Dominira Saul, Msc

Chief Experience Architect

Dominira believes that behind every well-designed product or service there is a thorough understanding of the actual users and their needs. Dominira Saul, having presented many influential research and design outcomes to clients at all levels of the private and public sector, is very adept at putting his beliefs into practice. Dominira remains focused on ensuring clear transfer of design recommendations and most importantly, rationale to our clients. Dominira is committed to working closely with clients to ensure their success. He is a fluently bilingual communicator who has lectured at the university level, and delivered many training courses.

Dom has an MSc. in User Interface Design from London Guildhall University, a BA in Psychology from Carleton University and over 12 years of usability research and interaction design experience in the UK and Canada.

Tedde van Gelderen, MA

President

Tedde infuses Akendi, its services and methodology with his drive to make customer and user experiences go beyond a singular product or service. Experience Thinking™ starts with the holistic experience customers and users have with an organisation over time, then guides the enabling technologies & content to create intentional experiences. In his view, Experience Thinking should become deeply rooted in organisation's creation processes, research usability testing and experience design in both public and private sectors.

Prior to founding Akendi in 2007, Tedde was a founding partner of Maskery & Associates in 2001. He has worked for companies including KPMG Management Consulting and Philips Design in the Netherlands and Nortel Networks in Canada.

ATHENA HERRMANN, BFA, RGD

Design Director

Athena Herrmann is Design Director at Akendi. She brings 14 years of expertise in print, web, brand identity, and mobile, software and application design.

From concept to completion, Athena possesses a rare combination of design skills. She works with an immaculate attention to detail, a clear grasp of the target and message as a whole, extraordinary creative talent, and the production skills to bring her ideas to life. Athena delivers projects within budget and time restraints while maintaining Akendi's consistently high standards. She has had the opportunity to work with some of North America's most respected organisations including The Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, RBC, Whole Foods Market, SAP America, York Region, Blackberry, the Government of Canada, the Canadian Digestive Health Foundation and the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer.

Athena holds a BFA in Graphic Design from the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York and has earned the professional designation of Registered Graphic Designer, Ontario, Canada.

Shaun Illingworth, PhD

Vice President

Ensuring research is relevant and actionable is what drives Shaun day-to-day. With over 17 years of experience in both enterprise and startup technology companies, Shaun is an experienced business strategist, creative thinker and market research executive with a rare focus on user-centered design and its resulting business value.

With extensive North American and European market research and market development experience, Shaun has successfully built several marketing and business relationships from the ground up – borne from a focus on customer values and the user experience.

Shaun began his career in Boston as a product and market research consultant; he holds a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Northeastern University and is a professional moderator and workshop facilitator.

Prior to joining Akendi, Shaun held a variety of senior management positions in strategic marketing, market research and business development, with companies like Nortel, March Networks, and Inuk Networks.

Yvonne Shek, MSc.

VP User Experience

Yvonne is passionate about helping her clients make sound business decisions and meeting the needs of users and customers at the same time. This involves integrative thinking and using the most suitable UX methods for the situation. It sometimes even extends to creating new ways to solve problems. For example, Yvonne developed the “Scenario Description Swimlane Diagram” method during the time she worked with a government client. Since, this deliverable has been featured in two well-known user experience books: “Universal Methods of Design” by Bella Martin and Bruce Hanington (2012), and “See What I Mean – How to Use Comics to Communicate Ideas” by Kevin Cheng (2013).

Yvonne has over 20 years of experience in digital strategy, UX research, and interaction design; and ten years in managing teams of user experience consultants. She has worked with Fortune 500 and corporate clients, government agencies, universities, and non-profits. Yvonne often helps her clients make business and design decisions through workshops, facilitation, and coaching.

Prior to joining Akendi, Yvonne worked at Cossette, Sapient, and in recent years, partnered with Leo Burnett (Arc Worldwide). She worked at nForm User Experience Inc. before running her own consulting firm, Integri Consulting.

Yvonne has been the guest lecturer at various colleges and universities. Yvonne also attends and speaks at UX conferences and is an active member of the IA/IxD community. Yvonne holds a M.Sc. from University College London, and a B.Sc. from the University of Toronto. Prior to working in the private sector, Yvonne was a human factors research scientist at Defense Research and Development Canada in Toronto.

Daniel Iaboni, PhD

Principal Experience Architect

Daniel is dedicated to creating and improving software, website and interface designs to provide an exceptional interaction among users, their environment and their tools. To achieve this goal, Daniel applies knowledge and techniques from engineering, computer science, psychology and anthropology learned while completing a Doctorate in Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo with a focus on human factors, cognitive ergonomics and user-centered design.

Prior to joining Akendi, Daniel was the user experience designer for Brock Solutions, and was instrumental in the design of software used by airports and airlines around the world. In addition, Daniel has provided independent human factors consulting services for several large and medium enterprises.

Hamilton Hernandez, PhD

Senior Experience Architect

Hamilton is a User Experience and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) advocate with over 8 years of experience in the field. He dreams of a world where technology allows humans to reach maximum potential in meaningful and enjoyable ways. Hamilton holds a B.A.Sc. in Computer Science, a M.Sc. in Engineering focused on HCI, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Queen’s University where he focused on Human Factors and User Experience in the Gamification of exercise and rehabilitation.

Prior to joining Akendi, Hamilton was a User Experience Researcher & Designer for Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, where he used his skills in user-centered design, interaction design, usability testing and multidisciplinary research to research, design and build effective computer systems for therapists and children with motor disabilities. Hamilton has also taught courses in computer science and HCI at the university level for over 6 years and published highly cited articles about his work in top international conferences in HCI.

Amanda Billark, BDes

Visual Designer

Amanda brings 8 years of multi-disciplinary design experience to Akendi’s visual design team. Studying fine art before completing her degree in Industrial Design at OCAD University, she has a deep understanding of how user needs translate into visual design. Equally creative and analytical, she loves strategic problem solving as much as creating. Her diverse background enables her to create visual designs that are equally beautiful and smart, matching user and business needs with stunning graphic design.

Not only a talented designer, she is also enthusiastic about teaching others about visual design and how it relates to UX. She brings an energetic approach to her courses, striving to keep the end user at heart as she shares visual design knowledge and theory with course participants.