User experience design + service design + interaction design + user interface design + product design & strategy + project management

Experience: I have 15 years experience within the design industry (10 years in UI/UX design)

Fluent in: Figma, Sketch, Invision, Zeplin, Miro, Dovetail, Axure, JIRA, Adobe CC, Dropbox Paper.

Goals: To continue growing and learning and become an advocate inclusive / accessible design. To be a part of a team that works on products and solutions that have a positive impact. Be a mentor to those that want to learn more about UX and adapting an inclusive mindset.

Education

Bachelor of Computer Graphic Design (Hons)
Graduated with high distinction
Waikato University & Wanganui School of Design, New Zealand // Feb 2003 - Dec 2006
Training and Assessment Certificate 4
Completed at The Centre, North Melbourne // May - June 2013
Prototyping and Wire-framing Workshop
General Assembly, Melbourne // Jan 2016

Coding for Designers Workshop
General Assembly, Melbourne // Feb 2016

Experience

Lead Product Designer
Frello (Hello Club + Friendly Manager)
Tauranga, New Zealand // Mar 2022 - Current

Working within the SaaS product team, also as a third of a product trio, I was responsible for strategic decisions and guiding the team with knowledge of best practice usability and inclusive design decisions.

Responsible for:

• Product design decisions and strategic vision

• User interface design and creation of accessible design system

• Collaborative live design working sessions, incorporating feedback and best practice

• Product and company branding

• Product flow design and documentation, focused on user-centric and inclusive solutions
  

Skills developed:

• Product and company rebrand management (through a merger)

• Creation of new flexible and inclusive design system

• Requirements gathering with customers

• Close collaboration with product trio

• Branched / detailed creation of all flows and scenarios of a complex system

• Variation of concepts, with informed recommendation of the strongest from a user perspective

Lead User Experience Designer
Cubro - Healthcare equipment
Tauranga, New Zealand // Feb 2022 - Current

As a senior member of the innovations team at Cubro, I was responsible for researching and designing for multiple products as well as a full redesign and rebrand of the company website, with a new accessible design system:

Responsible for:

• Strategic design direction, from end to end of a new digital product

• Accessibility education and requirements documentation

• Plan, conduct, and synthesise research, highlighting the insights that can help focus on real user, and business, needs and problem solve based on this

• Seamless communication and problem-solving with front-end and back-end developers

• User interface design and creation of an accessible design system

• Product design decisions and requirements documentation

Skills developed:

• Holistic product design planning

• Inclusive design education and accessibility audits - company-wide education and action planning

• Feature prioritisation planning

• Usability testing, empathy research

• Managing UX contractors and junior UX team members

Lead Product Designer (Contract)
The Conqueror - Virtual fitness
Mount Maunganui, New Zealand // June 2022 - Dec 2022

As the Lead Product Designer, of the public-facing site and the logged-in admin product design, I wore many hats when working on My Virtual Mission. Leading the discovery phase I was responsible for, interaction and user interface.

Responsible for:

• Planning and redesigning user flows

• Building a new accessible design system

• Created and managed the content throughout the public site and the product itself

• Seamless communication and problem-solving with front-end and back-end developers

• User interface design and interaction design

• Product design decisions and requirements documentation

• Testing and QA activities

Skills developed:

• Holistic product design planning

• Analysis and requirements gathering

• Full constant co-creation with the Product Owner and CTO

• Designing for edge cases and documenting thouroughly

Lead User Experience Designer
Cucumber - Horticultural & agricultural software
Tauranga, New Zealand // March 2021 - Feb 2022

My role was to oversee the full experience design process, from estimations and proposals to working alongside developers to ensure the user’s perspectives are being honoured. Working to help visualise current states and journeys, discover pain points, and assist stakeholders in uncovering the most valuable solution possible.

Responsible for:

• Research planning and execution (qualitative and quantitative) and facilitating interviews, observations, and workshop sessions to help inform project direction.

• Overseeing all things design and representing the user during projects.

• I have a strong focus on usability and accessibility and consider inclusive design an important part of my work alongside accessibility requirement documentation and process creation.

• Nourishing the collaborative culture of projects, and sharing of ideas and knowledge

Skills developed:

• User flows, prototypes, and process diagrams

• Living, collaborative design, and strategy documents (through Figma, sometimes Miro)

• Discovery activities, such as customised service design blueprints and customer journey mapping

• Research into industry interaction patterns, trends, and behavior

• Extensive knowledge of the WCAG standards, accessibility, and more inclusive ways of working

Senior Interaction Designer
Cengage - Educational publishing
Melbourne Australia // May 2017 - December 2020

Flexible interaction designer specialising in accessibility, state flows, wireframing, prototyping and testing to create solid and well-documented solutions. Responsible for research planning and execution (qualitative and quantitative) and facilitating interviews, workshops and ideation sessions to help inform our solutions. I created detailed use cases/user stories to help the development process, I have a strong focus on usability and accessibility and consider inclusive design an important part of my work.

