Hi, I'm Abdus Salam,
Sr. Product Designer at Meta FinTech
Supporting payments, financial services and products across the family of apps, i.e., Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. Previously, launched Ad Strategies on Facebook, shipped iOS & Android apps for TV Guide, and led Design Systems efforts at CBS.
work
work
Increasing Payment-Ready Users In Meta Pay
Designed a new onboarding experience to drive comprehension and improve engagement rates for new users – delivering on a company level initiative of increasing payment ready credentials in Hub (Orders and Payments) across Instagram, Messenger and Facebook.
Role
Product Strategy
End-to-end Visual Design + Interaction Design
Sizzle Reel
Unified Step Up Experiences
Led the design for unified step-ups (Soft Descriptor, CVV, SMS One-time Password, and PIN) for payment platforms – gained alignment with four partner teams and supported it through launch across the family of apps, i.e., Facebook, Messenger and Instagram.
Role
Product Strategy
End-to-end Visual Design + Interaction Design
Soft Descriptor flows for P2P payments in FB Messenger
SMS OTP flows for Digital Collectibles on Instagram
CVV and security code for Donations and P2M payments
Ad Strategies: Innovating for the Underserved
Led a team of two designers to re-imagine advertiser workflows and maximize value for underserved advertisers (small and mid-sized businesses). Ad Strategies enables advertisers to set up full funnel, automated ads using a simplified creation flow.
Role
0>1 Product Strategy
End to end Visual Design + Interaction Design
User friendly business intake
With a short set of questions, we determine the business profile of the advertisers, and recommend the best strategies that’ll work for them.
Full funnel strategy
Ad Strategies enables automation using a set of campaigns constructed based on marketing science best practices.
Graphics forward dashboard
Reducing cognitive load by extracting the most relevant insights for your business using a highly visual dashboard.
Outcome
Led to a successful ship milestone of a beta and scaled test, and later expanding to 100k advertisers, with strong (67%+ win rates).
leadership
leadership
Shipping products is great, but what I find even more meaningful is helping others grow. I offer pro-bono mentorship to newcomers in the field trying to get their first designer job, and those switching careers into UX.
300+
Pro-bono mentorship sessions
Hold weekly 1:1's with designers to help educate, guide and assess design process, communication and execution.
500
Trained on DEI in Design
Trained and onboarded 500+ new hires on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Design topics as part of Meta Design Camp Onboarding sessions.
Highlights
Facilitate interactive 'Storytelling for Designers' workshops at Meta
Instructor (part-time) at UC Berkeley Extension for the UX/UI program
Mentor at ‘Bridge Builders’, a 12 week UX training program by Meta
Led DEI in design trainings for 500+ new hires at Meta (on-going)
Interviewed 57 candidates for design teams at Meta (on-going)
Provided 1:1 pro-bono mentorship to 300+ external designers (on-going)
Speaker at UX Crunch, London
Speaker at UX Summit, Pakistan
Mentor at PWiC, Seattle (Pakistan Women in Computing)
Guest lecturer at Swansea University, Wales
strategy
strategy
Design is a team sport. I help translate business strategy into product roadmaps by facilitating collaborative, in-depth conversations with XFN, as well as liaison with engineers to design a great experience.
Here is a glimpse of some of the design thinking workshops I have led to uncover answers to challenging problems and inform product vision – ranging from design sprints to co-creation workshops, customer journey mapping, and more.
Customer Journey Mapping
Customer journey mapping exercise conducted for visualizing an end-to-end experience for TV Guide with XFN partners. View case study ↗︎
Purpose, Positioning, Placement
Purpose, Positioning, Placement
An example of a long term eco-system conversation with XFN, resulting in gaining alignment with the platform teams for our product integration.
Functional Framework
Define high level functional flows and map out data elements to help engineers in building the data schemas and app framework.
Brand Architecture
Brand Architecture
Frequently collaborate with engineers and PMs to map out user flows and understand multi-step, cross platform information architecture.
Diagnosis, Insight, Action
Together with XFN, I diagnose problems and identify opportunities by digging into insights and building upon others' knowledge.
collaboration
collaboration
Efficient communication is key to productive and fulfilling relationships in a workplace; I walk that talk. Here is what some of the XFN I have worked with say about my collaboration style and communication.
Emily D.
UX Researcher, Meta
↓
Abdus is one of my favorite design partners ever. He has always been a strong research advocate, participating in research activities and advocating for team participation, but he also bases his designs on research findings.
For instance, during this Beta, he was using research findings to come up with design solutions as soon as he heard the feedback. I remember sitting in multiple AMI Design weekly meetings where we talked about how users might interact with the design and decisions were made based not only on what made sense from a design perspective, but based on what we knew about the users.
Lucas R.
Product Manager, Meta
↓
Abdus's style of discussing designs is so positive. He has opinions, and he's happy to defend them, but he's never defensive about anything, and never stuck on any stance/direction when the tide is against him. I can only imagine how hard it is to be a designer; the constant critiquing is unlike anything any other role really faces, and it never seems to bother him in the least.
Abdus's ability (and willingness) to tackle so many huge projects simultaneously is critical to the smooth functioning of the AMI team. I personally get overwhelmed with my fairly light involvement across several of these initiatives, and Abdus somehow manages to drive all of them at the same time.
Laura F.
Software Engineer, Meta
↓
Abdus is a "design quality - driven" designer. I received many actionable feedback from Abdus on helping me improve the design quality of two AMI projects I owned in Q1 (Save Draft, Ads Super Importer), such as improving info visual hierarchy, or simplifying interactions, etc.
Abdus helped the team hold the bar of quality. He participated implementation bug bash sessions to help engs fix issues and pinged my team to share his feedback on how we can improve the quality of implementations.
Improving Processes and Fostering Collaboration
Continually find ways to improve design working model, and collaborate with engineers and PMs for better process standardizations.
Upholding Design Quality
Continually raise the quality bar through solid craft, feedback and active participation in bug bash sessions for engineers.
abdus salam
About me
Designer by choice, engineer by qualification, and a generalist at heart. Over 10 years of experience working in diverse environments, on enterprise and consumer facing digital products across healthcare, media, nonprofits, advertising and Fintech industries. Life-long learner; constantly humbled by the wisdom of many.
Contact
abdussalam.rafiq@gmail.com
(650) 785-6809
San Francisco, CA
Writings
There's more
There's a lot more, in case you are interested in taking a look at in-depth case studies from my previous projects.
There's more
There's a lot more, in case you are interested in taking a look at in-depth case studies from my previous companies. Some notable efforts include shipping native apps for TV Guide, as well as my initiatives for leading a design system and scaling across 7 consumer-facing brands — including CNET, Download, and Gamespot to name a few.