My experience is better described by my work at [Typeform](https://www.typeform.com/) (related to UX, accessibility, and improving metrics), [Hanzo studio](https://hanzo.es/) (animations, design systems, and leading creative projects for clients such as Amazon), [Xata](https://xata.io/) (where I've been leading design team) and [GitHub](https://github.com/) when I joined AI team as an individual contributor (billing, policies, licensing, enterprise and admin experiences).

I have extensive experience in cross-functional collaboration with various teams, where I create and design visual components, implement layouts and features, and ensure a seamless visual perspective. If the project requires it, I could be spending time on transforming designs into scalable sets of accessible components with CSS, JavaScript, React, Vue, or Nuxt to isolate functionality, manage complexity, and enable reusability.

What I love doing the most:

* Providing accessibility training for teams and speaking about tools, testing, and different approaches to building products that are useful, inclusive, and available for all, regardless of users' ability, technology, or the situation they are experiencing.
* Raising awareness and introducing testing, evaluation, users with diverse abilities interviews, and reporting.
* Ensuring that the WCAG standards are met in the product, alerts system implementation, tracking, and e2e accessibility testing.
* Prepare scripts, and conduct user interviews.
* Ensuring strong partnership with research and Growth teams.
* Passion for functional programming, reusable, modular UI code, and scalable design systems.
* End-to-end design system solutions: from design to implementation with unit testing.
* Do light QA or plan heavily for e2e testing strategies with the engineering team.
* Thinking about both frontend and backend architecture to help quick integration of UI elements to the application.
* Make use of my experience of componentization, CSS, and modular systems based on component (styling and behavior) libraries when improving a product's UI.

Latest projects:

* [GitHub Copilot Enterprise is now generally available](https://github.blog/2024-02-27-github-copilot-enterprise-is-now-generally-available/)

* [GitHub Copilot is now available for invoiced GitHub Enterprise customers](https://github.blog/changelog/2022-12-07-github-copilot-is-now-available-for-invoiced-github-enterprise-customers/)

* [GitHub Copilot for Business is now available](https://github.blog/2023-02-14-github-copilot-for-business-is-now-available/)

* [Improving Business settings](https://github.blog/changelog/2023-09-07-github-copilot-september-7th-update/)

* [Announcing the GitHub Actions extension for VS Code\
  GitHub Actions for VS Code](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=GitHub.vscode-github-actions)

* [Xata - serverless data platform](https://xata.io/)

* [Amazon Business](https://business.amazon.es/)

* [Melia Hotels](https://www.melia.com/cs)

* [Years of Culture](https://yearsofculture.qa/)

* [Hanzo website](https://hanzo.es/)

About

A significant aspect of my work as a designer and professional in the tech field is ensuring that technology meets the basic needs of all users, regardless of their background, level of education, or the technology they use.

My focus is on ensuring that all users can have similar experiences, such as finding a button, interacting with the interface, closing a modal, or adding items to a cart. These seemingly small interactions can either bring delight or frustration, especially in areas concerning basic user needs like healthcare, online payments, or AI. My contribution lies in helping developers make accessible choices to ensure basic user needs in technology.

My goal has always been to make users feel valued, important, and ultimately, happy. I believe that the result of my work should be a product that caters to all users and enhances people’s lives.

The accessibility work that I've been immersed in for the past five years requires extensive conversations and collaboration. It also entails being accountable for the final products, ensuring that they are not only optimized, tested, and aesthetically pleasing but also usable by all individuals. This commitment to transparency, proactivity, and integrating design into people's lives resonates deeply with me on a personal level.

I approach my work with a "users-first" mentality, striving to create products that not only comply with standards (such as WCAG, Directive (EU) 2016/2102, among others) but also empower users to accomplish tasks in the manner that brings them the most delight.

I aspire to excel at work by embracing its core values, as well as by focusing on the following:

* Transparency and partnership: I understand the importance of empathy and communication within a team, especially in addressing the challenges of remote work. I often over-communicate and share ideas early, even the bad ones. I’m used to time zones and happy to adjust my schedule to maximise time with teammates when necessary. Though I must admit, I never miss my art classes.

* No-ego: I begin my design process with questions for the team, not by providing the answers. It’s never about personal contribution or being protective of my own ideas, but about learning together.

* Reliability and trust: seeking clarity on priorities is a key. I also believe that open discussions are important. I don't hesitate to raise a hand when timelines can't be met, and find compromises. 

* Design community: coming from a software engineering background, I acknowledge that some parts of design process might not be my strongest suit. Therefore, I actively seek assistance, feedback, and nitpicking from my peers. I’ve chosen to study in Barcelona’s School or Arts and Design and get my master degree that covers user experience, research, typography, web and app UI, design systems, everything that is deep enough to fill my gaps in design files, but I’m still struggling with choosing which button looks better.

