Experienced product designer with strong expertise in user experience design, user research, usability testing, and design thinking methodologies. Proven track record leading comprehensive UX process, collaborating with stakeholders, and delivering user-centric designs aligned with business objectives. Seeking to leverage UX/UI design and user research skills to contribute to impactful design solutions.…

Monica Monsanto

PRO

Experienced product designer with strong expertise in user experience design, user research, usability testing, and design thinking methodologies. Proven track record leading comprehensive UX process, collaborating with stakeholders, and delivering user-centric designs aligned with business objectives. Seeking to leverage UX/UI design and user research skills to contribute to impactful design solutions.…

Available to hire

Experienced product designer with strong expertise in user experience design, user research, usability testing, and design thinking methodologies. Proven track record leading comprehensive UX process, collaborating with stakeholders, and delivering user-centric designs aligned with business objectives. Seeking to leverage UX/UI design and user research skills to contribute to impactful design solutions.

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Language

English
Fluent
Portuguese
Intermediate

Work Experience

Product Designer at Booking.com
August 1, 2022 - Present
Leading the complete UX process and decision-making across two product teams. Partnering with leadership, technology, and product teams to drive design and execute strategic concepts; creating high-quality, data-informed designs for internal platforms and customer-facing products across web, mobile, and native applications, helping to reach 12,500 global partners. Conducted over 30 user research and moderated user testing sessions. Applied design thinking methodologies and facilitated Agile sprints. Managed key stakeholders throughout the product design process. Planned and strategized workshops to ensure cohesive designs across the organization.
Interaction Designer at Accent
April 1, 2021 - July 1, 2022
Designing and prototyping digital experiences at various fidelity levels throughout the product design process. Communicating around 8 design solutions through wireframes and interactive prototypes to leadership and key stakeholders. Gathering and analyzing user research, market insights, and business requirements to inform design decisions with qualitative and quantitative insights. Collaborating with product managers and development teams to ensure alignment on design intent through implementation and deployment. Facilitating workshops with end users and design peers to foster cross-collaborative efforts.
Product Designer at Basalt X Technology Solutions
May 1, 2020 - March 1, 2021
Collaborating with client stakeholders and developers to align business, product and tech requirements. Conducting usability tests and competitor market research to inform design decisions. Involved in the entire design process with engineers to ensure high-quality designs and a seamless user experience across web, mobile, and native applications. Creating wireframes, high-fidelity prototypes, and graphic visuals to communicate design solutions. Documenting design guidelines, user flows, and information architecture for all products. Contributing to and building new design systems for each client/project.
Product Designer at Ideanav SV
September 1, 2014 - April 1, 2020
- Designing and developing wireframes, high-fidelity designs, and prototypes for desktop websites and online internal tooling. - Presenting design solutions to leadership and key stakeholders. - Creating high-quality digital graphics for websites, marketing materials, and internet publications. - Working across the entire end-to-end design process while collaborating with key stakeholders, developers, and engineers. - Designing and developing 3D concepts and photo realistic visuals.

Education

Product Design at University of Johannesburg
January 1, 2010 - February 8, 2026
BTech (Hons.), Industrial Design at University of Johannesburg
January 1, 2010 - January 1, 2013

Qualifications

Certificate in User Experience Design
November 1, 2018 - February 28, 2019
Product Design
January 1, 2010 - February 8, 2026

Industry Experience

Software & Internet, Professional Services, Media & Entertainment
    paper SaaS Campaign Tool for Account Managers

    Overview
    The Campaign Tool was originally built without a user-focused design, leading to frequent setup errors by Account Managers. These errors caused mass issues, customer complaints, revenue loss, and ongoing escalations that disrupted Product and Operations teams.

    This project focused on redesigning the Campaign Tool to reduce human error, improve user confidence, and enable scalable self-service campaign creation.

    My Role

    • Lead Product Designer & Researcher
    • I owned research, UX strategy, and end-to-end design. I worked closely with Product, Engineering, and Operations, delivering designs, stakeholder presentations, roadmap planning, and optimisation workshops.

    The Challenge
    How might we reduce setup errors and mass issues, minimise customer impact, improve partner satisfaction, and free up team capacity across Product and Operations?

