Simranjit Singh Sandhu

Senior UX/UI Designer & Accessibility Expert with 11+ years of experience leading teams to build intuitive and inclusive products in Agile environments.

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About Me

My journey into user experience and accessibility began in an unlikely place: an ophthalmology hospital in Chandigarh, India. In 2009, my role as a UI Designer wasn't just about pixels on a screen; it was about sitting with patients, many with significant visual challenges, and understanding firsthand how they navigated the digital world. I tested products with them, listened to their feedback, and saw their frustrations and successes up close.

That experience was formative. It taught me the profound importance of empathy and ignited my passion for accessibility. It's where I learned a fundamental truth that has guided my entire career: when we design for those with the greatest need, we create better, more usable products for everyone.

This belief is the foundation of my work as a Senior UX/UI Designer. I thrive on transforming complex problems-from enterprise-level authentication systems to intricate B2B platforms-into intuitive, user-friendly, and inclusive solutions. My approach is built on collaboration and data, leading teams to foster a culture of empathy and using insights from user research to create designs that are not only beautiful but also effective.

With a proven track record in implementing WCAG guidelines, managing robust design systems, and training teams in Agile methodologies, I am dedicated to building products that truly serve their users. When I'm not designing, I'm actively advocating for accessibility in the tech community, sharing my knowledge as an instructor and mentor. For me, great design isn't just a profession; it's a mission to create a more equitable digital world.

Projects

Here are some of the projects I'm proud of.

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Renewing a B2B IAM Delegated Management Platform

I led the redesign of a legacy B2B IAM platform that could not scale to support complex client hierarchies. My solution replaced the flat, outdated system with a new, flexible hierarchy model, allowing for multi-level child organizations. The solution empowered enterprise administrators, solved critical scalability bottlenecks, and unlocked new markets for the business.

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Thumbnail image of project ECHO

Flexible Authentication

As Sr. UX Designer for Thales's SafeNet Trusted Access, I led the UX efforts for Flexible Authentication feature. This solution lets IAM (Identity and access management) administrators configure primary and fallback login methods, eliminating frustrating lockouts for users of secure authentication like FIDO and Certificate-Based Authentication (CBA).

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Thumbnail image of project ECHO

ECHO: Digital Twin Platform

While working on ECHO, I had the chance to work with a huge amount of data and turn it into a clear, interactive experience that empowers leaders to make critical decisions about city planning with confidence. This project showcases my ability to solve complex, high-stakes design challenges through a user-centered process.

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Speaking Engagements

Sharing knowledge with the community.

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May 2025

Shifting Left: How designers can drive accessibility before development starts

AccessU 2025 - Austin, TX, USA

At Knowbility's John Slatin AccessU 2025 conference, I was honored to co-present with Georgette Sullivan to share a story of organizational change. Our presentation, "Shifting Left," chronicled our journey from discovering a massive, hidden accessibility debt to building a proactive, design-led framework.

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My Resume

Senior UX Designer with 11+ years of experience creating secure, accessible, and scalable digital experiences for enterprise B2B and B2C platforms.

Expert in leveraging user research, analytics, and A/B testing to inform design decisions that align with business objectives and exceed KPIs.

Proven leader in building and managing robust design systems in Figma and collaborating with cross-functional teams to deliver innovative, brand-aligned solutions in the identity and access management (IAM) space.

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Work Experience

January 2023 - Present

Senior User Experience Designer

Thales Canada, Ottawa, ON

Led UX design for Thales's core identity and access management (IAM) products, balancing stringent security requirements with user-centric design to improve usability and align with enterprise business goals.

  • Led the end-to-end UX for SafeNet Trusted Access (STA), optimizing Flexible Authentication Journeys for thousands of daily enterprise users and enhancing resilience with multi-factor and passwordless strategies.
  • Directed the UX/UI for the SafeNet MobilePASS+ authenticator (iOS & Android), streamlining user enrollment via QR codes and biometrics and ensuring full accessibility compliance for screen-reader users.
  • Led the end-to-end UX redesign of a core B2B IAM Delegated management, replacing its rigid, flat architecture with a scalable, multi-level hierarchy system that simplified complex administration for enterprise clients and unlocked new market segments, directly enabling business growth.
    • Drove the design process by conducting a comprehensive heuristic analysis to identify critical usability failures in the legacy system, then created detailed user flows, wireframes, and interactive prototypes for the new solution.
    • Architected a new information model to support complex parent-child relationships and designed novel UI components, including nested data tables, to make managing thousands of sub-organizations intuitive for administrators.
    • Directly addressed critical workflow failures, such as the broken company selector and certificate authentication flows, creating a scalable platform capable of supporting millions of users and onboarding enterprise clients previously inaccessible to the business.

May 2021 - September 2022

Senior User Experience Designer

CAE Inc., Montreal, QC

Led a design team of 5, defining creative direction and UX strategy for over 15 products and services within a highly regulated aviation technology ecosystem, impacting over 100,000 users.