* I learn constantly! About everything: accessibility, research, usability, people... More about people than anything.

Working with me

Senior Product Designer

Interview with Alena Nikolaeva, product designer at GitHub

Personal projects, inspiration, and working daily routine with Cris

Accessibility articles

Written interview

Talent Hackers interviewed me alongside amazing women in technology.

"Should you get in tech? And how to choose your niche?" - my journey in tech series

Tupu.io is a non-profit initiative to offer free mentorship to women, people of color, and other underrepresented groups in the tech industry. I shared my journey in tech in this interview.

Preparation for accessibility certification exams offered by the International Association of Accessibility Professionals.

• Plan de Marketing Digital
• Branding Corporativo y Diseño Gráfico Digital.
• SEO y SEM. Google AdWords y Google Analytics

Audience: Developers

Serverless Postgress Database solution allows to create database in no to low-code environment.

* Product launch (branding, swag, marketing materials, public website)

* Product design of the platform: CSV import, migration requests, integrations, calendar picker, collecting user input with custom-designed form, supporting dark and light mode tokens for the application, meeting accessibility AA requirements.

* The features supported at the product that I worked on: https://xata.io/docs/overview

Leading product design

Audience: GitHub Copilot users interested in expanding their experience with GitHub models. Models can be acquired through the Marketplace https://github.com/marketplace/models

I focused on consolidating Marketplace pages and establishing links to the Models playground and upcoming billing experiences. My collaboration with the team also included a few explorations around PAT (Personal Access Token) management and "Getting started" experience.

GitHub Models (marketplace, billing experience and polishing)

Audience: technical proficiency.

Industries: Automotive in-cabin monitoring, autonomous vehicles, security & surveillance detection systems

Anyverse is a platform (desktop) that allows to generate high-quality synthetic data (physics-based).

My role as the designer included: 

* Redesigning the offering (website, marketing and other materials)

* Technical writing

* Creating assets (3D renders and editing)

* Working on design system to align website with the desktop application.

Anyverse

Audience: GitHub's user base is uniquely composed of software developers, engineers, and tech enthusiasts.

GitHub Actions is a continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform that allows developers to automate your build, test, and deployment pipeline. I worked on VS Code extension as my first project at GitHub that allows developers to have the same workflow as on the browser, but without leaving their code editors.

GitHub Actions VS Code expension

Audience: Enterprise, organizations who are using GitHub Copilot (a code completion and automatic programming tool developed by GitHub and OpenAI).

I worked on admin experiences for all Copilot plans (including notifications and new Copilot Enterprise Mixed Licensing experiences that grants GitHub Enterprise Cloud customers greater flexibility in selecting the best Copilot plans for their needs. It is now possible to set a Copilot plan at the organization level instead of at the enterprise level, allowing granularity of the choice).

GitHub Copilot admin experience

Audience: technical (specialized in 3D rendering)

Lead designer for RoomBox project included:

* Desktop app (C++) and browser (Unity) app

* Mobile, tablet versions

* It's possible to decorate 3D house with real furniture and collaborate

I led the design process from the project's definition through to its launch, including investigation of similar products in the market, research, UX definition, and weekly team iterations to transition from a C++ application to a Unity-browser-based solution. I had a 100% ownership over the design.

At the end, I contributed to growing the project's audience by redesigning the product offering, re-designing the website, and developing social media guidelines.

Roombox (3D platoform)

My first experience in an agency, the audience was diverse (from local brands to bigger clients, such as Amazon).

My role (frontend developer) in several projects included developing and maintaining large code bases (frontend architecture), providing accessibility workshops to the team, and executing as technical front lead on several projects.

Agency projects

As I was leading design and product for [Deel Engage](https://www.deel.com/engage/) Career module, launching the development plans feature was my first project: AI-driven development plans allow managers to create a set of actionable items to improve retention and career development based on employee performance. To achieve the goal of creating the long-term strategy in several stages and launching the feature, I:

* Worked on documenting design and creating specific components for fast implementation.

* Created analytics and metrics UI to offer the best monitoring experience for admins.

* Created a set of reusable components for the conversational AI.

For other projects:

* Designed AI assistant for creating review cycles with localized insights/guidance/country compliance information.\
  Allowed generating a complete review cycle instantly by leveraging AI automation.

* Worked on defining accessibility guidelines across the design organization, conducted manual accessibility audits, and built reports.

Development plans (Deel Enagage Career)

Audience: No-code SaaS platform for small-to-medium businesses, enterprise customers and startups (mostly, marketing professionals).

As a Software Engineer at the moment, I worked on Design System, features deliveries (cookie banner, animations, A/B experiments) and accessibility improvements.