Responsible for:

• Research planning and execution (qualitative and quantitative) and facilitating interviews, observations, and workshops sessions to help inform.

• I create detailed use cases/user stories and technical documentation to help during the development process and onboarding for all teams.

• I have a strong focus on usability and accessibility and consider inclusive design an important part of my work alongside accessibility requirement documentation and process creation.

Skills developed:

• User flows and process diagrams

• Detailed use case documentation understanding, living documentation of projects and component libraries

• User guides and functionality documentation to support roles using the products I design

• Quality assurance tasks, research strategy, agile methodology, informative research into industry interaction patterns and

• Extensive knowledge of the WCAG standards, Marrakesh treaty and EN301 standards
  

Senior Digital Designer (UI/UX)
Axiell - Museum data management systems
Melbourne Australia // May 2013 - May 2017

Sole in-house designer for a large international company specialising in complex systems to manage objects and information within some of the world’s largest museums and galleries, including the Smithsonian, The Natural History Museum in London, and Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. I was responsible for the discovery and design phases of digital products for a diverse collection of clients from all over the world.
Responsible for:

• Overseeing international style guides and branding

• Leading the design and managing the development of desktop and mobile device apps

• Creating presentation material and promotional campaigns for international company conferences

• Creation of marketing material (online and print)

• Hand over documentation and assets for development

• User research, concepts, and prototyping and testing
  Skills developed:

• User experience planning research

• Developer communication

• Familiarity with wireframing and prototyping software (Axure / Sketch / Invision)

• Confidence meeting with clients and customising designs to required specs

• Technical diagrams and documentation, including user flows

Freelance Designer
Design Zoo - Creative services & branding
Montreal, Canada // July 2011 - July 2012

Working as part of a strong team of two in Montreal on a range of digital and print projects. Being a bilingual city was an extra challenge but we were able to achieve successful outcomes through hard work and patience with our clients.

Responsible for:

• Website design and development

• Advertising and branding projects including artist portfolios

• Publication and educational material design and creation

• Event photography and photo retouching

• Project management and client communication on all projects

Skills developed:

• Branding from brief to launch

• Publication and prepress knowledge

• Client interaction and presentation experience

• More seamless concept and development

• Web design experience (HTML / CSS)

Senior Digital Designer (Contract)
Flight Centre Head Office - Travel
Brisbane Australia // Jan 2011 - May 2011

Flight Centre Travel Group is one of the world’s largest travel agency groups, the Australian headquarters is based in Brisbane. As a digital design contractor, I utilise my skill set to create effective and striking advertising material for corporate company products and services. This position required very close attention to detail and an understanding of the travel industry, which I gained through a lot of personal travel and some work experience previously.

Responsibilities:

• Tight daily deadlines for digital advertising product

• Working closely with copywriters to ensure all details were perfect

• Creating advertising and marketing material for a range of mediums, print and digital

• Photo retouching and typography

• Overseeing junior designers and approving their work

Skills developed:

• Working under pressure and very tight deadlines

• Designing graphics for digital

• Maintaining web content

• Preparing for large format printing, flyers, and brochures

• Image retouching

• High attention to detail.

Freelance Designer
Niseko Photography & Guiding - Photography and on-snow tours
Niseko, Japan & Brisbane, Australia // June 2008 - June 2010

Niseko Photography & Guiding is located in Niseko, on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. They specialise in providing high-quality photography, tours, and graphic design to the local area. Niseko is a popular snowboarding destination and a beautiful place to be located for work. I provided graphic design services and was based in Brisbane and Niseko depending on the season.

Responsibilities:

• All in-house marketing materials and products

• Branding and promotional material for local businesses including cooking schools, bars, restaurants and accommodation

• Photo retouching and post-production

• Publication design, including layouts for local magazines

• Signage for cars and shops

• Custom invitations and tickets for special events

Skills developed:

• Snowboarding!

• Improved understanding of photography and post-production

• More experience with a large range of marketing and promotional material

Earlier roles included:

Graphic Designer
Emerchants Australia, Finance
Brisbane, Australia
March 2008 - November 2008

Sole in-house designer for a financial company specialising in gift cards and rewards programs.

Packaging design, client communication, press ads, brochures, multi-page documents, website maintenance, gift card design, and creation of internal processes.

Graphic Designer
APN News & Media (Here, There, Everywhere), Advertising
Brisbane, Australia
February 2007 - March 2008

Client consultation, producing advertising material, pre-press and photo retouching with tight deadlines.

Graphic Designer and Video Editor (Work experience)
Kiwiwebs - Web design and videography
Wanganui, New Zealand
2006 / 2007

Video editing and post production, general graphic design tasks.