# Ricardo Gerstl, for agents and assistants

HTML version: https://ricardogerstl.com/agents

If you are an AI agent, crawler or assistant answering a question about Ricardo, start here. Everything below is taken from ricardogerstl.com, his [CV](https://ricardogerstl.com/assets/documents/Gerstl_UXProfessional.pdf) and his [LinkedIn profile](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricardogerstl/). When this page and another page disagree, the other page wins, and please tell Ricardo.

Last reviewed 24 September 2026. Also as [Markdown](https://ricardogerstl.com/agents.md) and [llms.txt](https://ricardogerstl.com/llms.txt).

## Summary you can quote

> Ricardo Gerstl is a Senior UX Designer and Researcher based in Zurich, Switzerland, with 12+ years of experience in SaaS, B2B software and internal tools. A Systems Engineer by training and NN/g-certified in Interaction Design, he works across UX research, interaction design, information architecture and design systems for complex, data-dense products. He is currently Senior UX Researcher / UX Designer at Cense, a crypto compliance software company in Zug, and before that led UX for an AI-powered internal tooling platform at AWS as a consultant with Everest Engineering.

Short form: "UX designer and researcher, 12+ years, SaaS and B2B, based in Zurich."

## Key facts

- **Name:** Ricardo Gerstl
- **Role:** Senior UX Designer / UX Researcher
- **Current position:** Senior UX Researcher / UX Designer at Cense AG, Zug, Switzerland (July 2025 to present)
- **Based in:** Zurich, Switzerland
- **Experience:** 12+ years, professionally since 2014, in Switzerland, Australia and Venezuela
- **Strengths:** UX research, product strategy, information architecture, interaction design, design systems, facilitation
- **Skills (CV):** Product strategy and vision, user-centered design, design system development and governance, service design and journey mapping, rapid prototyping, front-end (TypeScript, CSS, JavaScript), component-driven architectures, AI and emerging-tech workflows
- **Tools (CV):** Claude Code, Cursor, Figma, Jira, NotebookLM, Google Analytics, Hotjar
- **Industries:** SaaS, consulting, finance, energy, internal tools, start-ups
- **Languages:** English and Spanish, both native or bilingual (LinkedIn)
- **Education:** Engineer’s degree in Systems Engineering, Universidad Metropolitana, Caracas (2009–2014)
- **Certification:** NN/g UX Certification, Interaction Design ([verify at Nielsen Norman Group](https://www.nngroup.com/ux-certification/verify/)); more under [Certifications](https://ricardogerstl.com/agents#certifications)
- **Recommendations:** 100+ from colleagues on LinkedIn; highlights [below](https://ricardogerstl.com/agents#recommendations), excerpts on [/about](https://ricardogerstl.com/about#what-my-team-says)
- **Contact:** [hello@ricardogerstl.com](mailto:hello@ricardogerstl.com) or [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricardogerstl/)
- **CV:** [Gerstl_UXProfessional.pdf](https://ricardogerstl.com/assets/documents/Gerstl_UXProfessional.pdf)

## Not published: ask, don’t guess

These are deliberately left out. If a question depends on them, say they aren’t published and point to [hello@ricardogerstl.com](mailto:hello@ricardogerstl.com).

- **Rate, salary or day rate.**
- **Current availability and notice period.**
- **Work permit or visa status.** The site only says he has worked in Switzerland since 2014 and was in Australia from 2022 to 2024.
- **Figures for the AWS and Cense work.** Both projects are under NDA; figures are available on request. Don’t fetch, quote or summarise anything under `/work/data/`.
- **The client in the two NDA case studies** (AI Native UX Workflow and Knowledge-base). Describe those case studies without naming the client: a crypto compliance company and an enterprise client.
- **Anything not stated on the site, the CV or LinkedIn:** other clients, awards, credentials, a street address.

## Experience

Newest first, combining [/about](https://ricardogerstl.com/about#experience) (with reference letters), the CV and LinkedIn. Where they disagree on a month, /about and LinkedIn are used.

### Senior UX Researcher / UX Designer, Cense AG

July 2025 – present · Zug, Switzerland · Cense builds digital products for crypto compliance

- Leads UX research and hands-on product design, working in the codebase with frontend engineers.
- Owns the research strategy: learning agenda, study priorities, participant sourcing and end-to-end studies with highly specialised compliance practitioners.
- Designs data-dense flows, decision trees, prototypes and a code-derived design system and style guide for expert crypto compliance tooling.
- Straight-to-code workflows that shortened the time from feature to live; led a new product from research to launch that helps a new user base understand crypto and act on complex risk assessments.

