Isaac Balderas

I join the Product Design team and start working on conversational design to define and optimize interactions between the bot and users. Through research and customer interviews we designed new features and improvements for the Slack and Jira app which include: an annual billing (formerly only monthly billing was enabled), add frequency options (formerly only weekly basis was enabled), add preview in notifications to explain better the functionality of each one, updating the slack elements to make them more appealing, and more.

An ambitious project which had an innovative business model behind. I execute the product development process from gathering requirements from stakeholders, handing off to the design team and later involving the development teams (Android, iOS, Backend, and Front-End). Complete owenership of the grooming, demo reviews, planning, retrospectives and daily stand-up ceremonies.

We got to release features to improve the engagement of users like weekly challanges, seting up a store, and a digital currency (Battle Coins), as well as to promote user generated content (the battles between users). We even got a tv show where the app was crucial to decide the winners of the tv show. Check out some of the promotionals in: MUBA Promo.

The design of the back office of the Coomunication & Commercial team required different categories so they can input content and run dynamics in differents sections of the app, for instance we developed a section to upload digital announcement with links to other sections of the app, weekly dynamics that generate leaderboards, and items to a digital store made with shopify.

For the Catalogue Management team, we have to be careful about the changes on the music database, making sure the data ingested were not modified. Metadata in music files is crazy and not standarized, so in order to display properly in the app we developed this tool that add an additional level of information to display and upload music to the app. The back office include a reporting tool with the downloads associated to the original data.

Within other sources, the report integrated different third-party sources (APIs), scrapers developed internally, and the company business database. This report was available for all costumers in the Latin America region, and after the first release in PDF format, a second version with improvements was created, including an HTML format which allows user interactions and a more dynamic view, visual references in order to support the understanding of the data, as well as additional local sources.

I like to start the process with a simple storyboard in which I capture the main parts of the video idea, then I moved into the script creation with different notes that must be followed during the recording session. I always try to take extra shots just in case additional footage is required, as well as to immediately back up all the video and voice recording, as sometimes locations cannot be accessed once again for additional recording. Editing is the one of the most time-consuming parts as the one in which I can spend a whole day sitting just to get the result expected. Once the final version is approved, I export with the required settings depending on the platform it would be hosted in.

This was the first challenge that I had as part of CIAL Dun & Bradstreet, along with working on the internal relaunch of this product from the Sales and Marketing line of business. I took advantage of Design Thinking techniques to involve the Customer On boarders team, trying to understand their workflow, the common issues they face with customers, and together try to come up with solutions to support their process while improving the installation rates of the Web Seal and Email Seal.

As with other video projects I usually start with a storyboard, and then move to the script creation. When working with agencies there are additional constrains that must be taken in consideration (length of the video, number of words, complexity of the idea, etc.) and I found useful having enough meetings prior to the execution of the video creation process.

I started this assessment based on comments from the commercial teams when approaching costumers, and after reviewing the consumption data from these costumers and validating that it was low compared to other costumers, I decided to schedule a set of interviews with these costumers to try to understand the reasons behind. After several sessions, I moved on with the general process of a new development, to then test this feature with the original costumers that reported some issues on the data understanding. Finally, we deployed the feature with the marketing materials and communications required for internal and external audiences.

I usually start by looking at works from other people, then try to recreate the result expected by reviewing different techiniques and tutorials available on the web. You may see, even though it is more of a hands-on work experience, I have followed several courses in order to have good foundations on tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Sketch.

Recently, I enrolled in a new drawing course in which I have been going through the importance of shape, value, contrast, space, perspective, and realistic drawing. Although it is a skill that I am still acquiring, I am confident on my learning process.

I started working with a sketch of the model I was intended to create along with the measurements. Then, I move to SketchUp to recreate the space, model the furniture, add some details to make it look more realistic, and finally, put all together.

I always start with a sketch on paper to then create a digital mock-up that I can share with costumers, so they can get a sense of how the final version would look like, as well as their features. Once everything is validated, I create or select the framework that I am going to be using during the process, to finally write the necessary code to create the website.

I used as primary source of information the different data about our audiences sent back from Google Ads platform in order to understand more about our audiences captured through campaigns, and realize that many of them come from campaigns related to debt and collections. Then I create a quick deck to present the idea to my manager, and after a few iterations, and validating the commercial, I got a green light to proceed with the development of a Money Management Product, which included a tracking expenses app. For the adult content website, I basically re-use the content from adult sections in our media catalogue and design a new product directed only for adult audiences.

I started this project by analyzing the different benefits and value proposition of the product, so we could really aim to accomplish that through the new design. After several iterations, we come up with a final version, worked by the design team that was later introduced not just in Latin America region, but in the whole world.

These projects were definitely the ones that gave the foundations of User Research, and User Experience. Through different quantitative and qualitative techniques I was able to build actionable ideas, that were based on data, and that ultimately, improve certain metric related to user experience.

This project was the one that first introduce me to different technologies at a young age, and get me the confidence to work with different digital tools as WordPress, Photoshop, commercial hostings, and HTML and CSS technologies. I was learning by doing, and although now it is not an active project, I try to apply the new learnings that I acquire to keep it relevant.

I started developing the script, and then after several revisions we hired a professional audio recorder (only voice). Once we got the voice recording, I added different sound effects and adjust the playback speed in order to be suitable for different ad networks.

Along with the on-site training, different internal materials and marketing collaterals were created including brochures, product presentations, pitch decks, user manuals, marketing and walkthrough videos, email templates, and training presentations. The training design took me around three months, in which I first developed the initial sketching of the documents, define the audiences, contact marketing agencies, aligned with design teams, prepare the agenda proposed to different country managers, and execute the plan defined and the beginning of the process. In order to get feedback about the training quality, at the of each session, an anonymous survey was provides, as well as different quizzes that evaluate the knowledge of the teams in the training provided.