About

I’m Gilia Angell, a Seattle native, creative, and UX detective.

I'm a seasoned Senior User Experience Designer and I love to disambiguate tentacular systems and problems. Give me a multi-step user interaction that crosses multiple systems and stakeholder groups, and I’ll process flow the heck out of it and uncover alignment opportunities (or even more user scenarios!). My sweet spot is identifying where the misalignments are happening and finding ways to fix them. Sometimes I design those solutions, and sometimes I hand them off.

Before I even start designing, I like to get to the root of a problem. I need to understand where a new product or service lives within the experience of the user. My designs consider the culture of the user and work with their norms, while always aiming to simplify complex tasks. When designing, my process consists of end to end systems analysis, paying attention to how an (internal) organization is structured and how all factors, both human, organizational, and technical, affect the outcomes of what the end-user or customer sees, feels, and experiences. I take time to understand the ethnography of the user community.

Technology is a tool. I believe the tools that technology enables should help people do their work more easily. I aim to develop improved, functional, useful, and efficient end to end experiences and have a record of building and enhancing practical tools and user experiences such as messaging between hoteliers and guests, and the order returns process at Amazon.

CV available upon request.

SKILLS AND TOOLS

• Disambiguating complex user systems with a design thinking approach

• Figma, Sketch, Adobe Design Suite

• Proficient in HTML & CSS

• End-to-end iterative design process

• Deep experience designing for enterprise SaaS

• Mobile-first, responsive web, adaptive web practices, familiarity with WCAG accessibility standards

• Design sprint facilitation

• User research design, facilitation and interviewing, analysis, and reporting

• System diagramming, journey mapping, persona creation, story-boarding

• Self-directed team player, systems thinker, copious note-taker, and people watcher

Interests and activities

• Cultural
  Traveling regionally, nationally and internationally
  Attending art openings and performances
  Museum hopping

• Civic
  Volunteering for Meany Middle School PTSA

• Environment
  Bird and wildlife watching and conservation
  Personal and family choices that are environmentally responsible
  Reading and listening to the news

• Personal development
  Continuing ed classes to finesse my practice
  Making art, photography, and things with my hands (lately, Covid-19 masks)
  Haunting cozy coffee shops and bakeries
  Fitness: hiking, biking, skiing, long-distance running