Brisbane in Australia 🦘 I'm just around the corner from Mt. Coot-tha, a mountain lookout and botanical garden. It's a nice blend of city and nature.
I had always enjoyed using Photoshop growing up, and that turned into making things for friends, family, and friends of family. One thing led to another and I started studying Multimedia at school, which led me to making websites and doing graphic design for people. Eventually, I studied Interactive and Visual Design at Uni. It was at Uni that I realised my strong interest in how products and websites work, and that the intersection between making them look both amazing and work beautifully, was where my heart is.
A lot of the same reasons as above—I've always considered myself a creative person, and so being a UX/UI designer means I get to be creative for a living while doing what I enjoy. It's win-win-win!
I work from home and am a big work from home advocate. I make my own coffee and lunches. I am regularly jumping onto video calls with colleagues, which is usually when my cat, Honey, decides to jump up on my desk. I'm lucky enough to have a space outside where I can sit with my plants if I need a change of scenery.
I'm learning how to pour latte art––I'm no Zander, but here's a cup of coffee!
This is my MVP desk setup 😂 I've got big plans for my desk in the future. First on the list is a standing desk. I still haven't decided whether a monitor arm or fancy smart lights would be nice additions 🤔 If you've done this and have any advice for me, get in touch!
My digital workspace is constantly shifting and changing, but this is a glance of how it's set up at the moment. I use Figma, Slack, and Notion most. I have Zoom for face to face synchronous conversations. I think an underestimated tool for designers is their Calendar; which, without fail is always open.
I also regularly use Loom to record videos to update my team on work asynchronously. Since I'm working across timezones, I also find it handy to see the current time for my colleagues––I use Menu World Time for this, which is really handy.
Without fail, the number one tool I use on desktop is Alfred, a spotlight alternative. It's amazing! There's an endless amount of things I can get done quickly using it.
Lastly, one I couldn’t live without is ImageOptim, the best Image Optimising tool on mac in my opinion.
On mobile I try to be really strict about not bringing work onto my device, otherwise I find myself checking in on work when I should be dedicating quality time to my loved ones and personal time. I recommend Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky's book Make Time to anyone who wants a bit of insight into how to take control back in your days and get things done. So––to make sure I behave––I only downloaded Slack, which can't send me push notifications, Figma Mirror, and Proto on my phone.
I can't possibly choose between these two. Mychro and Hey Startup! are the two projects so far that have challenged me to grow and am most proud of.
Mychro is a genome browser for clinical geneticists and their patients.
Hey Startup! is an educational game for school students.
I'm seriously late to the game here, but I only recently started using Notion to it's full potential, and it's absolutely crazy. I could spend days optimizing my workflow in Notion to increase productivity; but, I suppose that wouldn't be very productive 😉
I think one of the most important things in UX/UI design is getting to know your users. Sometimes, it can be a challenge to put the handbrakes on excited stakeholders to get the buy-in on spending time with users—but, it's critical to delivering a good product.
I don't have a magic one-size-solution when it comes to music. I have many playlists, but the go-to ones for me are ones I've named Zone and Drift. In Zone, the music is all high tempo, with a consistent beat to really drive you through your work. Drift on the other hand is soft, melodic music that allows you to daydream and think in tangents—which I sometimes find really useful for getting out of a creative block.
