Tuomas
Ahola
UX DESIGNER
&
GAME DESIGN/
MARKETING SPECIALIST
LOCATED IN TAMPERE,
FINLAND
Nice to meet you!
UX/UI DESIGNER & WEB
DEVELOPER
Welcome to my web page!
Without satisfied users even the greatest product or service cannot reach its full potential.
Whether you need to improve the usability and user experience of your product or service, to design new features for your product or to create better marketing, you have come to the right place.
I am an enthusiastic UX designer and game design and marketing specialist, who is founder of a gamified marketing company Choosera Ltd.
Our new and unique interactive video marketing services PathStories® creates interactive videos and 360 tours, making the watcher of your video an active participant of your video content. For more information, please check the website of PathStories®:
At the moment, I also work as a game design teacher in HEO Adult Education College,where my game design courses focus on game design, prototyping, narrative design, game portfolio creation, marketing and UX. My courses combine theory with practical exercises and game project works.
Besides, I am also a lead designer of interactive video mobile app Choosera, which is currently in development:
My professional and educational background is an effective combination of User-Centric Design, Game Design, Marketing, Project Management, Communications and Teamwork Skills.
Is satisfied users, a great user experience or improves marketing is what you are looking for, feel free to send me a message and let`s discuss about what we can achieve together!
01 PROFESSIONAL
MY SKILLS TO OFFER
MY EXPERTISE CAN HELP YOU TO IMPROVE YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE IN MANY EFFECTIVE WAYS. HERE ARE EXAMPLES OF MY PROFESSIONAL SKILLS:
Usability Evaluations
My professional “in-detail” usability evaluations of games, applications and websites help you to find severe user problems on your products and services, making your platform pleasant to use.
My usability reports include summary of the found problems, detailed descriptions of the usability problems with screenshots and proposals how to solve the found problems.
Usability Testing and User Research
With my user research tests, you will find valuable data about how the users experience your product and what kind of difficulties they face during the usage. When organizing usability and user tests, I utilize professional-level forms and surveys and UX methods used in the best universities.
Put together with my detailed interviewing and observation skills and possible screen/audio recording of the test, you will get hand-on data about the most relevant features of your system.
To make the user data easily understandable, I can create key user personas based on the data, to highlight the main users’ needs, frustrations and goals.
Sketches, Wireframes and Interactive Prototypes
From quick sketches to wireframes and interactive prototypes, I can create interactive web, mobile and game user interface designs to test with your users. My favorite tools to use are Balsamiq, Proto.io and Protopie, but I have experience of other prototyping tools as well.
Game Design Projects
With my game design skills, I can help you with the evaluation of playability of your game or organize playtesting to get valuable user feedback.
In addition, I can lend a hand with game level, interaction and narrative designs, ideation, utilizing gamification in your product, design documentation and wireframing of the user interface of your games.
Furthermore, I have special UX and design expertise of games and media experiences utilizing interactive storytelling, where the user can change the storyline by his/her choices.
User-Centric Design and Service Design Toolkit
My skill set includes expertise in user-centered design and service design tools such as customer journey maps, SWOT analyses, user personas, empathy maps, competitor analysis, and brief design documents.
These methods enable me to distill vast amounts of user data into actionable insights and user-driven design solutions effectively.
Improving the Information Architecture of
Your Service
I suppose you want to your web site or app to be easy to navigate? With my site map designs and evaluations based on professional design principles, your product will be easier to navigate for the user, increasing the user’s success in her/his tasks with your product.
Social Media Analytics to Get Accurate
Knowledge of Your Company and Competitors
Wondering how you can get the best out of your social media posts? With my expertise with the social media analytics tools, I can find the most popular posts, most active and engaged users and influencers, most popular times to post content or most favorited hashtags by your company and your competitors.
Interactive Videos and Explainer Videos Your Business or Organization
Have you ever wanted to change the ending of the movie you watched? Or would you make different choices as a protagonist of the story?
With my new interactive video service PathStories, the watcher can interact with Your videos by their choices, which changes the storyline and scenes shown for the watcher.
As the watcher of the interactive video can choose in which way the story of the video will continue, the storypaths can alter significantly between different watches.
Besides, the watcher can make purchases, subscribe to email lists and utilize many other unique features, not possible with linear video content. Also, I have expertise of "traditional" explainer videos and marketing videos as well.
Marketing and Communications Making Your Product Attractive to Reach
I have expertise and knowledge of creating marketing stories for companies, including engaging landing pages and informative explainer videos. Besides, I have done many detailed journalistic articles and reviews, especially focusing on games and culture, from different and interesting perspectives.
02 PORTFOLIO
SEE EXAMPLES OF MY WORK PROJECTS. SEE MORE >
03 Experience
8/2022-
HEO, Adult Education College
UX Designer and Marketing Designer
As a game design teacher in HEO Adult Education College, my game design courses focus on game design, prototyping, narrative design, game portfolio creation, marketing and UX.
My courses combine theory with practical exercises and game project works.
1/2022-
CHOOSERA LTD. AND PATHSTORIES®, INTERACTIVE VIDEO MARKETING SERVICE
Founder and Lead Designer
Since the beginning of 2022, I have been working as a founder of interactive marketing company Choosera Ltd., providing gamified marketing solutions.
