I Live, Breathe, and Eat User Experience Design
... It's Tasty
I'm Ruben, a Lead UX Designer / Researcher / Architect
I am a seasoned storyteller throughout the human centered design process, from quantitative and qualitative research to user experience design, delivering desirable hardware and software. I love leading designs involving big data and data science from ideation through to deployment using Agile to deliver value and exceed the target customer’s expectations.
Skills I Specialize In
Qualitative Research
From interviews to diary studies, I discover stories that help teams empathize with the target audience.
Quantitative Research
I utilize surveys and usability studies to identify patterns and gain confidence in ideas.
Personas
When the team designs for itself I implement personas to refocus onto the customer.
Jobs to be Done
I utilizes these phrases to uncover motivations behind product usage and customer behavior.
Wireframes
I use sketches to help prioritize features and reveal user needs.
Storyboarding
I synthesize gained insights to guide design and development teams see a holistic picture of the process.
Let's work together!
Get in touch to find out more about what I can do for your organization.
Portfolio
- All
- Storyboards
- Wireframes
- Workflows
- Personas
- Style Guide
- Research
Voice Flows Workflow
I created these specific voice workflows to showcase how a natural dialog with a virtual assistant can benefit users. I worked with the team to implement these workflows, along with grammar variations to make a working demonstration come to life.
- Company:
Bose
- Categories:
Group Listening App
I created several iterations and workflows for a party music app as a way to elicit critiques for what worked and what was missing. When I took these traditional wireframes in front of customers, it became clear that the emotional connection was missing. I used these insights to successfully transition this project from research into development.
- Company:
Bose
- Categories:
Connected Music Experiences Personas
I synthesized insights from ethnographic research to create these personas. These helped guide the team to rally features around specific people and their needs.
- Company:
Bose
- Categories:
Music Vignettes
I created a breadth of possible experiences to showcase easier and more natural workflows to access music.
- Company:
Bose
- Categories:
SoundWear Research
I took initiative to run the research studies to determine factors behind poor sales for the Bose SoundWear form factor. I started by interviewing salespeople at various stores worldwide, then used those findings to conduct an in-home longitudinal study, which resulted in findings that reflected limited viability. My research resulted in the discontinuation of the product, freeing resources to go towards more useful product lines.
- Company:
Bose
- Categories:
Open Ear Research
I spearheaded the effort a large event, RunDisney, to gather mass end-user response to a new product form factor. To gather additional insights, my team and I interviewed over 150 participants.
- Company:
Bose
- Categories:
CoAction Storyboarding
Tasked to showcase the value add that our visualization and database system provided to our customers. I ingested the data, and worked with analysts to understand what they do with the data. I designed compelling visualizations with an overarching story to showcase ways the system could enhance their jobs.
- Company:
GD|Viz
- Categories:
Print Shop Workflow
I created some notional storyboards to validate task workflows as a talking point to further uncover pain points and successes. I successfully elicited technology and workflow improvements for future software iterations.
- Company:
EFI
- Categories:
Rhapsody Wireframes
I created the wireframes and UI specification for a TV-based application.
- Company:
Hillcrest Labs
- Categories:
Hillcrest Style Guide
I created a style guide to highlight best practices and reusable patterns as a way to convey how to design for interactive apps on the TV. This was very well received by our third party companies who licensed our technology, and were able to quickly design apps using these guidelines.
- Company:
Hillcrest Labs
- Categories:
AndThis? A Placeholder Just in Case
I created these specific voice workflows to showcase how a natural dialog with a virtual assistant can benefit users. I worked with the team to implement these workflows, along with grammar variations to make a working demonstration come to life.
Testimonials
Ruben is a rare breed of UX professional. He brings academic and practical depth in interaction design as well as the ability to work the spectrum from primary user research to end product design. He's uncommonly open to feedback on his designs and able to make trade offs for engineering and expediency considerations. He also brings a valuable positive energy to the team. It was a pleasure having him on my team.
Keith MartinIn the 14 yrs I have been in UI design, Ruben is without a doubt the best UI designer I have every worked with. He has a tremendous eye for innovative approaches to old problems. He is passionate, detailed oriented and dedicated concerning interaction design and the user experience. His analytical and IA skills are unmatched. He is incredibly easy to work with and has no ego for his own designs, but rather the needs of the end user. Because of this, he is a excellent team member on any size team and brings a calm to all those wild design collaborations. I hope I get to work with Ruben again. As a manager of a UI Design team myself, I would hire him immediately!
Polly TandonAn unwavering advocate of the user, Ruben's empathy and consideration of user needs makes him a terrific team player. He is great at helping to align a group around the right priorities. His curiosity and willingness to learn made him easy to support and a joy as a colleague. He has no ego and takes feedback very well, always focused on improving his craft and doing what's best for the user. I hope I get the chance to work with Ruben again, and know that he will be a great contributor to any team.
Rebecca CrimminWhenever I think of Interaction Design, I think of Ruben. Ruben has the ability to see the big picture and break it down to the level of requirements in a way that software developers can easily understand and translate into code. He is very organized and an excellent team player, bringing harmony to every project he works on. He has always been regarded highly by both team members and customers and makes invaluable contributions to the organizations he is part of.
Louis Antunes