Hey, I’m Mana! I’m a curious thinker, & avid tea-drinker, aspiring to make a positive difference in the world. My passion for human-centred design comes from my background in materials engineering, and involvement with medical technology & humanitarian engineering initiatives.

Due to safety/privacy concerns, my CV is not available publicly, but I can provide it upon request. You can also learn more about me on LinkedIn.

My Skills

  • User Experience (UX) Design

    • Conducting user research through interviews, surveys , observations etc.

    • Identifying user wants, needs & pain points to synthesise ideas

    • Making empathy maps, affinity maps, user personas, storyboards, customer journey maps, user scenarios, user flows & business model canvases

    • Organising information architecture, using card sorting to generate a site map

    • Performing heuristic evaluations, competitor analysis & SWOT analysis

    • Conducting usability testing

    • Iterating prototypes to improve the product/service

  • User Interface (UI) Design

    • Application of visual design theory, accessibility guidelines, UI patterns, atomic design, typography, and iconography

    • Gathering UI inspiration (mood boards)

    • Responsive web design to accommodate for various screen sizes & types of devices

    • Sketching and wireframing

    • High-fidelity clickable prototypes

    • Designing apps for iOS (human interface guidelines) and Android (material design)

    • Developing design systems or style guides

    • Simple branding (e.g. logo, favicon, Open Graph, social media posts)

  • Front-End Web Developement

    • Analysing webpage code and properties using browser inspector (DevTools)

    • Developing websites using HTML, CSS & Javascript

    • Making webpages responsive using media queries and Bootstrap 5

    • Using GitHub repositories for collaborative work & version control

    • Preparing design systems and assets for handover to developers, utilising consistent grid systems and styling

    • Tracking the behaviour of website visitors using HotJar Heatmaps & Google Analytics

    • Using Content Management Systems (Webflow & Squarespace)

 While I am skilled in designing digital products like apps and websites, I am also interested in working with non-digital or physical products or hardware, merging my engineering skills with UX design. I am also interested optimising peoples’ experiences through service design.

How I Work: The Design Thinking Process

The design thinking process is non-linear, and passing back and forth between phases is not uncommon. Also, a design team may design something based on work that was done previously. Every project is different, and not all of them require all the work, deliverables or strategies outlined here.

    • The design prompt that triggers the design process is often a general idea such as ‘improving sleep quality‘ or ‘increasing recycling rates.’ Sometimes, the person or people who we are designing for serves as the design prompt, and the designer must learn more about them to find a design opportunity.

    • The discover phase focuses on who we are designing for, often known as the ‘(end) users’, (or the ‘co-designers’ in the case of human-centred design [HCD]), but there may be other stakeholders as well. After identifying the stakeholders, the designers will employ empathy to learn about their needs, wants and pain points.

    • As (qualitative & quantitative) data is being collected (from research, interviews, surveys, observations etc.), the designers consider that there is a wide range of potential challenges that could be addressed with a design solution. This type of broad, open-minded mentality is called divergent thinking.

    • In the define phase, the research from the discover phase undergoes synthesis and analysis, in order to find patterns in the wants, needs and pain points of the stakeholders. This step generates important and interesting insights

    • Convergent thinking is used to narrow down the scope of potential challenge(s) that the design team should address

    • By the end of this phase, the design team will have decided which specific problem(s) to address, and can clearly define it and why it matters (i.e. its effect or impact on stakeholders)

    • The discover and define phases allow for the validation of design decisions since they are backed by research, rather than the design team’s own preconceived notions of what they think stakeholders want. Without research, the design team is subject to their own biases, and thus what they end up designing may be less impactful or meaningful for the end-users

    • Now that the designers know which problem they want to focus on alleviating, they can begin coming up with ideas of how the problem could be alleviated

    • Rapid ideation is a method that is often used in the develop phase. It involves coming up with as many ideas as possible in a short time frame, without judging the feasibility or practicality of those ideas. Divergent thinking is used to gather this wide range of ideas

    • A prototype is a way of representing an idea or concept. Prototypes have progressive stages of increasing complexity, beginning with, (for example,) low-fidelity (Lo-Fi) sketches, then medium-fidelity (Mid-Fi) wireframes, and finally, a high-fidelity (Hi-Fi) clickable prototype. Designers may begin the early-stage prototyping in this phase, and continue it refine it in the deliver phase

    • In the deliver phase, the design team uses convergent thinking to narrow down the ideas and features they want to implement in the design

    • The fidelity of the prototype increases through design iterations - that is, evaluating and improving the design, often based on feedback from stakeholders

    • Feedback from usability testing is used to make improvements to the design. Testing also verifies whether or not the design is appropriately addressing the problem that was specified in the define phase

    • Once the design is finalised, it may be handed over to developers or product manufacturers. Once development is complete, the product can finally be implemented & go to market. In reality, a product/service is never finished. It will continue to be updated and iterated, according to user behaviour, or to fix issues & add new features

Work & Deliverables

My Values

  • Kindness, empathy & respect

    Understanding the perspective of others is important for designing things that are meaningful and impactful for the people who use them. This also drives inclusivity, and makes for environments where people can thrive. I work best in environments that have a culture of kindness.

  • People before profit

    I am not against people making money (in legitimate ways,) but I am against the use of deceptive strategies or compromising a good user experience in order to maximise profit. Transparency and integrity leave a better impression on customers/clients, especially in the long term.

  • Start with 'Why?'

    Intentions matter. There should be a reason behind design decisions, and these are often based on the wants, needs and pain points of stakeholders. Having a strong “why” guides the mission and purpose of what is being designed. It motivates the design team to put in the effort to achieve huge outcomes.

  • Failures are learning opportunities

    Don Norman emphasised this value in his book, ‘The Design of Everyday Things.’
    I won’t always get things right, but I can only grow through making mistakes and embracing failure. Through feedback and testing, we learn what improvements to make, and make iterations.

  • Ancora Imparo (I am still learning)

    This is the motto of my alma mater. I’m not an expert. There are always more things I can learn and improve upon, and I am committed to continuous self-improvement. I am often using various resources to learn more about UX design (and topics outside of it too!)

  • Quality > Quantity

    Sometimes, good things just take time. Putting more energy into resarch, design & development can lead to a more meaningful impact for those who end up using the final product/service. This is why it is not wise to skip aspects of design thinking process, like research and testing.