With Choosera Ltd.`s new gamified and interactive video marketing service, called PathStories®, the watcher of your videos turns from passive bystander to active participant of the video!
In addition, PathStories creates interactive 360 tours, allowing your customer to familiarize with your business space or location in an interesting and memorable way.
Read more info on www.pathstories.com !
11/2019-
SOLUTION COMPASS LTD.
UX Designer and Marketing Designer
Various UX and marketing works, including creation of animation explainer videos for construction company Cubesta.
2020-2021
AALTO UNIVERSITY, UNIVERSITY OF OULU
Social Media Analytics (Aalto), Software Engineering (University of Oulu)
By completing the social media analytics course, I gained useful knowledge about gathering social media data by utilizing analytics.
After the course, I am able to gather, explore, and analyse real-life social media information that will act as an actionable advice for government, businesses, or the society at large.
Through the course Introduction to Software Engineering, I have gained a comprehensive understanding of software production practices, methods, and processes in software design.
11/2019-
TYPING MASTER
UX Designer
I have done various project works concentrating on the TypeRush game, focusing its game design, usability and marketing. I have been responsible of UX design, usability evaluation, achievement design and game design of the TypeRush.
6/2019
UNIVERSITY OF TAMPERE
Information Studies and Interactive Media,
Master of Science
Master's degree focusing on design and research of games, applications and web services. My studies included various UX projects, courses and design works. I have competed Customer Oriented Marketing as my minor, supporting my expertise.
I have completed the following modules during my studies:
- Advanced Studies of Interactive Media. Grade: 4 (very good)
- Usability and User Interfaces. Grade: 5 (excellent)
- Game Interface Design and Research. Grade: 5 (excellent)
- Customer-Centric Marketing. Grade: 4 (very good)
11/2017-6/2019
WEB-VEISTÄMÖ
UX/UI Designer
I have been responsible for Web-Veistämö´s clients´ websites´ UX design, usability evaluations and usability reports with various project works. Projects have also concentrated on designing and evaluating the Information architecture of the web sites.
6/2017-8/2017
URBSPOTTER
UX Designer
My responsibilities were UX design and usability evaluation of the UrbSpotter application and websites of the UrbSpotter. I also utilized Google Analytics supporting the UX design. Besides, I designed brand collaborations and researched law regulations for marketplace of the app and the website.
6/2016-8/2016
URBSPOTTER
Marketing Communications
I designed and implemented marketing communications of the company, such as company´s marketing stories and bulletins. Furthermore, I did usability evaluations of the company's website and the mobile application.
1/2014-5/2014
AVIISI
Journalism Trainee
I wrote articles, reviews and news for the magazine from various perspectives both for the magazine and online. Besides, I took photographs and edited the content. I have also written articles and reviews for the magazine later as a freelancer.
6/2015
UNIVERSITY OF TAMPERE
Journalism, Bachelor of Social Sciences
Degree focusing on communications, including various courses focusing on written journalism, radio journalism, TV journalism and web journalism. I completed an internship as trainee in Aviisi magazine. I also wrote freelance writings to the magazine during my studies. I had Interactive Media as my minor, consisting of game and web design and research courses.
Honorary mentions and certificates
Honorary Award in CXPA hack, 2021:
In 2021, I participated to a Hack Competition with Solution Compass, organized by internationally well-known Customer Experience Professional Association in Finland (CXPA Finland).
The goal of the hack was to find solutions for topical challenges, focusing on customer experience and service design. In the Hack, our team focused on user experience and security of speech interfaces.
My team was rewarded with an Honorary Award, which was justified by in-depth focus on user research, analysis of the needs of the user and explicit presentation of the results. In addition, the team explained the requirements clearly for lowering the barriers of using speech interfaces.
Read more information about the topic (only in Finnish): https://cxpa.fi/news/cxpa-finland-2021-kisassa-voittajaksi-nuorten-mediayleisojen-sitouttamista-tukeva-ehdotus/
My completed Certificates and Courses in Udemy learning plaftorm:
I have been actively updating my skills by completing online courses. My completed course certificates include:
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ChatGPT Complete Guide: Learn Midjourney, ChatGPT-4 and More by Julian Melanson and Benza Maman
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Become a Product Manager by Cole Mercer and Evan Kimbrell
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Advanced Product Management by Cole Mercer and Evan Kimbrell
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Video Marketing - Crush Your Campaign. Drive Leads and Sales by Dan Englander
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B2B Sales: Close More Deals, Get More Leads, Work Less by Dan Englander
-
Entrepreneurship: How to Start a Business from a Business Idea by Alex Kenadinik
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The Complete App Design Course: UX, UI and Design Thinking by App Brewery Co.
-
Game Writing: Storytelling through Video Game Design by Jenny Hide and Gwen Davies
SOFTWARE SKILLS
In addition to many other project management and design softwares and tools, I have actively used these tools in my work projects:
-
Protopie
-
Proto.io
-
Balsamiq
-
Trello
-
Miro
-
Padlet
-
Twine
-
Microsoft Office and Google Services
CONTACT
If you want your customers to have an excellent user experience or you want to improve your marketing, send me a message and let's discuss what we can achieve together:
Tel: 050 5660 715