Hi, I'm Michelle. I've been fixing broken UX since before I knew that was the job title. I just knew broken experiences bothered me more than they bothered other people. Turns out that's a career and here we are!
- Passenger
- Hardi / Michelle
- Class
- Product design · Senior
- Route
- MEL → World
- Seat
- 1A · Studio of one
The route so far
- The early legs · 2010–2020
E-commerce, Retail Zoo (Boost Juice, Salsa's), Officeworks among them. A decade of learning and growing with both small and big enterprises.
- Reece Group · 2020–2022
Design systems and point-of-sale for the trades. The shop counter is the toughest usability lab there is.
- UniSuper · 2023
A contract stint in superannuation, designing for money most people avoid thinking about until it matters. Good training for making the complex feel calm.
- REA Group · Mortgage Choice · 2023–now
Designing the money conversations most people find terrifying: home loans, borrowing power, big decisions. If I can make finance feel calm, I can make anything feel calm.
- Studio of one · ongoing
Nights and weekends I design, build and ship my own products. Some fly, some don't. Every landing teaches me something the day job can't.
- next…
Along the way I've helped shape product and design strategy, facilitated more workshops than I can count, mentored designers, and even started a UX meetup back in the pre-Covid days, all while working shoulder-to-shoulder with cross-functional teams to untangle complicated problems together.
Items to declare
Are you bringing into the team any of the following? Yes, all of it.
Data-informed decisions
Design calls travel with evidence. I set success metrics up front, dig into analytics and experiment results, and let the numbers settle debates that opinions can't. Mine included.
Design system consistency
I build with the system, not around it. Tokens, components and patterns stay coherent across teams, and when something is missing I contribute it back instead of shipping a one-off.
Stakeholder management
Product, engineering, legal, execs. I bring them in early, translate design intent into their language, and turn pushback into better decisions instead of turf wars.
Design strategy
Craft connected to the business. I frame the problem, shape the roadmap with product and business leads, and know which bets matter before a single screen gets drawn.
Leadership and mentoring
Crits, workshops, mentoring, and the quiet work of raising the bar across teams. I try to leave every designer, and the practice itself, stronger than I found them.
An AI crew, directed
I ship production apps solo by directing AI agents across engineering, QA and PM. I set the direction, review everything and own the outcome. The leverage is new, the accountability isn't.
Off duty
I live in Melbourne with my little family of four: Matt my partner, Cookie the dog and Rayray the cat. Life outside of work involves printing fun things with my 3D printer, working on fun side projects, baking something yum and the mandatory Saturday brunch out. I love my Marvel, fantasy and sci-fi shows, movies and books. And I love improving my workflow with AI tools like Claude.
- 3D printer of fun things
- Amateur baker
- Saturday brunch, mandatory
- Marvel · fantasy · sci-fi
- AI workflow tinkerer
- Cookie & Rayray's human
9 to 5 on the day job, 5 to 9 on the passion projects, then the PS5 takes over: Crimson Desert, with the Assassin's Creed Black Flag resync just getting started.
– M ✦
Born in the land of Mie Goreng, landed in Melbourne in 2002. The accent settled in. The appetite never did.
– M ✦Click or tap a postcard to flip it ✦
Want the longer version?
My résumé has the full timeline: the companies, the roles and the work in between.