Hi, I’m Gabi.
Content Design and UX lead.
Strategic thinker.
Research-rooted, accessibility-driven.
Scaling clarity across teams, systems, and screens.
I’m a Content Design Lead who designs scalable content systems across Gaming, SaaS, B2B, and MarTech. I turn friction into flow and language into strategic infrastructure, crafting experiences that are culturally nuanced, inclusive, and localisation-ready. With a background in end-to-end service design, research collaboration, and cross-functional leadership, I bring clarity into complexity and help teams grow through structure, insight, and care. Because great UX doesn’t just perform, it resonates.
The universe is made of stories, not atoms.
The universe is made of stories, not atoms.
Core capabilities
Strategic UX solutions
Precision metaphors, scaled systems, tone frameworks, naming with teeth.
UX Writing
Product language that holds tension between function and engagement.
UX Research-literate
Emotionally fluent, grounded in user needs, and allergic to jargon.
Accessible by design
AbleGamers APX certified, mobile-minded, inclusion-led, localisation-ready.
Management and mentoring
Honest and compassionate leadership, investing in people and business growth.
Snapshots of my work
Revolutionising accessibility in mobile gaming
For three years, I led Content Design for Candy Crush Soda’s unique accessibility features.
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To implement facilitators for players with disabilities by reshaping the game experience around their needs, not as an afterthought, but as a core design principle.
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Refined recruitment profiles for players with disabilities and supported data collection + analysis alongside UX researchers
Informed menu labeling through a mix of OS benchmarking and real player mental models
Prioritized clarity, predictability, and inclusive language across all settings
These inclusive features aren’t niche, they're actively used by hundreds of thousands of players. Since launch, over 270K players have enabled Precision Help, 230K+ have removed flashing animations, and many more rely on audio and visual customizations to play more comfortably.
Cutting through clutter: A navigation overhaul
Lead Content Design for the restructuring of Candy Crush Soda’s navigation system.
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Candy Crush Soda is King’s second-highest-grossing title. As the game evolved, so did its navigational needs. I led content design for core infrastructural changes, collaborating closely with UX researchers, product designers, UI, and narrative teams.
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As the sole content designer on the project, I delivered:
Player-centered research: Ran and shared qualitative UX research focused on iconography and labelling, ensuring terminology was intuitive across player cohorts.
Narrative and visual cohesion: Briefed narrative and art teams to ensure empty states were visually aligned with game tone and storytelling, as well as informational UX content.
Scalable content systems: Built and documented a reusable content framework for end-game sequences, iconography, labelling, and broader information architecture.
From purchase lag to big wins
Lead Content Design for Candy Crush Soda’s dynamic in-game sales system.
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In-game sales offers were delivered through one-off pop-ups that lacked consistency in messaging, visual theming, and content strategy. This inconsistency diluted player trust and slowed down the production pipeline.
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I spearheaded the development of a scalable, high-impact sales content system that improved both player experience and team workflow:
Built a reusable content library: Developed a modular system for all dynamic sales offers, enabling faster creation, better localisation, and improved alignment across global markets.
Localized themed promotions: Created tailored experiences such as a US-specific 4th of July offer, ensuring cultural resonance and regional engagement.
Introduced cross-discipline templates: Co-created a shared template system with the senior UX designer, later adopted by content, art, and monetization teams.
This led to:
+10% upwards impact in special offer performance
50% faster handoff-to-implementation time across the production workflow
Scaling impact with strategic research and tooling
Developed tools and led processes that embedded Content Design across multiple organizations, turning stakeholders into UX writing advocates.
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I bring deep experience in qualitative UX research, especially at the intersection of communication, navigation, and iconography. My studies often focused on how UI and UX writing influence each other, and how players or users interpret content, labels, and flows in context.
This research directly shaped:
Information structures that benefited not only content designers, but also UI and visual development artists.
Collaborative research practices in the sustainability sector, where I partnered with service designers to build bridges between user journeys and every content touchpoint.
Because every UX challenge is also a content opportunity, my work consistently brought clarity, intent, and narrative logic to product decisions.
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I’ve designed and implemented Figma plugins and systems that turned operational pain points into creative enablers. These tools support:
Content design frameworks and scalable terminology across full design pipelines.
Seamless UX writing handovers to product, engineering, and localization teams.
Faster localisation workflows, reducing duplication and turnaround times.
Better documentation for design systems, with patterns that scale across markets and disciplines.
