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Matt Agnello
Principal UX Designer at Riot Games
Professional Background
Matt Agnello is a distinguished User Experience (UX) Designer currently making a significant impact at Riot Games, where he works passionately to create engaging and delightful experiences for gamers worldwide. With a strong belief in the power of games to tell stories and foster connections, Matt is dedicated to ensuring that users have a meaningful interaction with the gaming products he helps design. His contributions span multiple roles at Riot Games, showcasing a progressive career that emphasizes both user experience and player engagement.
Having started as an intern at various organizations, including a notable role as a Community Assistant at Riot Games, Matt progressively climbed the ranks to become a Principal User Experience Designer. His journey reflects a deep commitment to understanding the nuances of player interactions and enhancing their gaming experiences through thoughtful design. Before solidifying his role in UX design, Matt demonstrated a diverse skill set, having worked in various production roles in the television industry, which equips him with unique insights into storytelling through multimedia.
Education and Achievements
Matt received his Bachelor of Science degree in Film and Television from Boston University, an institution renowned for fostering creativity and innovation in storytelling. This educational foundation has played a pivotal role in shaping his perspective on narrative-driven design in the gaming industry.
His work at Riot Games started in a player-facing role, where he focused on understanding community needs and feedback, which later transitioned into design-oriented positions that leverage his extensive background in understanding user behaviors and preferences. As a Senior User Experience Designer and now Principal Designer, his work not only enhances gameplay but also crafts memorable moments for players, aligning game mechanics with user journeys seamlessly.
Within his illustrious career at Riot Games, Matt has contributed to multiple projects that have positively impacted the gaming community. His ability to combine knowledge of film, narrative structure, and user-centered design principles allows him to approach game design holistically, considering both the emotional and functional aspects that influence a player’s experience.
Relevant Experiences
Matt’s impressive career trajectory is marked by notable roles including Player Experience Manager and Senior User Experience Designer, both at Riot Games. These roles demanded not only technical skill but a keen understanding of player psychology and engagement strategies, which Matt adeptly navigated.
In his early career, Matt gained substantial experience within the entertainment industry, serving in various production roles at major companies. His time as a Post Production Assistant at Disney XD coupled with an editorial position at Random House Book & Video Awards has enriched his understanding of content creation, making him uniquely suited for the challenges of UX design in gaming.
Further enriching his background, Matt has also worked as a Production Associate/Runner at CBS Television Distribution and played various critical roles in freelance capacities. His diverse portfolio showcases his adaptability, creativity, and unwavering commitment to the craft of storytelling, whether through the lens of video games or traditional media.
Achievements
- Principal User Experience Designer at Riot Games: Leading efforts to improve player interfaces and interactions within various game titles, ensuring player engagement is at the forefront of game design.
- Former Senior User Experience Designer at Riot Games: Developed key UX strategies that have been pivotal in enhancing user satisfaction across multiple projects.
- Experience Management: As a former Player Experience Manager and Player Experience Assistant, Matt has focused on user feedback, shaping the direction of game design based on real player input.
- Strong Foundation in Storytelling: With his educational background in film and television, he brings a rich understanding of narrative techniques that elevate player experiences in gaming.
Conclusion
Matt Agnello exemplifies a career that beautifully merges design, storytelling, and user engagement in the gaming industry. As a Principal User Experience Designer at Riot Games, he is dedicated to improving player experiences and ensuring games can tell profound stories that resonate with players around the world. His unique journey through various roles and companies showcases his versatility and commitment to enhancing UX across the board. Matt continues to play an instrumental role in shaping the future of interactive storytelling through games, demonstrating a belief that gaming is not merely play but an expansive canvas for narrative and connection.
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Clay works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
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Clay is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Clay is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Clay as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Clay offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
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Clay is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Clay is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Clay offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Clay offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Clay for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Clay accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Clay offers extensive integration capabilities. Clay introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Clay supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Clay also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Clay is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Clay stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Clay excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Clay is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Clay offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Clay's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Clay has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Clay is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Clay beneficial.
Clay offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Clay offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Clay's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Clay offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Clay focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Clay also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Clay offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
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Clay is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Clay's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Clay has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Clay a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Clay's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Clay's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Clay has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Clay's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Clay as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Clay eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.