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Virginia Duran

Product    |    Interaction    |    Architecture

About

I am a Product Designer based in London with 10+ years of experience and a background in architecture and spatial experience design.

I am passionate about innovative fields and emerging technologies such as AR/VR, conversational and robotics.

My Work

Work

Defining Suntory's Digital Workplace

Acting as the Lead Designer and Project Manager, I worked closely with Suntory Beverage and Food Europe (SBFE). Suntory are the owner of brands such as Schweppes, Orangina and Ribena. I was responsible for delivering a new digital workplace, moving from running four independent sites, to a single platform that facilitates the publishing of internal comms at both group level and local market - GB&I, EECM, France, Spain and Benelux.

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Role: Lead Designer

Leveraging employees' skills through an internal skills platform

As the pandemic peaked on an extended lockdown, employees at NTT Data were eager to discover new ways of engaging remotely. I led the creation of Manabu, a social platform for employees to exchange knowledge and interests with different members of the company. For example, language exchange, music lessons, mindfulness, wine tasting and much more. Manabu has enabled us to host activities and socialise with each other while sharing skills, observing trends and familiarising the company with new employees. The product was created internally and it's now being packaged for our clients too.

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Role: Product Designer, Product Manager

Redefining our customer experience through Pepper the humanoid robot

Large companies often use a multitude of marketing tools to improve customer experience. We used Pepper the robot to engage with our clients while on our premises or at events. I designed these interactions and conversations that gathered important data about our clients.

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Role: Product Designer

Creating an Extended reality (XR) innovation space

We created an immersive innovation space where clients, employees and their families could enjoy Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, holographs, wearables and robotics. We also created a human-centred experience using emotional technologies that included video mapping, fragrance dispensers that replicated smells of nature and Artificial Intelligence to tailor these experiences to each user.

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Role: Product Designer

Turning an itinerary creator app into a physical book

Architectour Guide was a successfully funded Kickstarted product I launched in 2017. Originally intended as an app, I conducted 200 user interviews that transformed a digital concept into a physical product.

 

When originally developed as an app, Architectour Guide won the T3chFest contest of 2013 after going through a pre-acceleration program at Tetuan Valley. After (painful) iteration, the app became what it should be and it's now being sold as a book at the Royal Institute of British Architects, London's National Theatre and Naos bookshop amongst others. 

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Role: Founder and Product Designer