Hi! I am Ilke
I was born and raised in South Africa, but have been living in Memphis, TN since 2018! I graduated with my BA (Hons) degree in Information Design in 2013 and have been working in the design industry ever since.
As a Senior UX and Product Designer, I drive significant business impact by translating complex user needs into intuitive, revenue-generating experiences. I excel at navigating ambiguity, simplifying complex ideas, solving problems, and fostering collaboration, with a proven track record in large-scale B2C digital commerce platforms, directly contributing to millions in revenue.
Experience.
– 8+ Years of digital design experience
2025-Present (Contractor)
UXUI Designer, Universal Destinations & Experiences
UXUI Designer supporting the migration of the online ticketing store to a new SAP platform, ensuring seamless, accurate end-to-end user flows.
- Partnered with cross-functional teams to design & validate purchase paths, content accuracy, and edge cases across mobile and web.
- Delivered UX and UI updates aligned with brand standards, accessibility best practices, and mobile-first design principles.
- Prepared and refined designs and content for legal review, ensuring compliance without compromising user experience.
- Maintained design quality and consistency across a complex, high-traffic ecommerce experience.
2022-2025
Senior UX Designer, Hilton Worldwide
Lead UX designer across two teams for enterprise-scale B2C digital commerce experiences, supporting a global portfolio of thousands of properties across multiple brands.
- Delivered significant revenue growth in incremental revenue by leveraging and partnering with the analytics and research and experimentation teams to translate complex A/B testing data and user insights into actionable UX improvements.
- Led end-to-end design for a high-traffic product information experience, collaborating closely with content design, research (usability testing), SEO and product to create one of the highest-trafficked pages for hotel properties.
- Increased homepage user engagement by 50% through the redesign and theming of lifestyle brand pages, delivering scalable, responsive, and accessible solutions across devices.
- Led the design and documentation of flexible, CMS-based components, enabling marketing teams to self-sufficiently build new landing pages and design critical components used across the Search and Booking flows.
- Leveraged AI tools to increase output and create comprehensive content, design, and functionality guidelines.
- Led the full UX process for an industry-first HTML dining menu, defining information architecture, user flows, wireframes, and content hierarchy for a scalable and accessible solution.
- Facilitated design thinking workshops and brainstorming sessions with cross-functional teams to define requirements and build consensus.
Contributed to Product roadmap and prioritization and mentored a junior designer, enhancing team output.
2019-2021
UI/UX Designer, Hilton Worldwide
As a UI designer for the Hilton Honors loyalty program, I contributed to a large initiative to migrate all loyalty pages to a new, modern web platform while working within a cross-functional agile team.
- Contributed to a major initiative to migrate loyalty pages to a new web platform, redesigning critical member experiences like two-factor authentication (2FA) and Member Benefits page.
- Translated complex requirements into intuitive workflows, wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity designs for new features, including an enhanced Honors tier tracker.
- Enhanced design consistency and accelerated development by contributing new, fully accessible, reusable components and patterns to the enterprise-wide design system.
- Designed responsive, cross-device solutions adhering to strict brand guidelines and accessibility standards.
2015-2019
Freelance, Web Design & Creative Strategy
- Led web design, branding, and digital media projects, focusing on aligning design efforts with business objectives for diverse clients.
- Developed comprehensive UX/UI solutions, including user flows, wireframes, and final design comps, and maintained e-commerce websites using WordPress.
- Plan, design and develop the production of digitally delivered information on multi-channel deliverables (social, web, email and print media campaigns) for
- Healthcare clients including the Allergy Foundation of South Africa and Allergy Society of South Africa.
2015-2019
Digital Designer & Strategist, Olico
Strategize and manage digital campaigns for financial services products.
- Digital Paid Media Strategy (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Search & Display) and campaign setup & optimization.
- Design & development of multi-channel deliverables for digital campaigns and web assets, including social media creative, email designs and web banners.
- Optimize the user experience on landing pages to ensure ease of use and increase conversion rates.
- Keep web CMS up to date with latest content ensuring SEO best practices are implemented.
2014
Graphic Designer, Studio Zoo
- Assisted senior designers with creative layout for broadcast promotions and prepared design files for motion graphics production.
Education.
– Bachelor of Arts degree in Information Design
2019-Present
Courses & Certifications
- AI Fluency: Framework & Foundations – Anthropic
- a UX Leader: Essential Skills for Any UX Practitioner – Nielsen Norman Group
- UX Roadmaps – Nielsen Norman Group
- User Experience: The Beginner’s Guide – Interaction Design Foundation, Top 10% in Class
- Design Thinking: The Beginner’s Guide – Interaction Design Foundation, Top 10% in Class
- Human-Computer Interaction – HCI – Interaction Design Foundation, Top 10% in Class
2015-2016
Higher Certificate, Marketing Management, IMM Graduate School of Marketing
Johannesburg, South Africa
2010-2013
B.A. Information Design, University of Pretoria
Pretoria, South Africa
UX & Product Design
Collaboration:
Tools & Software
Development & Platforms