Zach Metcalfe

I am currently working as a freelance Product Designer on a trail running sportswear e-commerce project. I remain open to other opportunities in freelance or permanent positions.

- Joined as the first in-house UX Designer in a two-person Product Team post a €10 million investment round. Evolved role to encompass UX/UI Design, Scrum Leadership, and Product Management/Ownership. - Spearheaded cross-functional collaboration across R&D, 3D Animation, Development, Business, and Marketing, pioneering technology to extract animations from videos into adaptable glb or fbx files for animating 3D avatars in virtual environments. - Successfully balanced user advocacy with input from various teams, including accommodating requests from leadership, to drive cohesive product development. - Initially focused on democratising animation through a 'no-code' Studio catering from filmmakers to gamers. Shifted emphasis to B2B2C, offering game builders an SDK for in-game animations (White Label, Fortnite-style Emote Wheel), along with a companion app for user-generated emotes and a Text2Animation POC. - Delivered foundational Beta, MVP, and POC-level products, persistently pursuing a solid product-market fit in the evolving landscape.

*This was the final (3 week, group) client project - part of the General Assembly UX Design Immersive Course* Betterspace is an employee well-being app and resource marketplace. In this project, my group and I were tasked with: increasing user engagement with the app’s weekly check-in system, making users’ data more actionable and improving the overall User Journey. In this project, I often took on the role of facilitator by leading and mediating workshops and client meetings. I took on an active role in the market, contextual and user research. This project also allowed me to take a deeper dive into UX Copy by creating a catalogue of engaging notifications and testing these out. We designed several solutions (notifications, improved ‘check-in’ flow, data dashboard, gamification and a Slack app concept) to improve overall User Engagement. Client Feedback: "Thanks guys, so many interesting points in there. And a very well delivered presentation. Am intrigued by seeing what Alfredo chooses to run with.." - Jim Woods, CEO "Fantastic work guys again. Thank you very much." - Alfredo Belfiori, CTO

A 12-week Immersive course in UX Design through a Learn and Do method. I worked on a variety of briefs, both solo and in groups, using the Double Diamond Process (Discover, Define, Design, Deliver) and developed many skills including, but not limited to: User Research, Wireframing, Prototyping, Usability Testing and more UX/UI skills. The course was structured in a series of 1-3 week sprints in which we focussed on various areas of UX Design, culminating in a final client project (description above). //Global Girl Media Concept Project - Website Redesign - 1 week - Solo - Adaptive (3 screen formats)// I redesigned Global Girl Media’s (a charity that empowers young women from underserved communities to become journalists) existing website, into one that is adaptive, functional and accurately translates GGM’s brand values. This project allowed me to focus on developing my UI skills: Branding, Design Systems, Information Architecture, Heuristic Evaluation and Accessibility. //Dice Concept Project - Feature Integration - 2 weeks - Group (5 people) - Mobile App// Dice is a mobile ticketing platform. My team and I developed and integrated a new subscription feature (DICE +) into Dice’s existing app that allows users to attend shows for up and coming artists every month. We gamified the subscription model by rewarding users for engaging with the service and app in various ways. In this project, I proudly developed my skills in project management, often taking on the role of facilitator and leading daily stand-ups. We worked on each method of the Double Diamond process in pairs, where one person was confident and supported the other less confident team member. I took the lead in the User Research & Usability Testing phases of the project. I switched roles during the Wireframing, Prototyping and UI Design phases and learned a great deal from my teammates. (see the 'Projects' section for the description of the 2 other projects I carried out during the course)

La Cave de César - Wine & Spirits E-Shop - https://lacavedecesar.com/ I worked on building a wine e-commerce website alongside the founder and a freelance developer (Atlas Studio). I worked on building and developing: - The Website Structure - Information Architecture - Illustrations & Imagery - Product Pack-shots - Copy (Product descriptions, About, T&Cs, etc) - Legal research (e.g. alcohol sales permit) - Market Research (Competitive and Comparative Analysis) - Contacting Domains to request wine allocations - Social Media and Marketing This is experience gave me a real taste for UX Design and spurred my career change from commercial development in Media to UX Design and Research.

I took this period of time to reassess what I wanted to do professionally and transition into a new career (i.e. moving away from a sales to a more creative, strategic and problem-solving oriented role - in an international environment).

- Identified new clients within the Finance,Food,Services & Education sectors(France) + Retail & Distribution sectors (UK) & monitored these sectors’ trends. -Prospected and recruited new clients. - Redacted commercial propositions, media plans, IOs and pitched for new business by elaborating campaign strategies in close collaboration with media traders and the marketing department.

-Responsible for the administration, tracking and optimisation of the agency’s alternative investment programmes: -Barter: a type of transaction which optimises the costs of a media campaign. -1st and 3rd party forward investment programmes. -Fostered relationships with Barter Agencies. -Responsible for the Commercial education of the agency (running of inductions, producing education material)