Thomas Emnetu

Experience

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  Gamesight

  Jun 2022 - Sept 2022

  User Research Intern

  ⁃ Conducted qualitative research to gain insight into our competitor's design approaches and leveraged that information into our company's design system; created ready-to-deploy 2D animation via Adobe AE.⁃ Enhanced user experience by conducting an in-depth design audit of the company website & socials, identifying roadblocks and dead-ends that hindered the user flow; increased user engagement by 300%. ⁃ Interviewed employees before designing a roster according to their wants, needs, and pain points. Aggregated the roster across 16 influencer agencies containing the data of over 1,500+ influencers. Show less

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  UW Black in Informatics

  Oct 2022 - now

  ⁃ Created a club to amplify the presence and success of Black students in Informatics at the UW. Focused on addressing the 2% representation of black students studying Information Science at UW⁃ Managing $15,000 in grants for the club, ensuring proper allocation of funding to optimize utilization for planned events⁃ Influenced the Informatics board of advisors to implement admission policy changes supporting Black students; presented compelling independent research findings⁃ Collaborating with local low-income high schools and faculty to create educational workshops, networking events, and mentorship programs⁃ Fostering partnerships with industry professionals to enhance the learning experience for underserved Black students. If you are interested in supporting this initiative or collaborating for an event, please contact us at binfouw@uw.edu Show less ⁃ Conducted research that revealed 90% of Black iSchool students feel like they don’t belong in the program due to the underrepresentation of black students (80% felt the iSchool wasn’t offering resources or support for black students).⁃ Recruited a leadership team of 7 students, ensuring diverse perspectives and skillsets to address the challenges Black iSchool students face. ⁃ Led the brand identity design and developed the club's constitution, leadership hierarchy, and operational guidelines. ⁃ Delegated tasks to leadership team—as per their designated roles—with weekly follow ups to check on progress and ensure timelines are being met. Show less

  • President

    Nov 2023 - now

  • Founder

    Oct 2022 - Oct 2023
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  University of Washington

  Feb 2023 - Apr 2024

  UX Design Intern

  Collaborated with Sr. management in the IT department to design UW's first ever design system from the ground up. Our goal was to better support internal developers in optimizing academic experiences for the 70k+ students & faculty at the University of Washington. Responsibilities Included:⁃ Planning and conducting qualitative and quantitative user research⁃ Designing information architectures & user interfaces for student-facing systems⁃ Discovering new opportunities for how we can best support inclusive teaching and learning Show less

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  Oracle

  Jun 2023 - Sept 2023

  UX Design Intern

  ⁃ Redesigned the Redwood Design System (RDS), incorporating interactive guidelines that reduced user query time by 72%.⁃ Conducted 19 user interviews and synthesized findings from 2 prior research studies to fundamentally understand the problem space; resulting in a 100% increase in user satisfaction.⁃ Organized two stakeholder workshops and two usability studies to aid in incorporating feedback from senior management while not excluding end-users; increased user comprehension by 29%. Show less

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  Apple

  Apr 2024 - Jun 2024

  User Research Intern

  Assisted the Beats by Dre team in user research to enhance brand identity & marketing strategy for the relaunch of new Beats Pill speakers.

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  Microsoft

  Jun 2024 - now

  ⁃ Led design initiative on Copilot integration within Azure IoT Operations: a product for managing physical production lines remotely through the cloud. [scheduled for release in november 2024]⁃ Conducted a cognitive walkthrough usability study; reducing time to create a data pipeline by 70%. ⁃ Delivered on enterprise customer requests of creating a global search and filtering system; increasing system usability by 25%. ⁃ Created an E2E internal tool to streamline deployment, development, and testing of the platform on kubernetes clusters. Show less

  • Incoming UX Designer

    Oct 2024 - now

  • UX Design Intern

    Jun 2024 - Sept 2024
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  Uncut Design

  Sept 2024 - now

  Podcast Host

  Uncut 1:1 conversations w/ design leaders at Microsoft🎙️