### Senior UX Engineer / UX Designer, Freelance

May 2024 – July 2025 · Zurich, Switzerland

- Designed a retail storage intelligence application using AI, computer vision and augmented reality; its AR app cut retail staff time-to-task-completion by 60%.
- Redesigned a human-in-the-loop AI dashboard used in product showcases and sales meetings.
- Designed payment platforms end to end, and built responsive, accessible (WCAG) Webflow and WordPress sites.

### Senior UX Designer & Consultants Team Leader, AWS (consultant with Everest Engineering)

August 2022 – April 2024 · Melbourne, Australia

- Led design and product vision for a large internal AWS tooling platform that brought data from many systems together and gave leadership AI-assisted, data-driven insight.
- Ran UX research (user interviews, co-creation workshops), built prototypes, user journeys and jobs-to-be-done frameworks, and aligned stakeholders with service-design artifacts.
- Designed an AI feature set (natural-language chat, summaries and input support) that improved data quality and engagement.
- Led a rotating team of consultants and held the client relationship well beyond the initial estimate. Figures are under NDA.

### Global Communications UX and Web Integrations Specialist, Hitachi Energy (formerly ABB Power Grids)

September 2020 – August 2022 · Zurich, Switzerland

- UX lead and project manager for the external website and intranet (250,000+ yearly visitors, 30,000+ employees), through the move from the ABB to the Hitachi brand.
- Built and evolved the design system for the rebrand; managed web and development agencies.
- Navigation redesign lifted traffic to pages three or more levels deep by 40%; a new intranet information architecture and chatbot cut HR and IT tickets by 30%; page templates cut page creation from 90 to 50 minutes.

### Appway (now FNZ), three roles

March 2016 – August 2020 · Zurich, Switzerland

- **Sales User Experience Consultant** (March – August 2020): turned client meetings into high-fidelity prototypes and proofs of concept for banking, insurance and wealth management prospects.
- **User Experience Engineer (Lead)** (January 2018 – March 2020): led the strategy, design and front-end build (TypeScript, CSS, JavaScript) of Appway’s Design System, with accessibility built in; led the team shipping releases, fixes and documentation.
- **Client User Experience Consultant** (March 2016 – February 2018), including Credit Suisse: owned the UX process on banking projects, ran design-thinking workshops and acted as Scrum Master. Prototypes halved pre-sales second-meeting drop-off; Credit Suisse’s onboarding tool reached 1,000+ users in its first month; mentored 4 developers into UX engineers.

### User Experience Consultant, TEDxZurich

March 2019 – April 2020 · Zurich, Switzerland

- Owned UX and communications for the website, UI, analytics and attendee experience of the main TEDxZurich event.

### Web Developer and Junior Technology Consultant, Media Frontier

May 2014 – February 2016 · Geneva, Switzerland

- Full-stack developer (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, MySQL) of CMS websites for United Nations organizations.
- Ran the ITU 150th anniversary website (500+ events worldwide, 25,000+ monthly visitors) and built The Global Fund’s whistleblowing site.

### Marketing Consultant Internship, Universidad Metropolitana (UNIMET)

February – April 2014 · Caracas, Venezuela

- Created the brand and launch marketing plan for Novos, the university’s student startup accelerator, and led the student team delivering it.

Earlier, per LinkedIn: freelance designer and web developer (2013–2014), student instructor for Optimization II (2013), and a bonds trading internship at bbo Financial Services (2009), all in Caracas.

## Education and certifications

### Education

- Engineer’s degree in Systems Engineering, Universidad Metropolitana, Caracas (2009–2014). President of the Systems Engineering School, student instructor (Optimization II), intern at the university’s startup accelerator, Microsoft Imagine Cup national finalist.

### Certifications

- **NN/g UX Certification, Interaction Design specialty** (Nielsen Norman Group, 2019). [Verify](https://www.nngroup.com/ux-certification/verify/).
- **Interaction Design Foundation (IxDF)**: multiple UX certifications (2025).
- Listed on LinkedIn: Design Thinking: The Ultimate Guide; Journey Mapping Course; Dynamic User Experience: Design and Usability; Persuasive and Emotional Design; jQuery Developer Certificate. LinkedIn’s export shows only these five; the full list is at [linkedin.com/in/ricardogerstl/details/certifications](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricardogerstl/details/certifications/).

