About
I'm a seasoned design leader with 25 years of international experience under my belt. I began my journey in Finland, where I honed my skills at some of the top digital agencies in Scandinavia. From there, I set out to explore new horizons in the Middle East, the United States, and Canada, lending my expertise in user experience and service design to a diverse range of organizations.
Today, I bring my knowledge to my role as a Design Coach at Sun Life, where I help bridge the gap between design aspirations and practical implementation. I also share my expertise as an instructor of User Experience and Service Design programs at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies.
When I'm not busy shaping the future of design in the corporate world, you can find me kicking off my shoes and going for a barefoot run, creating music, or spending quality time with my children.
Articles by Karri
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What’s Wrong with “Great, We Totally Need More UX Here…”
What’s Wrong with “Great, We Totally Need More UX Here…”
By Karri Ojanen
Contributions
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How can you use qualitative data to inform design decisions?
Harnessing qualitative data is pivotal for crafting well-informed designs, offering a deep dive into users' behaviors, needs, and preferences. Start by outlining your research objectives. Define what you aim to learn or achieve through qualitative research. Choose qualitative research methods aligned with your goals. Recruit participants reflecting your target user demographics, ensuring a diverse sample. Foster an environment conducive to open feedback, posing open-ended questions to unveil users' experiences, and expectations. Seek out patterns, trends, and recurring themes. Extract key insights, concentrating on understanding users' pain points, motivations, and goals. Acknowledge that qualitative research is an iterative process.
Activity
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Announcement! Hello folks, For those who don’t know me, I am a UX Design Leader and have been in this industry for over 8 years. Every so often, I…
Announcement! Hello folks, For those who don’t know me, I am a UX Design Leader and have been in this industry for over 8 years. Every so often, I…
Liked by Karri Ojanen
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I was reading five great articles on service design written by Kate Tarling. Thank you Kate for sharing your knowledge! I thought I would share…
I was reading five great articles on service design written by Kate Tarling. Thank you Kate for sharing your knowledge! I thought I would share…
Liked by Karri Ojanen
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Hello from 🇮🇸. I'm here to present a paper about educating non-designers about design. Put another way, helping non-designers to collaborate and…
Hello from 🇮🇸. I'm here to present a paper about educating non-designers about design. Put another way, helping non-designers to collaborate and…
Liked by Karri Ojanen
Experience
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Education
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The d.MBA is a business education program made specifically for designers. It's also a collective of purposeful design leaders who aim to run more balanced organizations.
What the program's given me is a stronger, more fully developed understanding of business concepts and a very practical ability to use design to help business. I can speak and apply design in a way that business can understand and find impactful, and vice versa. -
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Bachelor of Arts in Audiovisual Production (film, TV, and radio) incl. storyboarding, copyright law, video and sound editing, camera work and directing. I wrote my thesis on the development of IPTV and streaming video.
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Bachelor of Arts (started) in audiovisual production (film, TV and radio) incl. storyboarding, copyright law, video and sound editing, camera work and directing.
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College Degree in Audiovisual Arts (Multimedia and Web Design), including Web and multimedia production, visual design, programming, and copyright law.
Licenses & Certifications
Volunteer Experience
Projects
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VillageLife
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A game-like digital fundraising platform for a Finnish charitable organization, in which virtual villages represent actual locations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Individual or group donors choose a village and a specific item or service to donate via easy, immediate online payment or by SMS billing on their mobile phones. The result of their donations, such as constructing part of a school or supporting a local social worker for the village, is immediately visible to the donors…A game-like digital fundraising platform for a Finnish charitable organization, in which virtual villages represent actual locations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Individual or group donors choose a village and a specific item or service to donate via easy, immediate online payment or by SMS billing on their mobile phones. The result of their donations, such as constructing part of a school or supporting a local social worker for the village, is immediately visible to the donors. The site also includes a news section where the organization’s workers in the real villages can post updates from the ground.
Sponsored by the Finnish Ministry of Culture, Village Life launched in 2004 with much attention from the media. It won several awards including first prize for The Best Consumer Service at the Grand One digital industry awards in Helsinki in 2005.Other creators -
Honors & Awards
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Gold in the Financial Services Category
The ARF David Ogilvy Awards
Bank of America, The Morris Code
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Finalist Certificate, Retail Category
New York Festivals
Seppälä
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2nd Prize, Digital Media
Vuoden Huiput
Seppälä
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1st Prize, The Best Consumer Service
Grand One
VillageLife.fi
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Honorary Mention, The Best Consumer Service
Grand One
Nylanderi.fi
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The Best Creative Agency in Scandinavia: Valve Branding
SIME Awards
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2nd Prize, Digital Media
Vuoden Huiput
Nylanderi.fi
Organizations
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IxDA - Interaction Design Association
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- Present
Recommendations received
21 people have recommended Karri
Join now to viewMore activity by Karri
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A lot of people like to say that Toronto is New York but done like the Swiss. I'm not sure many people who say that have spent much time in New…
A lot of people like to say that Toronto is New York but done like the Swiss. I'm not sure many people who say that have spent much time in New…
Liked by Karri Ojanen
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If you would like to know the differences between Service Design, Business Design, and Strategic Design, Greg Lakloufi has written an excellent…
If you would like to know the differences between Service Design, Business Design, and Strategic Design, Greg Lakloufi has written an excellent…
Liked by Karri Ojanen
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When you complain about Toronto, especially as it relates to things like congestion, housing, vitality etc. Just remember it did this in ~30 years.…
When you complain about Toronto, especially as it relates to things like congestion, housing, vitality etc. Just remember it did this in ~30 years.…
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Kiitos LAB University of Applied Sciences ja erityiskiitokset ihanille Muotoiluinstituutin ja Hyvinvointiyksikön kollegoille yli kolmivuotisesta…
Kiitos LAB University of Applied Sciences ja erityiskiitokset ihanille Muotoiluinstituutin ja Hyvinvointiyksikön kollegoille yli kolmivuotisesta…
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