Design systems, features implimentation

I've teached young developers on how to understand, talk about, and implement accessibility during their Advanced Frontend Bootcamp 2023

Accessibility instructor

I've worked with Kaleidos to help them with Taiga https://taiga.io/ free and open-source project management tool to make it more accessible and trained their design team.

Accessibility consultant

It's my book and an educational project about accessibility, ethics, collaboration, security, design, and content: everything that comes with building an inclusive user-centered product that also solves business problems.

"You, Me, Accessibility" book

Talking accessibility and personal career growth

Web Reactiva Episode (ES)

WCAG continues to evolve, and since the first version was published in 1999. My talk covers updates in WCAG 2.2 and how they contribute to making the web more inclusive and accessible for everyone.

Documentation, resources, and my drawings illustrating updates in the WCAG focusing on version 2.2, released on October 5, 2023. The additions and modifications, levels A, AA, when and how to apply them.

[Extra materials](https://tinyurl.com/chuleta-de-alena)

What’s new in accessibility? WCAG 2.2 at glance."

Slides: https://noti.st/alenanikspeaks/lKIxUp

Cuando hablamos de productos y servicios en las startups, tenemos que asegurarnos de que los cimientos de nuestros productos nos ayudan a escalar y a crear un producto que funcione para todos los usuarios en los años posteriores. Creo que es una idea muy poderosa la de que no sabemos dónde acabará nuestro producto, como no sabemos quién va a pisar el puente que está construyendo una arquitecta.

Accessibility in startups

Accessibility episode with @bolonio

Slides: https://pitch.com/public/2fb4889f-fc22-493e-9a31-9953c2f932b3

Proven ways to make your website accessible in 2023

Talking about accessible CSS techniques and tricks.

Lightning talk on CSS and accessibility

Accessibility in design systems

Tech podcast with @miriamgonp y @dawntraoz where we spoke about CSS, accessibility and CSS animations with @gerig_thamara.

No me da la vida Episode on CSS and animations

Mozilla

Volunteer at Mozilla Support (for Support Forum)

Tupu.io is a non-profit initiative to offer free mentorship to women, people of color, and other underrepresented groups in the tech industry.

Mentorship for women in technology

Front-end development for project such as Adcon 2020,
Navigate 2021 (digital platform EventDotSpace), re:Shape
2021, Amazon Business Exchange 2021 for Amazon, Melia,
ADQneobank, Year of Culture 2021.

* Amazon Business Exchange. A virtual event hosted by Amazon Business (project lead)

  I participated in 3 projects for Amazon Business and build a reusable platform that was able to support 3 different online events, as project lead.

* Melia Hotels Design System at Melia﻿ (IC)

  The project includes hundreds of reusable and tested components with the solid architecture of design tokens behind it. The challenge of the project was to collaborate with several designers, and adapt to project requirements to ensure the quality, accessibility, and visual aspects of the project.

* Years Of Culture (project lead)

  Frontend development of the website and leading accessibility evaluations and compliance.

Software Engineer

Leading product design Roombox family (desktop, website, and VR experience app), which included developing a concept, documentation, marketing materials, design system, and brand identity for a product-rendering platform based on Next Limit’s Maxwell engine physics-based synthetic data AI simulator for training autonomous vehicles and perception-based robotics.

* Work through the UX process (user experience research, problem statement, user interviews, pain points, customer journey mapping, storyboards, prototyping, and design solutions for 3D architecture platform and data solution to generate all the high-quality datasets).
* UI Design and Design System 
* Brand and websites (offering definition and design)

Product Designer

Leading design and product for [Deel Engage](https://www.deel.com/engage/) Career module

GitHub is a developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage and share their code.

My role included product design of licenses and plans experiences for GitHub Copilot users, billing, dashboard and analytics, GitHub models, enterprise, and admin experiences for GitHub Copilot: the world's most widely adopted AI developer tool.

Web Designer

Developer-oriented SaaS database platform.

I've worked on meeting business goals within technical constraints, and users' needs and combining them into developer experiences. 

My role included product design, design system for Xata, brand, marketing, organizing internal design process, feature requests, and automation to collect and analyze customer feedback.

Worked on several projects within a marketing agency: including marketing materials, market research, branding, web and graphic design.

Marketing, brand, research, and graphic designer

Typeform is a Spanish online software as a service company that specializes in online form building and online surveys in low-code Saas environment.

My role included the following:

* Translating designs and business and accessibility requirements into useful, useable, clean, and tested UI code solutions that help users globally.
* Collaborate with design to perform QA, user interviews, and documentation, and fix incoming incidents on accessibility (AA).
* A/B Testing, experiments implementation, and continuous iteration.
* Frontend development of the core product.