BRAND STRATEGY
LEADHOME BRANDING
BRAND STRATEGY | USER RESEARCH | BRANDING | RESPONSIVE WEB DESIGN | UI COMPONENT LIBRARY
A comprehensive rebrand of the Leadhome business conducted almost exclusively by myself and co-designer Inge Malan, involved a brand positioning strategy, a brand website, a book of brand guidelines, a refreshed channel strategy, and a brand campaign.
Over the span of a month, with invaluable input from our design team, we critically investigated what the Leadhome brand should communicate as a disruptive real estate startup, in order to cut through the noise of their corporate and traditional competitors.
We then used many iterations to design a visual language that could resonate with audiences and Leadhome employees alike.
A striking use of flat colour, custom isometric illustrations, meaningful imagery, and bold angular layouts was used to support a strong charismatic personality and tone the brand had before - but never communicated.
Read more about the project here.
PRODUCT DESIGN
BLOOM: PROPERTY MANAGEMENT PLATFORM
Intended to be South Africa’s biggest real estate ecosystem and best property management experience, Bloom is the first of its kind.
Designed to streamline an otherwise 4 month (on average), over-complicated and admin-intensive property journey comprising of multiple suppliers and parties, Bloom's main value proposition was to enable clients to self manage products and services without calling or emailing - which not only offered huge automation value for an otherwise very manual process - but also self-service value for clients.
PRODUCT STRATEGY | RESPONSIVE WEB DESIGN | FLOW CHARTS | UI COMPONENT LIBRARY | UI DESIGN | RAPID PROTOTYPING | USABILITY TESTING
PRODUCT DESIGN
LEADHOME: OSMOSIS CRM
USER RESEARCH | PERSONAS | FLOW DIAGRAMS | WIREFRAMES | UI COMPONENT LIBRARY | UI DESIGN | USABILITY TESTING
Because buying a property in South Africa is a grueling admin-intensive four-month process that involves multiple parties, a smooth handover between a call center, a real estate agent, a property photographer, and a post-sales advisor is critical.
Osmosis - the only one of its kind - was the ambitious answer to Leadhome's challenge of tracking the sales process, gathering customer information, and notifying teams for handovers for the most seamless real estate experience possible.
For a while, my focus on the call center agent workflow was my contribution to Osmosis.
After intense user research and design strategy, a dedicated workspace was designed to assist the desk in working leads according to priority, as was defined by a leads assignment engine that scored both the lead and the agent according to a combination of factors.
UX PITCH & WEB DESIGN
SUN INTERNATIONAL
HEURISTIC AUDIT | USER ARCHETYPES | INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE | WIREFRAMES | UI LIBRARY
The pitch that won the redesign of the entire Sun International website, against a competition of industry-leading agencies, included an impressive showcase of what a user-centered design process
looks like.
Under highly pressured timelines, quick analytical thinking, a critical heuristic evaluation, and agile teamwork were used to define key objectives of the project, as well as prescribe meaningful and experience-rich and channel-agnostic design solutions to a large list of complex requirements.
Additional thinking around user behaviour led to strategic recommendations on the website’s role within the larger context of the brand and media strategy - as a first-class entry point to a multi-channel ecosystem of experience support tools.
HEURISTIC AUDIT AND WEB DESIGN
PPS FOR PROFESSIONALS
HEURISTIC AUDIT | USER ARCHETYPES | INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE | WIREFRAMES | UI COMPONENT LIBRARY | WEB DESIGN
This heuristic website audit, or expert review, examined PPS.co.za, the website owned and managed by PPS. The objective of this audit was to discuss the key opportunities for PPS, with the ultimate goal of increasing the business value derived from the website.
While heuristic ordinarily implies a 'rule of thumb' form of assessment, a UX audit is not based on an intuitive understanding of design, or even any timeless series of standard measurements (since experience and usability are both rapidly developing areas of research, and constantly subject to cultural context).
Rather, this audit was based on a comprehensive knowledge-base of UX compliance standards and trends, compiled by recognised institutions, scholars, researchers and publications, (including, but not nearly limited to, The Nielsen Norman Group, The World Wide Web Consortium and the Google design team).
This was then carefully referenced and interpreted for strategic UX recommendations, which were then used to redesign the PPS website alongside co-designer Chanetsa Mukahanana.
PRODUCT DESIGN
DESIGNING MONEY WITH STANDARD BANK
My term working for Standard Bank allowed me to apply my skills to scale across the large span of multiple interdisciplinary teams and business units - while navigating the challenges of a large organisation steeped in legacy: from technological infrastructure to politics, culture, and management.
I worked in various product teams:
- Platform and Security
- Cards and Emerging Payments
- Account Insights Management
- Account Management Services
- Trade Finance
Here I collaborated with multi-disciplinary colleagues, strictly in a scaled agile framework, on various features.
A drastic difference from pitching high-level conceptual value, long-term investment in feature teams forces design into extreme detail - allowing me to take accountability for a truly end-to-end design process and customer lifecycle - all the way from continuous design strategy, to iterative delivery.
For three years I merged with one of the biggest design capabilities on the continent, dedicated to making money easy to understand and manage for a global audience.
GAME DESIGN
MICROSOFT GAME JAM 2019
The Global Game Jam® (GGJ) is the world's largest game jam event (game creation) taking place around the world at physical locations.
Everyone who wants to participate registers on the Game Jam website, gathers on Friday late afternoon at the Microsoft offices in Bryanston, and then watches a short video keynote with advice from leading game developers. A secret theme is announced, and all sites worldwide are then challenged to make games based on that same theme. You can come with your own team or join a bunch of strangers at the venue. You then start building a game.
The challenge, however, is that all of this must be done within 48 hours.
Our game explored the story of a hermit crab called Sheldon, who is forced to reconsider the meaning of home as he encounters friends and foes along his journey.
Hermit crabs use empty snail shells (e.g., whelk or periwinkle) or other hollow objects as a shelter. Their soft bodies require a protected carapace; and without one are extremely vulnerable to predators.
Home has a double meaning here: Sheldon's shell, as well as the ocean.
Concept vector art for the level design referenced stylised, mostly side scrolling indie titles as inspiration.
Darker, child-like stories were direct influences on Sheldon's tragedy.
Titles like Limbo, Inside, Journey and Ori and the Blind Forest were key references.