Nicolae Furtuna

Drop the Work – eCommerce & Business automation

Drop the Work, is an innovative e-commerce and business automation platform.

This project spanned over a year as a full-time job and involved extensive research, numerous design choices, iterations, user testing, and collaborative discussions. We used MUI (Material-UI) as the design system to ensure consistency and React.js for scalability across the platform.

Our collective efforts culminated in the creation of the platform, which can be accessed at app.dropthework.com. While the platform still requires further development, my design phase has been successfully completed.

Technologies Used…

Figma
MUI Design System
Agile Board Jira
Adobe Premiere
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop
React

Luca – Attendance App

I was involved in designing an attendance application for Luca, a prominent Romanian Bakery chain with a strong presence in major Romanian towns. With a sizable workforce of over 2500 employees, the company needed a robust solution to manage attendance data efficiently, including seamless export and import capabilities.

Design Process:

  • User Research: Conducted thorough user research to understand the specific needs and pain points of the bakery chain’s workforce.
  • UI Design: Designed a user-friendly interface that streamlined the attendance tracking process for employees and administrators alike.
  • Data Management: Implemented features to facilitate seamless data export and import, ensuring smooth operations for the HR department.
  • Scalability: Ensured the design could accommodate the large workforce of Luca Bakery and scale as the company grows.

The attendance application provided Luca Bakery with a reliable solution for managing attendance data across its various locations. The seamless export and import functionality simplified HR processes, enhancing overall efficiency.

This project exemplifies my ability to deliver practical UX/UI solutions for complex organizational challenges, emphasizing efficiency and user satisfaction.

1. Manager Dashboard

2. Administrators Dashboard

pure it – Hosting Interface

Pure IT offers B2B hosting services to designers and developers, helping them manage their servers, domains, invoicing, and customer plans. My role in this project was focused exclusively on the design process, rather than the actual workflow.

Design Process:

  • UI Design: Created a user-friendly interface tailored to the specific needs of designers and developers, ensuring ease of use and efficiency.
  • Distinct Dashboards: Designed two distinct dashboards: one for partners and another for administrators, each with customized functionalities to suit their specific roles.

The design phase was successfully completed, providing a solid foundation for the development team to build upon. The application was crafted to enhance user experience for both partners and administrators.

This project demonstrated my ability to deliver targeted UI designs for B2B platforms, emphasizing the importance of user-centric design in professional and technical environments.

1. Partner Dashboard

2. Administrators Dashboard

Medicasa – Medical Delivery

For this project, I was tasked with designing The Medicasa, a web application aimed at serving as a proficient medication delivery platform for healthcare professionals. The platform was intended to facilitate doctors in prescribing medications for their patients following in-person visits.

Design Process:

  • UI Design: Focused primarily on the user interface, ensuring it was intuitive and user-friendly for both healthcare professionals and administrators.
  • UX Recommendations: Suggested integrations with other services to enhance the platform’s appeal to doctors. However, these recommendations were deemed too expensive to implement despite being crucial for doctor adherence.
  • Distinct Dashboards: Designed two distinct dashboards: one tailored for healthcare professionals and another designated for administrators.

Outcome:

Unfortunately, the project did not take off and ultimately failed. Despite this, the experience provided valuable insights into the challenges of designing for the healthcare sector and the importance of integrating necessary features, even if costly.

1. Medical Professionals Dashboard

2. Administrators Dashboard

Fashion template

As the UX designer, I took charge of designing the Fashion Theme template within a larger e-commerce solution called Drop the Work.

Throughout the design process, I conducted extensive user research and testing to gather insights and validate design decisions. Collaborating closely with developers and stakeholders, I iteratively refined the interface to align with user expectations and business goals.

The Fashion Theme template not only showcases trendy aesthetics but also prioritizes functionality, offering a seamless shopping experience from browsing products to finalizing purchases. By leveraging the capabilities of Drop the Work’s framework and adhering to best UX practices, I successfully delivered a solution that enhances customer satisfaction and drives business growth in the competitive fashion e-commerce sector.

Oana Grecea

Communication & PR manager at the Special Olympics Romania Foundation

"I collaborated with Nicolae for the website of the organization I work for. I appreciated that, unlike other programmers, I could really communicate with him. Besides the fact that he made us a website as we wanted, he helped me and made me understand how the wordpress platform works, where and what I need to change. He made me demonstration videos as many times as needed and was always available with answers when I needed them. A pleasure to work with him. A smart and funny guy."

Sanda Gabriela Murtaza

PR Specialist, Fundaţia Baylor – Marea Neagră – BIPAI ROMÂNIA

“It gives me great pleasure to recommend Mr. Nicolae Furtuna. He is a fully dedicated professional. His contribution, during our collaboration enhanced the quality of the project we were developing at the time. Professionally mature and well balanced, Nicolae managed to approach each work package of the project with the same focus, technical knowledge, and creative support. His attitude towards work and collaboration defined the productivity frame by building a productive dialogue. I am convinced Mr. Furtuna will become indispensable to any team and highly supportive to his peers, active in terms of disseminating key technical information, providing professional growth support to the team, and conducting consultative meetings with the client. Nicolae shows great commitment to rapid skills acquisition, endeavoring his further professional development. He’ll definitely contribute to boosting the tenacious efforts of any employer preoccupied to unlock the full potential he can reach. Please do not hesitate to contact me for further details on Mr. Nicolae Furtuna contribution to designing, implementing and timely launching of our project. “

 Fundaţia Baylor – Marea Neagră – BIPAI ROMÂNIA

About me

I'm a curious person who strives to understand the bigger picture. I have a mind that works well with mechanics and procedures.
I communicate easily with designers, stakeholders, customers, engineers and marketing teams because I've been in their shoes at some point in my career.

Professional Path

After earning my Bachelor's degree in 2012, I embarked on a varied career journey that eventually led me to my true passion. Initially, I explored different roles, from being a curator at the National Museum to working in the Scottish Highlands.

In 2017, I found my calling in WordPress website design. Starting with small projects, I quickly honed my skills. In 2019, I co-founded Octa Design Solutions, offering web development and graphic design services.

In 2022, I shifted to freelancing, collaborating on diverse web development projects in an Agile enviroment (Jira, Notion). In 2022, I expanded my expertise to UX/UI design, blending it seamlessly with Front-end Development. This journey has equipped me with a unique skill set, ready to tackle new challenges in the tech industry.

Tools & Skills

My skills are in making WordPress websites and UX/UI design for small, medium, and large businesses. This involves designing, building, and optimizing websites for high speeds and SEO readiness, using different builders like Breakdance, Elementor, or custom code (PHP, JS, CSS, HTML), and configuring GTM, SMTP, Forms, etc.
I also design and create the architecture for web apps for various clients using Figma, Google Sheets, Fig jam etc.

Other tool skills include projects where I've used Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Mailchimp, Miro, Bootstrap, Tailwind, GitHub, and React. While I'm not a pro at them, I can effectively use them without losing precious time.