These tools helped bring UX writing into the heart of cross-functional collaboration, where content becomes not just a surface layer, but a strategic system.
Designing clarity into Circular Economy SaaS
Lead content design for Circular IQ, in partnership with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).
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Circular economy helps companies shift from a linear “take-make-waste” model toward sustainable, regenerative practices. Circular IQ’s CTI Tool. empowers sustainability teams to track and interpret complex supply chain data aligned with circular economy goals.
I partnered with service designers and UX teams to shape the tool’s information architecture and user flows, ensuring clarity, usability, and data comprehension at every step.
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I led the content design strategy to bring coherence, accessibility, and narrative logic to the CTI Tool:
Simplified complex sustainability data: Designed UX copy, labels, and guidance that turned dense material into actionable insights for business users and sustainability leads.
Structured clarity at scale: Shaped flows and hierarchy to support users as they prioritized environmental metrics, ensuring the interface supported both granular analysis and high-level reporting.
Scaled global adoption: The tool is now used by over 2,000 organizations worldwide, including Aptar, Microsoft, and Whirlpool.
Revolutionising accessibility in mobile gaming: A case study
Lead Content Design for accessibility innovations in Candy Crush Soda Saga, King’s most inclusive mobile title to date
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Over a three-year partnership with a senior UX researcher, I led efforts to uncover and remove accessibility barriers in Candy Crush Soda. Through continuous qualitative research and direct player feedback, it was identified that visual and physical impairments were major reasons why players with disabilities disengaged from the game.
Based on internal research:
44% of Soda players self-identified as having a disability
Compared to 16% of the global population (WHO, 2021)
Our goal was clear: reshape the game experience around these players' needs, not as an afterthought, but as a design imperative.
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As an accessibility practitioner, my mantra is simple: accessibility = comfort. That principle shaped everything we did.
I led Content Design and supported UX strategy for a holistic accessibility overhaul, collaborating with a UI designer, researcher, senior developer, and QA specialist. Together, we delivered:
A redesigned Settings menu
Introduced an intuitive tab system and clearer grouping of features
Separated accessibility features into contextual categories (not hidden under an "Accessibility" label) to increase visibility and usability
Benchmarking against mental models
Mapped player behavior against native OS settings (iOS & Android) and adapted flow accordingly
Language that welcomes all
Removed technical labels that could gate-keep features, resulting in a “curb-cut effect”, players without disabilities also adopted the features.
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As both content lead and co-researcher, I was able to help shape both patterns and pipelines. The outcome?
Faster handoff-to-implementation time (vs. previous settings updates)
Consolidated content documentation reduced QA cycles
Research insight directly informed UI and engineering decisions, creating a truly shared language across disciplines
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We didn’t just build features, we helped shift mindsets:
In-house design culture change
Accessibility is now seen as a default part of the UX process, not a later add-on
Player trust and brand reputation
One Soda player told us:
“This raises my opinion of King and Candy Crush as a whole.”
– Soda player after testing accessibility optionsThe new features resonated across the entire industry, as seen in Forbes, App Store Editorial Highlight, Game Design Conference (GDC) 2025, etc.
Increased engagement with the new settings—by both disabled and non-disabled players—proving inclusive design benefits everyone.
What We Learned
“An accessibility barrier is the outcome of a mismatched human interaction, not a personal health condition.”
This case study demonstrates that when we design for the edges, everyone benefits. By embedding accessibility into the very fabric of Candy Crush Soda, we set a benchmark not just for mobile gaming, but for digital product design as a whole.
What people say about me
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Gizem Oncu - UX Designer Booking.com
“I had a real pleasure to work with [Gabriela] not only because she did an exceptional job on the projects, but also because she is a great friend and an inspiring colleague. She is a self-motivated, wise, and self-disciplined person. Most importantly, she is open to the new, which makes her able to adapt and iterate herself and the way of her working continuously.”
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Adam Sullivan - UX/UI Designer, Electronic Arts [EA], Founder Space Ape Games
“Gabi is a sharp, big-picture thinker who sweats the small stuff, too. She’s all heart, tells it like it is, and always puts players first. Smart, kind, and a total team MVP!”
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Öguz Özen - Senior Customer Success Manager LinkedIn
“Working with Gabriela was enjoyable and informative. She is smart, friendly, and very professional in her writing. She managed the whole content of the company [Insider] by herself, and I can say she is a great storyteller.”