About me
If it needs a boring manual,I haven't finished designing it.
I'm Celia Jiménez, a Product Designer with 15+ years of experience designing digital products, and more than six years exploring what happens when the interface leaves a flat screen.
Growing up around technology
I grew up surrounded by technology. My father's Spectrum was there from the beginning, along with Scalextric, cassette tapes, VHS and whatever new piece of technology was entering the house. I remember learning what it meant to save something across several floppy disks, long before USB sticks made it effortless. I even tried games that you could rent for a few days and play using the TV remote. Looking back, it's funny how some of those experiments still feel ahead of what our smart TVs can actually do today.
My first console was a Sega Game Gear, long before I got my hands on a Game Boy. From there came PC gaming, consoles, dance mats and endless multiplayer sessions with my sister and cousins, turning the living room into our own little arcade. Then came tiny screens like Tamagotchi and those little black-and-white Tetris games, as well as my first robot, NO-NO, and a Furby.
Teaching myself, then studying it
But I was always interested in more than playing with technology. I wanted to make things with it. As a kid, I created stories with my family in PowerPoint, built my own emojis in Paint and used images from Encarta to create little worlds of my own. Then came MSN, MySpace, Fotolog, Facebook and Tuenti, and I was fascinated by the idea that screens could connect people and become places to express yourself.
I taught myself Photoshop and Flash, designed CD covers and family videos, and even ended up making custom signatures for people on online forums. By the time I studied Audiovisual Communication, I was already convinced that the internet and new technologies were where I wanted to be, even when that wasn't yet an obvious career path.
In 2015, I also studied 3D. This is the video we made for our master's thesis project, done in just a few months.
Ten years shaping digital products
Between 2010 and 2020, I spent ten years shaping digital products, including five years at Fjord, later Accenture Song, designing service ecosystems across web, mobile and connected devices for large organizations. It was end to end product design at scale, moving between research, strategy, interaction and visual design, often across several projects and platforms at once.
I believe good design should make things clear, intuitive and, whenever possible, fun. I'm a big believer in bringing gamification beyond games. Everyday experiences can be better designed, more rewarding and even make us happy. Why shouldn't something mundane be a little more enjoyable?
The jump into XR
Being a gamer has also shaped the way I design. I've spent years learning from the way games use feedback, movement, sound, rewards, exploration and interaction to keep people engaged. When I design for XR, I don't want spatial experiences to become silent, static environments where everything just floats in front of you. I want to bring some of the dynamism and sense of interaction we already take for granted in games and modern apps into these new spaces.
In 2019, I made the jump into immersive technologies, and I've been exploring what happens when the interface leaves a flat screen ever since: 360 video, spatial interaction, new input methods and multi-device systems.
That curiosity has never really changed. I like getting my hands on new technology early and understanding not just what it can do, but how it changes the way we interact with the world. The technology keeps moving, people keep adapting, and I still find myself imagining what could come next.
Teaching, mentoring, building CreaXR
Alongside product work, I teach XR Product Design at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, mentor at Madrid in Game and the IRIA XR incubator, and help build CreaXR, a community of nearly 600 people exploring XR in Spanish.
What's next
Outside of work, I'm happiest with good weather, nature, new places, good food and animals around me. I enjoy spending time outdoors, discovering new experiences and, whenever possible, having a pet nearby.
Currently looking for a Product Design role where I can work on complex products, emerging technologies and new interaction models.
Based in Spain. Open to relocation.