We are How Might We

I have never really been able to decide what I want to be when I grow up, so I have tried a few things so far: magician, event’s manager, stilt and fire performer, sound engineer, and finally designer. For me design started in industrial design at CPUT, then interaction design in Sweden and UX design at Flow Interactive. When Flow was bought by Deloitte, I was able to use Design Thinking on more strategic projects and work with larger companies to make them more successful.

From the beginning of my magic training at the age of eleven, I realised that people have different perspectives of the world and different reactions to the same experiences. From then on, I have been trying to create delightful experiences that make many different people happy in their own special way.

I can remember the exact moment I realised that Design had very little to do with how things looked, and a whole lot to do with how they work and why they exist in the first place. It was the same moment when I figured out that digital products are built for real people and not for the highest paid person at the boardroom table (aka HIPPO’s).

This little epiphany lead me to study my post-grad at Hyper Island in Sweden, quite a while before “UX Design”, “Interaction Design” and “Design Thinking” were phrases commonly used in South Africa.

Since then I’ve been working with various clients to build successful software and services, as a UX Manager and Product Manager at Flow Interactive, Deloitte Digital and most recently flexed my teaching muscles developing a Design Thinking curriculum and coaching model at Absa.

I am interested in people first, then technology, and how the relationship between the two shape our behaviours and decisions.

I’ve tried my hand at a few things in the tech industry over the last twenty years. My career started in the late 1900s (as my kids call it) working as a web designer and front-end dev in London during the heydays of the Internet boom. Once I was back in South Africa in the 2000s, I learned how to build and maintain Linux servers, managing full IT service offerings for small businesses. More recently, over the last 10 years I’ve worked as a scrum master in software development projects and as a financial project manager in the UX consulting space.

The variety of the roles I’ve had across startups, small businesses and corporates has has given me a key understanding of how central the user experience is to the success of any product or service design. At How Might We I run the day-to-day operations of the business and support our teams to deliver the highest quality work to our clients.

Growing up I was always curious about the world; and in my early twenties after graduating in somatology and gaining experience locally, I took that dream on the road and worked on private islands, luxury cruise liners and private yachts.

Armed with the invaluable lessons that the jobs and the world taught me, I began my career back on land. I channelled my organisational skills and work ethic into managing and enhancing internal operations for small local companies which were focused on creative and digital projects, as well as e-commerce.

The common thread for me in the work space has always been about enhancing the human experience. This brought me to How Might We, where I assist the team to coordinate projects and improve the journey for our clients and their customers.

As a fellow human, I have grown to be fascinated by people’s perceptions, actions and interpretations. I can think of a few key moments when I’ve been humbled by the comprehension of someone else’s perspective.

My definition of good design has been a moving target through various roles in my career. It has always given me something to aspire to. When I studied Fine Art at UCT and worked in the field, design was about aesthetic principles. As a graphic designer, design was about visual communication. As a UX Designer, design is about curating experiences that make technology feel effortless and improve people’s lives. I have worked in the Financial Services Industry for the past 2 years.

I believe in a human-centred philosophy that focuses on understanding behaviour through frequent engagement with users and aligning business objectives with customer needs.

I was at a crossroads when it came to deciding what I should major in, graphic or ideation design. Moments before classes were finalised I chose ideation design – I was immediately drawn to the design thinking process and the impact it has in solving impactful, human problems.

Shortly after graduating, I kick-started my career in the industry as a product designer focusing on fintech digital products and use cases for drones in the emergency and security sector. I aspired to push my business, data analysis and tech knowledge by exploring product management in the cryptocurrency space. The common theme between the two roles was my passion for understanding users’ perceptions and behaviour which inspired me to specialise as a UX Researcher at How Might We.

I believe that you create the greatest solutions to the most challenging problems through collaboration, empathising with humans while acing business objectives.

I started my journey in the digital design industry convinced that I was going to be a print designer specialising in typographical layout. But you don’t say “no” when offered your first interview, and I quickly learned that interface design was not just screen flows and hex codes. There were people. Real people. Fascinating people. People who did exactly the opposite of what they were supposed to do with a piece of design. These people are called users. I was hooked. 

My time in the design industry in both formal consulting and the Not-for-Profit world as UX / UI / Product / Service designer cultivated an obsession for finding out what that strange thing the user just did means. I’m excited by excellent digital products that tackle the hard parts of life with a laugh and make me proud to be a part of the global community. It was this realisation that I’m not just interested in how that tech thing works for the people that use it but why that drew me to How Might We like a moth to a rechargeable lightbulb. 

It’s no big secret that I find the people the best part of any problem. I’m a solid believer of the messy humanness of real-world problem solving. And I care. I care alot.