Rita Graca — UX Designer

I'm a strong advocate of user-centered design. I work on end-to-end journeys to ensure the design experience aligns with user behaviors and business goals.

I work daily with design systems, going into detail on components, patterns, and best practices, and applying them from wireframes to prototypes.

My experience in web development allows me to anticipate the impacts of design decisions, discuss technical details, and improve collaboration flows.

Selected projects

Bosch Smart Buildings

Role

UX Designer
Team of developers, testers, product owners, Agile master

Opportunity

At Bosch, the Research and Development Center in Aveiro contributes to making homes more intelligent and efficient. The opportunity to create climate-neutral buildings prompted the need to design new products.

Solution

We designed and developed a Human-Machine Interface to manage heat pumps for industrial clients. I was involved in the end-to-end strategy, from discussing requirements and creating wireframes to prototyping and performing quality assurance. This project contributed to a 100 million euro investment in heat pumps for the site.

City buildings with hot water, pools, solar energy
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Walking Art Maps

Role

UX Designer, Developer
Team of curators, researchers, and designers

Opportunity

Porto is a city filled with impressive monuments, statues, and murals. Away from the public eye, a museum's archive held the first sketches, drafts, and ideas behind these artworks. Recognizing the historical value, the museum wanted to showcase the creative process of the artists.

Solution

We first created an online tool for the curators to archive information for 100+ artworks that only existed in old written records. We then developed a website that interfaces the digital and physical collections, offering an educational experience to both online and on-site visitors.

Person learning more about an artwork on their phone
Website screenshot showing artworks and their location of the map
Website view on phone resolution
Spreadsheet used for collecting the artworks data
Exhibition space
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The Library is Open

Role

UX Designer
Team of 8 designers

Opportunity

Leeszaal is a library in the Netherlands, run by over 100 volunteers, where books are free and don't need to be returned. My role was to address a complex pain point: browsing the book collection.

Solution

We successfully organized an evening event as part of the library's weekly activity program and distributed a publication with insights from our work.

At the beginning of the discovery phase, we focused on conducting field studies. To gather insights from the users, I chose a mixed-method research approach and organized sessions of card sorting, focus groups, and interviews.

People doing card sorting around a table
Hand-written papers showing the outcome of user research
Hand-written papers showing the outcome of user research
Semi-structured interviews. Main research points
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Snapshots

UX Design, Development

Conference on Computation, Communication, Aesthetics & X • 2023

View of the colors, chip and cards of the design system

UX Design, Development

More than housing • 2023

UX Design, Development

Birdhouse • 2023

View of the colors, chip and cards of the design system

UX Design

Ecotaxi Design System • 2022

Wiki landpage

Research, Development

Networks of Care Wiki • 2020

Rita speaking on a conference stage

Workshop, Presentation

Thursday Night Live! at Het Nieuwe Instituut • 2018

Talk to me!

I'm passionate about working with international teams. I've done presentations and held workshops at Ars Electronica (Linz), Art Meets Radical Openness (Linz), Het Nieuwe Instituut (Rotterdam), Varia Centre for Everyday Technology (Rotterdam), oMuseu (Porto), and WORM (Rotterdam).