    Research & Insights
    Hypothesis
    If we redesign the Campaign Tool using a user-centred approach, setup errors will decrease—leading to fewer mass issues, reduced escalations, and improved operational efficiency.

    Understanding the Problem
    Through workshops and incident analysis, we documented all mass issues, identified root causes, and prioritised quick wins alongside a longer-term redesign.

    Key insights

    • Gating setup was the primary source of errors
    • Missing or incorrect inputs frequently caused failures

    Understanding the User
    We researched why Account Managers were creating mass issues and where confusion occurred.

    Key insights

    • Interface complexity and unclear language increased cognitive load
    • Gating configuration was difficult and error-prone

    Designing the Campaign Tool
    Using existing designs as a base, I redesigned the tool to clearly communicate an MVP direction while improving usability, structure, and in-context guidance. This enabled Product to plan implementation, define sprints, and align stakeholders on scope and impact.

    Validation & Testing
    We ran usability tests with 16 Account Managers, split between users with and without prior mass issues.

    Results

    • Improved clarity and ease of setup
    • Higher confidence when launching campaigns
    • Strong validation of guidance, structure, and gated flows

    “I think these improvements will make a huge difference in the amount of mass issues created.”

    Impact

    • 23% increase in user confidence
    • 68% task completion rate for simplified setups
    • 38% increase in campaign creation
    • 36% reduction in setup issues
    • 70% improvement in positive user sentiment

    Six months post-release:

    • Mass issues reduced by 62% (79 → 30)
    • Bookers impacted reduced from 41,327 to 15,704
    • Revenue loss reduced from €300k to €114k

    Outcome & Learnings
    The redesigned Campaign Tool (V2) shipped in February 2024 with measurable reductions in mass issues and escalations. A key learning was the importance of research-backed design in building stakeholder confidence, especially in high-risk operational environments.

    uniE608 MTN Telco Super App
    MTN Super App Designing a unified self-service experience for 6.5M users Overview MTN users lacked a centralised, consistent self-service platform, forcing them to navigate multiple channels to complete basic tasks. This fragmentation caused frustration, low confidence, and heavy reliance on support. The MTN Super App was designed as a one-stop, scalable self-service platform, aligned with MTN’s refreshed brand and long-term strategy—helping users manage their digital lives in one place. My Role Lead UX Designer & Researcher Owned UX strategy, research, and end-to-end experience design Contributed to visual design, prototyping, and documentation Collaborated with product, engineering, and content The Challenge How might we create a unified app and web experience from a single codebase, grow the active user base to 6.5 million, and evolve MTN beyond a traditional telecom provider? Research & Insights Internal Discovery Audits and workshops revealed fragmented platforms, inconsistent branding, and missed opportunities to expand beyond telco services. User Research: 8 user interviews highlighted two key insights: Users wanted more personalisation and control Brand trust drove loyalty, but the app experience felt outdated Competitive Analysis We analysed local and international telco and banking apps using the LOVE Index, helping us define a differentiated market position. Designing the Super App We ran multiple design sprints, breaking the app into nine core areas. Wireframes were iterated through critique sessions to align on structure and usability before visual design. Visual Design & System We created a cohesive visual language aligned with MTN’s updated brand, defining colour, typography, iconography, and interaction patterns. This work expanded the design library from 220 to 400+ assets, modernising MTN’s design system and enabling scalability. Validation & Testing 12 usability tests with existing MTN users and external participants showed: Reduced cognitive load Faster task completion High appreciation for feature depth Navigation as a key area for refinement “I have been wanting something like this for a long time. If MTN did this, they could propel themselves as industry leaders.” Impact 70% increase in user confidence 52% more issues resolved via self-service 47% increase in early feature adoption 32% reduction in task completion time 23% drop in frustration-related sentiment Outcome & Learnings The Super App framework influenced MTN’s five-year strategy, rolled into the web experience, and shaped multiple internal teams. While leadership later opted for an interim release, the shipped product retained the information architecture and UX foundations we designed—validating the long-term vision. Next Steps MTN is targeting a full Super App release in 2025, with the framework expanding into additional product areas and continued design system growth.…