Sharmaine Tan
Verified Expert in Design
Designer
Singapore, Singapore
Toptal member since October 29, 2020
Sharmaine (she/they) is a veteran designer with experience designing for organizations such as Refinitiv Labs (acquired by LSEG), Changi Airport, Clyde & Co, BCGX, and Prudential. She finds passion in building purposeful design solutions and fares well iterating on ambiguous and complex problem sets. She prioritizes value-adding activities to solve business and end user objectives, leveraging her diverse industry experience in varied stages of many businesses, including startups.
Experience
- User Research - 11 years
- UI Design - 11 years
- Design - 11 years
- User Needs - 9 years
- Rapid Prototyping - 9 years
- Competitor Analysis & Profiling - 8 years
- Proof of Concept (POC) - 6 years
- User Experience (UX) - 4 years
Portfolio
Transport Strategy Simulator
Work Experience
Senior UX Designer
Toptal Clients
- Created an ML-based customer experience dashboard that ties in disparate multichannel data sources to give end-to-end oversight into the performance of a global automotive company.
- Built an AI Initiative Management Dashboard for PE firms, portfolio companies, and executives.
- Contributed to an Australian mortgage broking (IaaS) web application that uses suburb, demographic, and leads data to ease the mortgage broker’s research workflow and increase their deal closure rate.
- Worked on an employee performance assessment tool at Prudential, an enterprise insurance firm, for a legacy desktop web into a progressive web application for them to give/seek feedback and assess performance at various tiers with data visualizations.
- Contributed to a consumer transaction insights SaaS web application in the global alternative data space. The app analyses consumer purchasing patterns for product and category managers. Created a design system for data visualizations.
- Worked on a customer win-back campaign flow builder SaaS Tool for SMBs to reduce customer churn and increase MoM revenue. It was recently acquired and raised $15.1 million for its Series A round.
UX/UI/Product Design
Freelance/Self-initiated
- Worked for a global climate-carbon credit rating agency with content automation plans using GenAI-powered dashboards. Developed visualization to communicate the rating for a sustainable development goal impact score per carbon credit.
- Conceptualized and delivered a global logistics internal web application concept that manages many cross-border transport strategies for customers.
- Worked on a radical, US-based, B2B social learning edtech platform for executives and managers. Developed feature improvements and redesigned design components.
- Designed a mock mobile app (iOS) concept for autonomous robot incident management. Worked on the product strategy, feature definition, defining the MVP scope, wrote PRD, defined UAT requirements, and planned and executed user testing interviews.
- Developed a mock mobile app (Android) concept that helps asthmatic users monitor their health and environment by using wearable technology. Planned user research, conducted user interviews, worked on wireframes and user flows, and designed prototypes.
- Consulted for a leading luxury watch magazine, worked on a UX audit and competitor analysis, and synthesized findings from previously done user interviews to develop a report to inform the redesign of their website.
- Designed a physical board game that emulates the windfalls and downfalls of life and helps players become more aware of how they currently make life decisions. I worked on the game mechanics, illustrations, and design.
Senior Product Designer
Terrascope
- Worked on a carbon accounting platform in the climate finance space for companies with complex supply chains to create a detailed accounting of a company's emissions (specializing in Scope 3 emissions) for Sustainability Teams.
- Contributed to the following product verticals: data processing, data profiling, carbon driver tree, simulating reductions, emissions hotspot analysis, tracking progress and collaboration, and reporting and disclosure.
- Conducted user interviews with the auditor persona in a globally leading consulting firm to understand their process for auditing the carbon emissions of large companies to further the work in reporting and disclosure of emissions.
- Assisted in documenting and creating UX artifacts such as the CX map and personas.
- Connected cross-functional stakeholders to identify opportunity areas from customer feedback.
- Carried out heuristic analysis on the existing product to share opportunity areas and gaps that can be resolved with UI/UX.
Product and Interface Designer
Refinitiv Labs (Now LSEG Labs)
- Worked on greenfield, Horizon 2- and 3-type projects that utilize Refinitiv's proprietary data to innovate in the financial services sector.