  • Championed and managed a comprehensive design system, driving brand consistency and accelerating the design and development lifecycle across multiple product lines.
  • Drove organization-wide adoption of Agile/Lean UX methodologies, training 8 teams to cut product development and release cycles by several months.
  • Conducted extensive UX and accessibility audits using user testing, translating findings into actionable work items that saved the "ECHO" digital twin project an estimated 5 months of development time.
  • Educated designers and developers on inclusive design patterns, leading to a 70% improvement in product accessibility scores and a 70% reduction in A11y defects through pair programming sessions.

July 2021 - April 2022

UX/UI Designer

VanillaSoft Inc., Gatineau, QC

  • Led UX initiatives across three multidisciplinary teams, delivering user-centric features for a sales engagement platform serving over 35,000 users.
  • Planned and implemented WCAG guidelines for existing features, improving the platform's accessibility score by 75% as measured by axe DevTools.
  • Developed functional front-end prototypes using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, accelerating the development hand-off process by 15%.

November 2018 - June 2019

UX/UI Designer

TASKtify, Ottawa, ON

Created wireframes, mockups, and interactive prototypes for new and existing product features, resulting in a 35% increase in the user satisfaction index.

March 2014 - June 2018

UX/UI Designer

Grewal Eye Institute, Chandigarh, India

  • Architected and developed high-fidelity functional prototypes for a diverse healthcare ecosystem, including EMR systems, inventory management, and patient education consoles, ensuring seamless cross-platform responsiveness.
  • Engineered front-end solutions using HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, and AJAX to bridge the gap between complex clinical requirements and intuitive user interfaces.
  • Optimized clinical workflows across major product workstreams, including Pharmacy Billing and Patient Feedback systems, reducing friction for both medical staff and patients.

Skills

Figma (Expert) FigJam Adobe Creative Suite User Research A/B Testing Data Interpretation Pendo Analytics User Testing Accessibility (WCAG 2.1) Design System Wireframing Advance Prototyping Agile SAFe Lean UX Scrum User-Centered Design HTML CSS JavaScript Vibe Coding Vibe Designing Generative UI Human Centered AI Prompt Engineering

Testimonials

What colleagues and collaborators say about working with me.

I've worked with Simran on many projects. He has very high standards and a great approach with people. He knows his craft very well and produces not only great pre-project research, but designs that perform. Simran is a real team player and just a great person to have on your team. I look forward to when we will be able to work together again!

Jason Langdale Chiasson

Head of Digital Marketing and Growth, CAE Inc.

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I had the privilege to work on a notorious & complex company project with Simran. From the moment he joined, Simran brought his unique perspective and experience to the table, unifying team and vision around a common goal and collaborative practice. He is a creative & inclusive team player, a realistic problem-solver and a careful observer. I believe his adaptive creative skills will be a great asset to any project he puts his hands on.

Emilie Luneau

Product Owner, Marketing and Growth, CAE Inc.

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Sim has this SPECIAL mix between creativity, technological know how, and most importantly empathy from the end user's perspectives. It was a pleasure working with Sim. I could always brainstorm with him to generate amazing product UI designs with UX workflows that caters to the end users. If you are looking for an efficient, creative, and human centric UI/UX designer with potential of being a leader in the UI/UX space. I highly recommend Sim.

Tam Hua

Product Manager, VanillaSoft

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I had a great pleasure to work with Simran. Together we tackled many challenges and solved countless user problems. He is an exceptionally talented individual. He takes a thoughtful approach to UX, always maintaining a future focus on what could be vs. what is. What really stands out is how Simran truly values the role of the user in product. He's also an absolute please to work with - an excellent team player, always demonstrating a willingness to support others!

Maria Kololenko

Product Manager, VanillaSoft

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Simrajit was wonderful to work with during my time at VanillaSoft. I had the pleasure of collaborating with Sim on several new product initiatives. He was an out-of-the-box thinker with a very strong grasp of users' abilities and needs. His designs were elegant and he took the time to ensure Product Management and the development team understood the reason for the designs he proposed. When I left for another opportunity, I wanted to take Sim with me! Simrajit would be an asset to any company and he earns my highest recommendation.

Cheryl Hill

Product Manager, VanillaSoft

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Simran is a very professional and result oriented worker with great new ideas! He's especially respectful of others and someone you can count on. During our time working together we also had the chance to share some of our interests, especially for photography and drones! If you're looking to hire him as a UI/UX Designer, don't hesitate, he's the man!

Liked very much our time working as a team at VanillaSoft.

Alexandre Sauvé

Full-stack Developer, VanillaSoft

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I had great time working with Simran. Not only he is a good design strategist, self-motivated and independent, but also a reliable and trustworthy team member.

At Grewal Eye Institute, Simran led the design effort breathing life into super easy to work with interactive web application. I found him highly approachable, great problem solver, always with business goals in mind. Thank you Simran.

Parminder Singh

Motion / Graphic Designer, Grewal Eye Institute P. Ltd.

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