pitch Decks, Presentation Design, Content Writing, Journey Mapping, UX Wireframes, Design Systems, Annotated Wireframes, Style Guides, Feature Prioritization, User Stories, White Label Design, Admin Panels, Software as a Service (SaaS), Heuristic Analysis, Data-driven Design, Interactive Tools, Visual Identity, Private Banking, Case Studies, Touch Interactions, Field Research, Animated Interactions, Rich User Interfaces, Mega Navigation Design, Web Analytics, Content Management Systems (CMS), Mind Mapping, Fintech, Feasibility Studies, HTML UI, iPhone, Taxonomy, Customer Analysis, Pivot Tables, Internet of Things (IoT), Excel Reporting, 3D Print Design, 3D Printing, 3D Product Modeling, User Interviews, Observation, Storyboarding, Guerilla Usability Testing, Focus Groups, User Surveys, Benchmarking, Surveys, Mental Model, Remote Usability Testing, Unmoderated Remote Usability Testing, Ethnography, Benchmark Analysis, iOS Guides, User Needs, Mind Maps, WordPress eCommerce, Outlook, eCommerce, Logo Design, Nomenclature, Writing & Editing, PowerPoint Design, Mobile App Design, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), iOS App Design, Windows App Design, Complex Problem Solving, Complex Reasoning, Photography, Brand Identity, SaaS, JavaScript Libraries, Utilities, Big Data, 3D Design, Drupal Sites, Drupal Design, Technical Design, Menu Design, Audio, A/B Testing, Complex Data Analysis, Branding, Brand Development, UI Branding, UX Branding, Consumer Branding, Digital Branding, Dashboards, Web Dashboards, WordPress Themes, Quantitative Analysis, Hybrid Apps, Health IT, Empathy Mapping, Roadmaps, Digital Ecosystem Mapping, Copywriting, Mindjet, Adobe Acrobat Pro, Wikis, Agile, Plumtree, Nonprofits, Startups, Nightlife, Business Ideas, Apps, Lean Startups, Technical Forex Concepts, Financial UX, Forex Trading Room, Qualitative Research, Quantitative User Research, Patterns, Scrum Master, Service Design, Responsive, Loans & Lending, Corporate Finance, Social Media, UI Development, Investing, Leadership, Client Relations, Interface Testing, Interactive PDFs, VR Interfaces, AR Interfaces, Apple Pay, Icon Design, Liferay, Research Studies, Diary Studies, Office 365, Google, Presentations, Mobile UX, Mobile UI, Enterprise SaaS, Islamic Banking, Digital Banking, Healthcare Management Systems, Healthcare IT, Electronic Health Records (EHR), Market Research & Analysis, Business Intelligence (BI), Consumer Insights, Data, BI Reports, Reports, Infographics, Vendor Selection, Slideshows, Management Consulting, Best Practices in Design, Product Consultant, Consulting, UX Mentoring, Mentorship & Coaching, Innovative UX, UX Pattern Design, Customer Journeys, Design Patterns, Loans, Risk Management, Credit Risk, Management, Warehouses, Design Workshops, UX Workshops, High-fidelity Prototypes, Scientific Data Analysis, Data Modeling, Project Management
Experience
- Discovery - 20 years
- Prototyping - 20 years
- Product Design - 20 years
- UX Research - 20 years
- Interface Design - 20 years
- Design Thinking - 20 years
- UX Design - 18 years
- UX Strategy - 16 years
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