Zaina Aljallad Email & Phone Number

New York, Ny, Us

New York City Metropolitan Area

- Directly influenced product strategy by leading sprint planning, feature prioritization and weekly check ins, ensuring features were planned and tested.- Improved project delivery efficiency by 20% by leading Agile sprints and prioritizing tasks with Scrum methodologies.- Leveraged user research expertise to bridge the gap between client needs and development execution, leading to product innovation.- Served as the point of contact for stakeholders, providing regular updates on… Show more - Directly influenced product strategy by leading sprint planning, feature prioritization and weekly check ins, ensuring features were planned and tested.- Improved project delivery efficiency by 20% by leading Agile sprints and prioritizing tasks with Scrum methodologies.- Leveraged user research expertise to bridge the gap between client needs and development execution, leading to product innovation.- Served as the point of contact for stakeholders, providing regular updates on project progress, addressing concerns, and aligning project goals.- Conducted in-depth interviews to understand experiences, personas, key frustrations, and identify critical gaps in current systems, informing potential improvements and solutions.- Developed a detailed research plan, focusing on recruiting directors from organizations across the country to gather diverse perspectives. Show less

Atlanta, Georgia, United States

• Led a team of 2 researchers in the banking space, delegating tasks and providing strategic insights to enhance project outcomes.• Mentored and trained 6 junior researchers, promoting user research best practices while fostering a user-centred mindset organization-wide that ultimately elevated the overall user experience of core company products.• Successfully designed and launched an official democratization process, empowering over 100 designers to access more frequent research and… Show more • Led a team of 2 researchers in the banking space, delegating tasks and providing strategic insights to enhance project outcomes.• Mentored and trained 6 junior researchers, promoting user research best practices while fostering a user-centred mindset organization-wide that ultimately elevated the overall user experience of core company products.• Successfully designed and launched an official democratization process, empowering over 100 designers to access more frequent research and apply foundational skills to their work.• Collaborated closely with cross-functional teams to define research objectives, develop comprehensive research plans, and prioritize user needs for B2B products, resulting in an 25% increase in client satisfaction and an average increase of 15% user satisfaction and product adoption.• Directed research initiatives in online banking, money movement, financial wellness, and domestic abuse within the financial sector.• Utilized qualitative and quantitative research methods to gather actionable insights and drive enhancements in digital banking platforms for institutions.• Interviewed leaders at over 10 financial institutions including, Wells Fargo, Synovus, and Fairwinds Credit Union, to align on design goals and establish a feedback loop for customer satisfaction. Show less

Atlanta, Georgia, United States

• Successfully managed over 30 projects a year with: end-to-end research, participant recruitment, study design, data collection, analysis, and reporting, while consistently delivering high-quality research outputs within tight timelines.• Implemented proven design thinking methodologies to collaboratively ideate with product teams resulting in innovative solutions and improved user experiences, consistently increasing UMUX Lite scores from an average 3.5/5 to 4.5/5. • Interviewed… Show more • Successfully managed over 30 projects a year with: end-to-end research, participant recruitment, study design, data collection, analysis, and reporting, while consistently delivering high-quality research outputs within tight timelines.• Implemented proven design thinking methodologies to collaboratively ideate with product teams resulting in innovative solutions and improved user experiences, consistently increasing UMUX Lite scores from an average 3.5/5 to 4.5/5. • Interviewed servers and managers to identify and improve internal processes through journey mapping, usability testing, and persona creations for Twin Peaks, Krispy Kreme, and Chipotle. • Developed and executed ongoing research plans to guide product design from ideation to market, ensuring strategic integration of user feedback through, usability testing to collect valuable insights on user behavior preferences, pain points to enable data-driven design recommendations. • Orchestrated workshops and interviews, developing journey maps of processes to identify gaps and opportunities for internal and external procedures. • Demonstrated versatility managing over 20 products spanning four lines of business, leveraging insights from one product, and applying it to other products with similar features. • Enhanced presentation skills through active participation in leading office conferences, presentations, and design guild meetings presenting to audiences ranging from 100 to 1000 employees. Show less

Orlando, Florida, United States

• Utilized secondary academic research to identify a current gap in technology today: providing our elderly population with accurate information to keep them safe online.• Hosted 8 discovery interviews with groups of 6 participants to understand how users utilize their personal communities (if at all) to make online decisions today.• Conducted usability interviews to determine current gaps and improve our mobile application.• Led interviews around Greater Orlando with Senior… Show more • Utilized secondary academic research to identify a current gap in technology today: providing our elderly population with accurate information to keep them safe online.• Hosted 8 discovery interviews with groups of 6 participants to understand how users utilize their personal communities (if at all) to make online decisions today.• Conducted usability interviews to determine current gaps and improve our mobile application.• Led interviews around Greater Orlando with Senior Citizens to gain insight into how they currently work with technology and how it can further assist them. • Led a team of engineers to build out a mobile application based on the research conducted – iterated on the application with heuristic analysis and usability testing. • Presented findings at research conferences such as ACM SIGCHI Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW) to bring awareness around designing for the elderly. Show less

Charlotte, North Carolina Area

While attending this REU, I found my passion for UX & Human Computer Interaction. I spent the summer working on a project aimed to assist users in making better privacy decisions. Our goal was to bring together communities of people who inform each other about privacy settings to better protect their personal data. During my time, I developed an interactive prototype, conducted a user study, and began analyzing the data to later publish a paper on my work.