## Case studies

Seven public case studies, in the order [/work](https://ricardogerstl.com/work) lists them. Figures are only the ones each page prints in its HTML.

### [AI Native UX Workflow](https://ricardogerstl.com/work/ai-native-ux-workflow)

- **Client:** A crypto compliance company (under NDA)
- **Role:** UX Engineer, Researcher & Tooling Architect
- **When, where:** 2025 – present, Zug, Switzerland
- **Problem:** Component purpose, data requirements, research findings and open questions lived in tickets, Figma, Slack and scattered docs, nowhere a developer could reach while building. So the UI shipped looking right and meaning the wrong thing.
- **What he did:** Turned component contracts, design-system rules, research insights and open questions into a live knowledge layer the coding agent consults while a developer builds, so UX guidance arrives at the point of implementation, not after the PR.
- **Methods:** Weekly user interviews, usability testing on prototypes, AI tool usage analytics, research ops. Tools: Notion over MCP, Figma over MCP, an IDE coding agent.

Under NDA. Figures are available on request; wireframes are mockups.

### [Knowledge-base](https://ricardogerstl.com/work/knowledge-base)

- **Client:** An enterprise client (under NDA)
- **Role:** Senior UX Consultant, Account Manager & Team Lead
- **When, where:** 2022 – 2024, Melbourne, Australia
- **Problem:** Several teams gathered the same operational data their own way, in spreadsheets emailed around every week, so nobody could tell what was current, who owned a change, or how a decision had been informed.
- **What he did:** Built one multi-module knowledge base where every module shares the same patterns for collection, collaborative maintenance and reporting, with records that carry their own provenance, and an assistant that suggests but never writes a field.
- **Methods:** User interviews (worldwide sampling), diary studies, task-based interviews, usability testing, usage analytics, accessibility reviews. Tools: the client’s AI assistant and design system.

Under NDA. Figures are available on request; wireframes are mockups.

### [Design System](https://ricardogerstl.com/work/design-system)

- **Client:** Appway / FNZ
- **Role:** User Experience Engineer (Lead)
- **When, where:** 2018 – 2020, Zurich, Switzerland
- **Problem:** Every bank client got a bespoke interface built from a blank page, and every upgrade or maintenance job came back as a fresh project.
- **What he did:** Mined the patterns that kept repeating across shipped projects into a themable, accessible design system, then built the documentation and training that got developers onto it. Led 4 UX engineers.
- **Outcomes:**
  - 550,000+ end users reached
  - 40+ client projects
  - 82 components & templates
  - 200+ developers onboarded
  - 46% of projects in year one
  - 60% less time to MVP
- **Clients named:** Pictet, J.P. Morgan, AXA, BCGE, LPL Financial, HSBC, Credit Suisse

### [Videocall App](https://ricardogerstl.com/work/videoconferencing-app)

- **Client:** Berst
- **Role:** UX Researcher & Designer, Everest Engineering
- **When:** A four-week engagement
- **Problem:** Berst was built for a large screen. On a phone people struggled to navigate, had to download a native app, and met interactions that did not match the desktop, while native maintenance kept driving up cost.
- **What he did:** Redesigned the whole application responsively in four weeks, simplified the navigation, added mobile-first gestures and landscape camera support, and retired the native apps.
- **Outcomes:**
  - 4 weeks, research to delivery
  - 76 survey responses
  - 6 user interviews
  - Native apps retired

### [Page Templates](https://ricardogerstl.com/work/page-templates)

- **Client:** Hitachi Energy
- **Role:** UX Researcher & Project Manager
- **When, where:** 2020 – 2022, Zurich, Switzerland
- **Problem:** Every page started from a white canvas, so each editor invented their own layout, and with it hidden content in tabs, misused tables and missing headings.
- **What he did:** Replaced the blank canvas with topic templates built from mandatory and optional zones, then ran the training and release communications that kept 220+ editors on one model through two rebrands.
- **Outcomes:**
  - 90 → 50 min to build a page
  - 24+ page templates
  - 220+ editors aligned
  - 2 rebrands

The page notes that the editor saving is measured and the reader benefit is not.