- Built SentiMine POC, an advanced research discovery tool that reduces equity analysts' time to insight by 80%. The tool helps deliver insight within time-pressure environments, as stated by a British multinational bank's head of equity investment strategy.
- Co-tested users by determining the system usability score (SUS), which assessed the user's ability to comprehend the interface through tasks completed. It scored A-85.5 on usability.
- Conducted secondary and qualitative user research with top senior managers in IB, PE firms, and corporate treasurers from market-leading bulge bracket banks and investment firms. Delivered a presentation of findings for a Capital Markets Deal Origination investment case.
- Co-managed a design sprint for the conceptualization of SentiMine with key stakeholders to prioritize features discovered through research performed.
- Worked on an application that exposes offshore risk and scores the probability of entities to financial crime using knowledge graphs.
- Provided design concept for the Belt and Road (BRI) Infrastructure Asset Monitoring business case.
- Developed an FX Event Impact Monitor's UI/IDX that evaluates abnormal volatility signals and surfaces them on detection, allowing users to correlate impact on multiple currency pairs, leveraging the use of a design system.
- Planned and conducted user interviews with top senior managers in investment banking, private equity firms, and corporate treasurers from Citigroup, Blackstone, Merrill Lynch, Thomson Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Societe Generale, and others.
- Co-created a Reddit sentiment engine for the lab's innovation week in three days, demonstrating the correlation of a subreddit's sentiment to the S&P 500, proving that the data set is a viable source of the signal.
UX/UI Designer
Wonder
- Designed a leading airport's incident reporting dashboard through digital transformation efforts.
- Worked on a social civic engagement platform that aims to democratize the distribution of annual government funding through citizen-led initiatives and projects.
- Redesigned a patent discovery platform that supports researchers in their ideation and opportunity-sensing workflows by keeping track of the latest technologies.
- Provided UI for an ERP system for Pique Labs, one of the largest tuition center providers in Southeast Asia, to scale operations regionally.
Creative Director
Asset Management Academy
- Developed an experimental initiative, Penny, a financial literacy and edutainment mobile app (iOS) concept for economic improvement. Expanded user research, wireframes, a user flow, and a high-fidelity prototype for concept validation testing.
- Designed the academy's website that enables students to register as students, pay for courses, view their class schedule, access learning materials based on their completion stage, and receive class announcements.
- Managed the design and development functions, driving development efforts for the academy.
- Testimonial: "...she has top-notch design skills, and always comes through with these special talents of hers whenever we have new projects in our fast-paced working environment! I am excited for whoever gets to work with her next!"
Senior UX/UI Designer
360F
- Built out a product extension for AI-powered financial planning and a CRM web application through constant stakeholder co-creation sessions from ideation to development.
- Established design standards with the creation of a design system, performed a design audit, and led design critiques to improve old design components.
- Represented the UX team in client requirements gathering sessions to understand and document workflow processes to generate UX artifacts such as personas and user workflow diagrams.
- Collaborated with the design team to redesign an experimental mobile app (iOS) concept that enables financial advisors to assess a client's risk tolerance.
Associate Director, Product Development
Sapio
- Planned, designed, developed, and launched an edtech P2P marketplace website and mobile app (iOS/Android) in seven months. Additionally, I architected and designed three other platforms (the main platform, the expert, and the administration platform).
- Oversaw the creative direction of the Sapio brand, its multimedia campaigns, pitch decks, and collaterals that captured high-profile expert leads from companies such as Google and Airbnb, which contributed to securing $1.2 million in the seed round.
- Managed the design team focused on developing, designing, and producing cross-channel campaigns, including logos, branding guidelines, and marketing campaign collateral.
- Facilitated the product launch while collaborating cross-functionally to bring the roadshow live. The guerrilla methods employed for the creative direction got local media attention and stirred conversation around jobless university graduates.
- Delivered within the established budget and scheduling parameters for the product's soft and hard launch creative development. Collaborated with the leadership team on the GTM strategy.
