My second Harness project was the UX fundamentals course in the Career Launcher series. In this project, I was tasked with developing a digital solution to help residents in Darling Square keep connected during the pandemic.

Thanks to my last project, I was able to work with Harness to understand what areas I wanted to keep developing to become a better UX/UI designer. Harness was able to provide additional learning courses to help me focus on developing my UI skills. Supported by our mentor, Sam Hancock (Servian), I was able to work in a team to conduct the full end-to-end design thinking process to develop a mobile solution to help Lendlease and the Bright program to help connect the residents of Darling Square.

Sam was able to help me further develop a deeper understanding of different tools and techniques I could add to my toolbox as a designer. Sam was always a caring, resourceful, and a highly knowledgeable mentor throughout the entire project. He was able to introduce me to concepts such as design systems to help make designing more consistent, cleaner, and efficient. With all the concepts I had learned, I was proud to have created a mobile prototype from scratch and see how far I had come from my last project.

My third project was a deep dive into the world of prototyping. The project involved creating a mobile app to help Head Start Homes and Westpac help everyday Australians achieve their goals of owning their first home. This project focused on developing deep technical skills in User Interface Design (UI) using Figma.

I really loved this project as it was a chance for me to learn another prototyping tool and really focus in on the details behind how you take a concept from sketching to lo-fidelity, to mid-fidelity to high fidelity to developer handover. It also gave me an appreciation of the importance of testing concepts early and often to get user feedback to save time in the design process and avoid heaps of re-work. It was also the first time I learned more deeply about concepts such as creating a design system and the tiny pixel details that make designs great.

Andrew was an excellent and very experienced mentor who was able to use his experience at Vodafone to give us an intimate look into the tools and techniques industry uses to create pixel perfect designs. I really enjoyed this project because I was also able to grow my knowledge around the complex area of financial literacy and home ownership. It was also a great challenge in trying to make something traditionally seen as a boring topic, fun. The project stretched my creativity and helped me explore interesting product features and concepts such as gamification.

The final project was looking at helping Money Girl create the ideal end-to-end customer experience to build and grow their existing community. I really enjoyed this project as it expanded my toolbox in learning about all the different types of research methods and tools you can use to understand the user’s needs. I was able to experiment with new interview methods and deep dive into certain skills such as journey mapping and competitor analysis. It was a great example of a project where the deliverable wasn’t necessarily a prototype, but more of a set of recommendations based on research that fit both the end user and business needs. 

Mike was an amazing mentor who brought a wealth of expertise and knowledge. He always challenged me to reflect and think about my development as a designer. Mike always took the time to answer questions (both about the project and also career wise) and was always willing to go above and beyond to provide me with valuable advice. This was a mentor who was instrumental in helping me develop my confidence and skills as a UX/UI designer.