Hi! Moi!
I am Sofia Ala-Rantala, future service designer, current e-commerce product coordinator and a mother of one. With all these titles, I could say I am a bit of a multitasker.
Get to know a little bit about me and my work history on this page.
My story
I am from a small town from Western Finland and I have always been curious and eager to learn new things. I was 15 when I moved to study in my dream high school in a bigger city. That required me to grow up and become independent quite young. I studied my bachelor’s degree in tourism and worked couple of years in that field. I started my work in Finnish Red Cross webshop Punaisenristinkauppa.fi in 2017 and currently my position is E-commerce product coordinator.
Working in Finnish Red Cross’ webshop I have learned about the interesting world of digital services. The more I’ve searched, the more I’ve understood the possibilities and challenges of digital products. Working in a small team, I get a lot of responsibilities and opportunities that I wouldn’t get in a big corporation. The position as E-commerce product coordinator gives me more responsibility in purchasing, budgeting and developing product selection while also focusing on SEO and development of the website.
Why service design?
During my whole career I’ve been working with consumers in different kinds of digital services. I’ve learned during those years that if there is a button somewhere on the website, it doesn’t mean a person automatically knows to press it. I have spent probably hundreds of hours of my time helping customers through websites to help them make a reservation, book appointment or buy products.
At my work for Finnish Red Cross I participated in a webinar that handled service design in communication. Lightbulb lit in my head and I realized that this is what I’m supposed to study. I applied for University of Applied Sciences and got in.
I studied for a year but then our family got a opportunity to live a couple of years in Brussels, Belgium. We took a chance and me, my husband and our newborn baby moved to a whole new country! Living in a multi-cultural environment taught me a lot about myself and also how differently one can view life.
I believe that I have vision and work experience that is required to become a good service designer. My curious nature drives me to involve various stakeholders in design process to find the right kind of solutions for each case. My passion lies in digital services and the goal is to design services that are accessible and intuitive no matter of age, skills or background of the users while keeping in mind the objectives of the client.
Portfolio 