- Supervised web and mobile development sprints, working closely with the engineering team to ensure clear requirements and deliver the websites and apps on time. Participated in user acceptance testing sessions and ensured accurate UI.
- Testimonial: "On her own, she is extremely capable and resourceful, a miracle worker. Her spirit of excellence inspires me to do the same for my work. She constantly pushes herself to do better work and is never afraid to charter unknown waters."
- Received testimonial: "She is also instrumental in guiding and developing junior designers on the team."
Graphic Designer
Clyde & Co/OLIVER Agency
- Delivered consistently in a high-pressure environment with 10 – 11 deliverables per day, servicing the APAC region.
- Rebranded an associated law firm in Ulaanbaatar; designed a brand suite for physical and digital marketing collateral along with a brand guide.
- Designed pitches, brochures, presentations, infographics, and online and offline event campaigns globally.
- Testimonial: "Sharmaine has demonstrated exceptional time management skills in a high-pressure environment and consistently delivers fantastic work. Sharmaine is adept at explaining and executing design concepts in line with the firm's market strategy."
Senior Graphic Designer
ZALORA Group
- Supervised and mentored the local team, partnering cross-functionally to streamline design-marketing processes, managing and monitoring the in/outflow of work, averaging 50 tickets at any given time for a team of six designers.
- Developed seasonal marketing campaigns to create microsites, marketing emails, and collateral for the corporate partnership team and worked on the eCommerce mobile app's launch campaign.
- Boosted product sales by 6 – 18% through A/B testing campaigns, GDNs, and email marketing templates in collaboration with growth/marketing managers.
- Aligned the team around the design guidelines to ensure consistency across campaigns.
- Testimonial: "A very talented and versatile designer, technically strong, and most importantly for the role, very business-savvy. She always had a positive attitude at work, was a strong team player, always proactive, and was a very responsible asset to any team!"
Graphic Designer
Page One Publishing
- Coordinated with other offices regionally to update the company website with the latest marketing campaign collateral.
- Designed promotional material for theme-based book launches and events, from gift cards to retail window displays and electronic direct mailers (HTML and CSS).
- Participated in book acquisition sessions and aided in the production of the company's biannual catalog that showcases our available books for global distribution.
Education
Bacherlor of Arts Degree (Hons. First Class) in Graphic Design
University of the West of England - Bristol, United Kingdom
Advanced Diploma in Visual Communication (Graphic Design)
First Media Design School - Singapore
Certifications
UX Certificate
Nielsen Norman Group
Product Management Nanodegree
Udacity
UX/UI Intensive
DesignLab
Master Class in Strategic Design Management
DesignSingapore Council and VHM Design Futures
The Power of Infographics by Juan Velasco
Gestalten and Methodology
User Experience Lab
Hyper Island
Skills
Tools
InDesign CC, Balsamiq, InVision App, Asana, Sketch, Draw.io, MURAL, Adobe Experience Design (XD), Zeplin, InVision, Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, Deal Lifecycle, Adobe CC, Airtable, Marvel App, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Dreamweaver, Trello, Google Analytics, Sublime Text 3, Maze, Miro, Slack, Confluence, Jira, Google Sheets, Google Docs
Platforms
Figma, iOS, Android, WordPress, Mobile
Industry Expertise
Banking & Finance, Consumer Products, Education, Logistics, Insurance, Investments, Entertainment & Leisure, Real Estate
Other
