Istanbul, Türkiye
Greetings! I'm Tugba (pronounced 'tooba') 👋 your versatile UX orchestrator leading people & projects where complexity meets clarity and insight drives innovation. I'm a Strategic UXer working at the intersection of research & strategy, as well as process and business design. I specialize in designing systems that generate actionable insights, deliver scalable outcomes, and create meaningful business impact. My work blends UX strategy, behavioral understanding, and a systems-thinking mindset to push digital products—and the teams behind them—forward. I explore and share developments in AI, Web3 and fintech. I believe UX is not just about usability—it’s about uncovering what's possible. And I’m here to push it forward—one insight, one system, one conversation at a time.
- Lead design presales processes, optimizing cross-departmental support flows, reducing response time by 40%, and improving overall presales efficiency. - Developed and launched various design-related service bundles, encompassing research, strategy, concept design, innovation forecasting, and strategic team formation. - Initiated and spearheaded the communication plan about our design in collaboration with Marketing, leading to a 100%+ increase in organic website traffic following the podcast and event featuring Vitaly Friedman, titled "Future Resolutions for Design in 2025." - Mentor design thinking programs and continuous UX process design of fintech and banking applications for major Turkish banks. - Oversee multiple projects and teams of 20 designers, overseeing departmental goal-setting, structured career development, regular 1:1 mentorship sessions, and performance evaluations to foster continuous growth and excellence.
- Developed ReOPS for fintech products considering the limitations of privacy and intricacies of financial data; built a research repository from scratch by utilizing capabilities of JIRA & Confluence. - Integrated the "Behavioral Design Team" of UX Researchers and Service Designers into business lines and product teams while delegating research and service design-related work for applying mixed methods and triangulation. - Established systems for tracking usability issues and behaviors, ensuring ongoing product improvement in a challenging fintech environment. - Stayed abreast of crypto & Web3 trends and communicated effectively with stakeholders to align user needs with business goals. - Mentored and kept track of the professional development of each team member through structured career advancement plans. - Fostered a culture of user-centric design, promoting collaboration and innovation throughout the organization.
- Led up to five UX Teams consisting of designers and writers in building five different products to explore unique experiences and perform in a creative atmosphere. - Co-operated with product owners, frontend and QA engineers, and other key stakeholders; to develop product strategy as well as milestones to form the plan, monitor progress, and, manage resources and team inventories. - Designed a product process flow; ensured a design-thinking-focused production cycle; implemented a theme-based production and handoff flow which translated to a timeline-based production plan which is formed and revised according to monthly resource allocation. - Provided guidance and focused on know-how transfer about user research, experience strategy, user flows, and information architecture when needed. - Created project proposals, identifying new business opportunities, and advising on team structure.
- Uncovered business plan, main business objectives, and KPI's by organizing one-on-one interviews with key stakeholders. - Provided direction to discover key insights in both quantitative and qualitative research. - Closely collaborated with team members, other teams, project owners, key stakeholders, and other parties to translate insights into experience strategies at various levels by pointing out the experience vision, experience goals, and metrics. - Designed and created service strategy canvases, experience strategy docs, and UX strategy blueprints; facilitated UX strategy workshops and strategic proposals. - Produced UX Roadmaps describing the processes to be accomplished and offering tips for prioritizing user needs, pain points, and wants. - Listed features based on the analysis and forecast for gaining competitive advantage. - Presented vision statement that has its basis in user data, rings true to people in leadership roles across a company and is detailed and specific enough to guide design decisions. - Assured that the long-term UX vision and short-term UX goals are met for digital products or services throughout the design process. - Created presentations to inspire stakeholders with storytelling and communicate the vision of the digital product or service from a visionary perspective.
- Conducted user research from discovery to design phases in digital product and service design projects. - Provided design thinking training and mentorship for start-ups. - Created personas and user journey maps by identifying key pain points, wants, and needs. - Built a culture of empathy for the end-user by taking business objectives into account. - Designed detailed research plans; conducted, analyzed, and reported results based mainly on qualitative research techniques including; remote user interviews, surveys, moderated and unmoderated usability testing, contextual inquiry/field studies, heuristic evaluations, card sorting, and stakeholder interviews. - Designed and facilitated specific persona and user journey and service blueprint workshops. - Designed keynotes articulating research findings and presented inspirational direction. - Developed research design and methodologies to contribute to the improvement of processes.
UX, UX Research, UX Strategy, Experience Strategy
- Worked on various projects on urban sociology, quantitative and qualitative methodologies, and sociology theories. - Conducted detailed studies focusing on qualitative and quantitative methodologies. -Published two articles in Turkish journals focusing on the digital divide.