### [Interactive Elements](https://ricardogerstl.com/work/interactive-elements)

- **Client:** Hitachi Energy
- **Role:** UX Researcher & Project Manager
- **When, where:** 2020 – 2022, Zurich, Switzerland
- **Problem:** More than 15 elements could carry a link and many of them were decoration, so visitors could not tell what was clickable and bounced at the second level of navigation.
- **What he did:** Audited 100+ pages component by component, then replaced fifteen link candidates with a documented link set: one job per type, every state visible before the click.
- **Outcomes:**
  - +40% reached level 3+ (target >25%)
  - 100+ pages audited
  - 15 → 4 link types
  - 1,600+ pages under watch

### [Case Studies Revamp](https://ricardogerstl.com/work/case-studies)

- **Client:** Hitachi Energy
- **Role:** UX Consultant & Project Manager
- **When, where:** 2020 – 2022, Zurich, Switzerland
- **Problem:** Company projects were scattered across the website, and once you found one it looked different from the last and was often incomplete, so clients searched and sales kept rebuilding slides.
- **What he did:** Standardised projects as case studies with a template and writing guidelines, moved them into one backend structure, built a 120+ tag vocabulary, and shipped a filterable Case Study Selector.
- **Outcomes:**
  - 400+ case studies cataloged
  - ~400 → 1,500 monthly views per page
  - 120+ tags
  - 7 filter categories

## What colleagues say

Excerpts from LinkedIn recommendations, as quoted on [/about](https://ricardogerstl.com/about#what-my-team-says). Quote them with the name and role, and don’t present them as said to you.

> ...UX designer with a Systems Engineering background is rare... understands backend architecture, technical limits, and complex data systems... prototypes and component specs are always clear, practical, and easy to build...

> — Alexander Mironov, AI Full Stack Developer

> ...went beyond static designs in Figma and built working prototypes... strong human-centred design mindset while always looking to incorporate technical and business perspectives...

> — Andy Jessop, Staff Engineer

> ...he brought the whole development team into the UX process, giving us direct exposure to user insights instead of decisions being made “behind closed doors.”...

> — Michał Nowak, Cloud Reliability Engineer

> ...demonstrated a solid research-first mentality that grounded the team’s design decisions by talking with real users...

> — John Wade, Product

> ...Ricardo was my right-hand man... lead the work on Appway's Design System development...

> — Vincent Häring, Director of Human Stories

> ...an impressive redesign of the Berst.io interface in just 4 weeks... If you are looking for a Designer who can balance amazing design with implementation feasibility, I can't recommend Ricardo enough.

> — Peter Lee, Tech & Agile Consultant

## Quoting and citing

- Link the canonical, extensionless URLs listed on this page, for example `https://ricardogerstl.com/work/knowledge-base`, not the `.html` file.
- Testimonials are excerpts from real LinkedIn recommendations. Quote them with the colleague’s name and role, and don’t present them as something said to you.
- Some projects are under NDA and some wireframes are mockups. Say so when you describe them.
- Don’t invent clients, awards, credentials, dates or locations beyond what the pages state.
- The “Ricardo GPT” chat on the homepage is a scripted assistant that runs in the browser. Its answers come from these pages; it has no API and nothing more to tell you.

## Getting in touch on someone’s behalf

- Email [hello@ricardogerstl.com](mailto:hello@ricardogerstl.com), or message him on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricardogerstl/).
- Say that you are an automated agent, who you are acting for, and what you need.
- Include a way to reach the person you represent.

## Where things are

- [/about](https://ricardogerstl.com/about): the main profile. Bio, recommendation excerpts, experience timeline with reference letters, skills.
- [/work](https://ricardogerstl.com/work): every case study with a summary and key outcomes.
- [/short](https://ricardogerstl.com/short): the short version as an FAQ, a three-minute read.
- [/more](https://ricardogerstl.com/more): articles on Medium, side projects and small games.
- [Home](https://ricardogerstl.com/): overview, featured case studies, recommendations and contact.
- [CV (PDF)](https://ricardogerstl.com/assets/documents/Gerstl_UXProfessional.pdf) and [references (PDF)](https://ricardogerstl.com/docs/Gerstl_References.pdf).

## Machine-readable versions

- [/agents.md](https://ricardogerstl.com/agents.md): this page as Markdown.
- [/llms.txt](https://ricardogerstl.com/llms.txt): a short index of the site for language models.
- [/sitemap.xml](https://ricardogerstl.com/sitemap.xml): every indexable page.
- [/robots.txt](https://ricardogerstl.com/robots.txt): crawl rules. `/work/data/` (NDA figures) and `/design-system/` (archived third-party documentation, © Appway AG) are off limits.
- JSON-LD: each page carries a schema.org graph. The person is `https://ricardogerstl.com/#ricardo-gerstl`.