Product Development, Product Strategy, User Stories, Minimum Viable Product (MVP), Competitive Intelligence, Product Vision, User Experience (UX), Personas, UX Prototyping, User Flows, Wireframing, Storyboarding, Competitor Analysis & Profiling, UX Research, Visual Research, Sitemaps, Empathy Mapping, Ideation, Strategic Design, Critical Analysis, Brainstorming, Innovation, Value Proposition Design, Data Visualization, Rapid Prototyping, Rapid Sketching, Design Thinking, Human-centered Design (HCD), User Scenarios, Surveys, Task Analysis, Mobile Apps, Research, Web Dashboards, Web Applications, Dashboards, UI Branding, UX Design, Web UI, User Research, User Personas, Branding, UI Design, Prototyping, Design Leadership, Product Design, User Interface (UI), Visual Design, Dashboard Design, Web App UX, Web App UI, Complex Application User Interfaces (UI), eCommerce, Brand Guidelines, Web App Design, Typography, B2C Marketing, Design, MVP Design, MLP Design, Proof of Concept (POC), New Product Development, User Needs, Mobile Prototypes, Paper Prototyping, UI Style Guides, Remote Prototyping, Early-stage Startups, Customer Research, UI Research, Design Research, Domain Research, Product Research, Research Analysis, Online Research, Research Methods, Lean Research, Microinteraction Design, Mobile UI, Web UI Design, Web Design, Web UX Design, Web UX, Annotated Wireframes, UX Pattern Design, Validated User Research, UX Specifications, UX Sketching, Layout, B2B, UX Wireframes, Layout Design, Low-fidelity Mockups, High-fidelity Prototypes, UX Branding, Kanban, User Acceptance Testing (UAT), User Requirements, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Design Sprints, Business Models, Problem Statements, UX Leadership, Analytics, Design Systems, User Interviews, Heuristic Evaluation, Feature Prioritization, Product Requirements Documentation (PRD), Card Sorting, Design Patterns, User Testing, Systems Thinking, Opportunity Maps, Change Management, Growth, Future Design, Infographics, Data-informed Visual Design, Customer Journey, Ideation Workshops, Information Architecture (IA), Taxonomy, Usability Testing, Atomic Design, Sentiment Analysis, Primary Research, Graphic Design, Theory Design, Business Operations, Fintech, Enterprise, Redesign, P2P, Marketplace Platforms, Navigation, Productivity, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), CRM Design, Digital Innovation, Social Media, Lean Canvas, Gamification, B2C, Adult Education, Personal Finance, Adult Learning, Teaching, Community, Creative Strategy, Design Management, Project Estimation, Mobile Design, Interaction Design (IxD), Mobile App Design, Responsive Web Design (RWD), Market Research, Market Research & Analysis, UX Flows, Mobile UX, User Journey Maps, Enterprise SaaS, SaaS, Capital Markets, Product Marketing, Conversion, Cross-platform UX, Social Media Marketing (SMM), iOS UI Design, Android App Design, Concept Modeling, Big Data, Data, Business Ideas, Entrepreneurship, Business Design, Business Strategy, Ethical Design, Keyword Research, Human-media Interaction, Interactive UI, Financial UX, Responsive UX Design, eCommerce Web Design, Qualitative Research, Journey Mapping, UX Analysis, SaaS Design, Software as a Service (SaaS), Style Guides, Logo Design, Content Management Systems (CMS), Websites, UI Audits, App UI, Scrum, Deployment, Business Cases, Workshop Facilitation, UX Strategy, Project Planning, Trends, Bodystorming, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Machine Learning, Knowledge Graphs, Art History, Foodtech, Grocery Delivery, Food Ordering, Object Tracking, Azure Application Insights, Innovation Labs, Financial Advisory, Podcasting, Content, Content Marketing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Remote Control, Algorithm Visualization, Sales, Leads, Reporting, Leaderboards, Mentorship, Investment Learning, Crypto, Workshops, Knowledge Sharing, React, ICO, Wearable Technology, Blockchain, TeamGantt, Law, Legal, Illustration, Cryptocurrency, Cryptocurrency Exchanges, Cryptocurrency Wallets, Quantitative Research, Consumer Trends, Revenue Optimization, Leadership, Notion, Greenhouse, Agriculture, Sustainability, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), Supply Chain, Climate Change, Terrascope, Artificial Intelligence as a Service (AIaaS), FMCG, Emissions Analytics, Emissions Measurement, Mapping, Finance, Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT), ChatGPT, Discovery Workshops, Microsoft 365, Google Data Studio, Business Model Canvas, Business Process Modeling, UX Scenarios, Feature-driven Development (FDD), Stakeholder Mapping, Stakeholder Engagement
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