ANGELA MARTINEZ
Product & Systems Design Leader
email@gmail.com
Toronto, Canada + 日本東京
any pronouns
LinkedIn
Building 0→1 product architecture for high-stakes, regulated systems.
Most recently, I built the first product design function in Canadian nuclear energy, shipping mission-critical AI and risk-tracking tools.
Toronto ⇄ Tokyo | JLPT N5 (Targeting N2)
Accepting contract roles.
CV
CASE STUDY 000_DESIGNING ZERO-DELTA RISK REPORTING FOR HIGH-STAKES AUDIT READINESS
UX Research
UI Design
Risk Management
Compliance
Team:
- Lead designer - myself
- Lead product manager - D.C.
- Lead front-end developer - G.B.
- UX research support - A.L.
- Lead architectural engineer - R.K.
Supported by my many colleagues (especially QA and design engineering), and the operators who shared their insights in our user research.
00_Steady state
I led the architecture of the first proprietary, total audit-ready, Canadian energy sector-grade QMS software. By decommissioning a legacy third-party liability, we eliminated the cognitive noise and systemic delta that led to subpar audits and incomplete risks.
01_What’s at stake
Failing to meet audit-ready standards can result in being stripped of our supplier license, which is a license to exist.
We had less than 12 months to migrate from a failing architecture, into a proprietary system that can carry the weight of our regular industry audits.
Trust is our safety protocol. If the software fails our design engineers, we fail the audit, and our business risks failing the grid. A failed audit can result in an operational paralysis, and compromises our standing in the energy sector.
Precision must become the default state.
02_Risk
The legacy third-party software was a blackbox; a noise dump disguised as a database. Noise hides systemic danger.
Vectors of threat:
- Cognitive overload: 200+ fields that ignored the already-overwhelmed mental models of our engineers
- Zero visibility: Significance level 1 criticalities were indistinguishable from level 4 anomalies (least critical), uploaded files were unretrievable
- Mysterious escalation gaps: Endless bugs and UX friction led to a growing pile of uneliminated nonconformance reports.
03_Parameters
As one of the only digital designers existing in Canadian nuclear energy, the sector is not concerned about delightedness but rather the ability to uphold pressure.
We built a rigid framework for non-negotiables:
- My industry: Every interaction had to defend itself from the QMS program’s standards.
- My team: The design must meet the implementation-ready timelines within our 12-month clock.
- My purpose: I had to make the case that better design was risk mitigation.
04_Logic
The mission was to translate complexity into human intuition.
- Establish a sector-fluent visual language: Significance levels 1 through 4 dictates UI behaviour. A level 1 threat must be impossible to ignore.
- Mirror users’ mental models: We mapped “data entry” into a human-logical safety sequence, reflecting the actual cognitive workflow of our users.
- Each interaction is a footprint in the audit trail: The system is self-documenting, with every action as verifiable evidence for an audit.
05_Outputs
Vestibulum et dignissim magna. Nullam at ultrices felis. Suspendisse facilisis sagittis sem sit amet tempor. Nam sit amet nibh et enim laoreet porta sit amet vel purus. Maecenas augue velit, feugiat in maximus id, auctor vel ex. Integer placerat massa nec tellus convallis aliquet. Nam lobortis lectus mi, vel molestie neque dictum at. Vivamus sed sapien fermentum, fermentum metus ut, efficitur nunc. Pellentesque sit amet ex sed est dapibus vestibulum. Donec ornare urna metus, ut mollis risus dignissim in. Phasellus tristique sed leo et dignissim. Nam lobortis vitae leo at finibus. Aliquam eget efficitur lacus. Quisque nunc nisi, dictum at sodales sed, ornare vel dolor. Sed rhoncus placerat ante rutrum condimentum. Fusce nunc sapien, sodales et consectetur at, sodales egestas lectus.