Senior Product Designer, Senior UX Designer, Product Design Consultant

Rico Lavender

Currently in Phoenix, AZ

+1-612-***-**** ****@************.*** https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricol/ https://www.ricolavender.com

About Me

Senior User Experience Designer with 15+ years of experience creating user-centric design solutions across digital products. Proven track record in transforming complex technologies into intuitive designs using research, strategic insights, and Figma prototyping. Demonstrated success in improving user engagement and operational efficiency at leading tech companies, while collaborating effectively with cross-functional teams, and currently incorporating AI-driven solutions into my process. Skills

• Design & Prototyping: UI/UX Design, Visual Design, Web Design, Mobile Design, Figma, Prototyping

• UX Research & Testing: Information Architecture, Journey Mapping, Usability Testing, Generative AI

• AI & Product Design: AI Integration, AI/ML Product Design

• Collaboration & Leadership: Product Design, Product Management, Cross-Collaboration, Design Leadership

• Technical Tools: HTML5, CSS, Notion, Perplexity

Work Experience

Progress Residential Apr 2024 - Present

Senior/Lead UX Designer

• Directed end-to-end design for property rental marketplaces by mapping user journeys and optimizing complex workflows for renters, landlords, and property managers using industry-standard UI/UX design principles.

• Conducted strategic user research and usability testing to develop renter-centric design approaches, ensuring alignment with AI ethical considerations and enhancing the overall home search and leasing experience.

• Facilitated design workshops and cross-functional strategy sessions, empowering product teams with user-centered methodologies and iterative prototyping using tools like Figma. Self-Employed 2021 - 2025

Freelance UI/UX Designer

Managed end-to-end product design initiatives across financial firms, SaaS companies, startups, and design agencies, ensuring cohesive integration of AI and UX strategies throughout the design lifecycle.

• Developed and refined innovative design concepts and interactive prototypes with Figma, leveraging journey mapping and information architecture techniques to transform complex requirements into user-friendly solutions. Meta - Instagram Mar 2023 - Jun 2023

Contract Product Designer, Growth

• Strategically hired for a high-priority, global UX initiative to resolve critical transparency issues in post visibility across Instagram and Facebook.

• Redesigned cross-platform controls, giving users clearer, more intuitive ways to manage where their posts appear.

• Executed a data-driven, high-velocity design strategy, leveraging UX best practices to drive a 45% improvement in user sentiment and clarity.

Meta - Facebook Marketplace (Seller Experience) Sep 2019 - Sep 2021 Product Designer, Growth

• Designed and launched the bulk listing tool for sellers on Facebook Marketplace, automating repetitive tasks and allowing sellers to list multiple items at once-eliminating the need for one-by-one postings.

• Redesigned the mobile seller onboarding process with Quick Post, streamlining listing creation and driving a 10% monthly increase in Marketplace usage and engagement.

• Developed enterprise-level e-commerce solutions and seller tools that optimized complex workflows, improving scalability, efficiency, and the overall seller experience on Facebook Marketplace.

• Thrived in a high-growth, fast-paced environment by balancing quick iterations with long-term design strategy to deliver impactful, seller-focused experiences.

Sibi, Inc. 2018 - 2019

Design Manager, Marketplace Experience

• Provided mentorship to junior designers and championed a culture of growth-driven, user-focused design, driving contin- uous improvement across the platform.

• Optimized complex workflows, such as warranty registration, installation scheduling, and returns processing, to reduce friction and improve post-purchase satisfaction.

• By migrating from Sketch I introduced and used Figma to design, prototype, and execute creative concepts for various digital experiences, leading to an improvement in the overall buyer and seller digital user experience. American Express 2017 - 2018

Senior User Experience Designer

• Improved user engagement and app navigation by implementing incremental design improvements to the online card management tool.

• Utilized quantitative & qualitative research methods to inform UX design decisions, resulting in a 15% decrease in user drop-off rates during customer onboarding.

• Collaborated with cross-functional teams to deliver innovative, user-centric designs, resulting in 50% decrease in customer complaints that were previously a problem because of frustrating and out-of-date navigational flows. Ownzones 2016 - 2017

Product Manager

• Led product team to deliver visually stunning designs resulting in a 20% increase in user engagement on 2 mobile apps and one TV app as well as mentoring the junior product management with the web product.

• Led daily stand-ups with the distributed cross-functional team who were located remotely throughout Europe, mostly in Romania as well as one design contractor that was stateside. This helped establish a working flow to deliver on-time feature builds to our products each week.

• Managed the release schedule of our app on both the iOS store and Android store by writing engaging descriptions for each feature release as well as adding relevant visuals that helped portray any new features that would help sell the product online and communicate with our customers.

Norton Lifelock 2015 - 2016

Senior UI/UX Web Designer

Substantial 2014 - 2015

Contract User Experience Designer

Pearson Education 2013 - 2015

Senior Graphic Designer

Secure Medical 2012 - 2013

Digital Designer

Intrepid Networks 2012 - 2013

Front-end Web Developer, Designer

Alpha Omega Publications / Freelance 2003 - 2012

Graphic Designer

Education

Devry University Jul 2003

Bachelors of Science, CIS

Certifications

• 2003 Certificate of Multimedia Design

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