Lead Designer  & Project Manager

Since it’s early inception, I was responsible for all things design related at Shareagift. From early stage ideation, alpha,  public launch, pivoting, refactoring, investment rounds, and a total product overhaul. It was a massive 3 year long learning ground, where I was able to engage, participate and  influence all aspects of the product.

“Jose is an absolutely superb designer – one of the best I’ve had the pleasure of working with. His ability to focus on the essence of the problem, and delivery clean, uncluttered solutions is second to none.
Jonathan Midgley, CTO Absolute Technology

Key Activities

User Experience – The social gifting challenge.

Getting together with your friends to chip in fro a group gift is something we are all familiar with, and the web can be an awesome platform to augment and empower that experience, but how exactly does that happen? What are the rules, and how can we learn from the “real life” experience, to create a relevant tool for gift givers worldwide?

From sketch & wireframe, to launch.

I followed, and took ownership of the entire process from sketching out high level ideas down to execution, development, testing and launch.

Rapid Prototyping + User Testing

Along with data analysis, getting face to face with our users was the critical way to measure and learn about the result of the experiments we rolled out, understand user motivations, critical pain points and expectations. I conducted open-ended user interviews, on the filed as a mean of getting rich, qualitative insights, as well as task oriented user testing.

The right stuff, in the right place, and time.

Soon after we launched the platform’s first iteration, it became clear it was crucial for Shareagift to be relevant at the early stage of choosing what the present would be, and that meant rolling out a B2b platform that enabled us to sell SAG as a service (via widget and integrations), as well as hosting or own eCommerce affiliate marketplace.

A Social & Financial experience.

Primarily, the platform was a canvas for social engagement, but all things considered, end-of-play, it’s all about getting someone, something they really like, or need, and as such, money and financial transactions, were at the core of the system. My job was to make sure the product would correspond fully to the Gift Creator’s expectations,  in terms of clarity and ease of use, in a sometimes not so clear system of financial regulations that we needed to adhere to.

Project  Managment

Good design depends on good process, every time. As such, I believe it’s critical for me as a Designer to understand why, what, and when things can be done more effectively, and to maximize the impact that good design can have on the costumer’s experience. Working on the planning side of things, and constantly reflecting on how the organization itself works, helps me build an holistic view over the company, the product, and costumers, and ultimately to create the conditions for me and everyone in the team to create better work.