Currently the Director of UX at University of Maryland

I'm Zaida, a design lead focused on user experience, based in the DC metro.

Portfolio

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Expertise

I lead UX for organizations where design has to work at scale — non-profits, higher education, and major media. My work centers on UX strategy, design systems, and building practices that empower small teams. I'm a hands-on lead: still in Figma and coding with Claude.

  • Team leadership and roadmap development — one of three leaders on a nine-person team, with one direct report; set the UX/design roadmap across 40 properties

  • Design systems and web components — led design process for UMD's first design system, now powering 50+ sites; 78% faster web project delivery, 30%+ less design time

  • Accessibility — expertise in helping ensure WCAG 2.1 AA conformance across our unit's portfolio of sites

  • AI in design workflow — use AI for rapid prototyping and to generate and maintain design system documentation

collage of many different scenes