ABOUT
Hi, I’m Anie.
I’m a product designer in Toronto, currently a UX Designer at Medavie Blue Cross.
My background is in industrial product design. My first job was designing cars, which was a pretty good answer to “what do you do?” Over the years I moved into consumer products, and these days I spend most of my time on digital products and services.
I studied product design at Aston and later completed a Master’s in Design for Health at OCAD. A lot of what has shaped me has come from working things out with colleagues and with the people we’re designing for. I still enjoy getting into how something works and figuring out what would make it useful to someone.
What I enjoy
I’ve been in design for over ten years, and understanding the problem is still the part I enjoy most. Sometimes that means reconsidering the problem we started with. I like taking the time to understand what is happening for the people involved, especially when their experience is different from what we expected. Being able to explain that clearly helps bring other people into the work.
One thing I still find fascinating is how much our tools have changed while so much of the psychology behind good design remains familiar. I enjoy learning new ways to make things, and I’m just as interested in why people use them the way they do.
Working with me
I’ve worked as a solo designer, as an individual contributor in a larger team, and as a lead when other designers came in to help.
I’ll advocate for the person using the product, and I also want to understand what the business needs from it. When those needs pull in different directions, I think we need to be able to talk about that openly. I find those conversations easier when we have a sketch or an early prototype we can look at together.
A few practical details
- Where are you based?
- I work in Toronto, Canada.
- What pronouns do you use?
- He/him.
- What kinds of projects interest you?
- I’m interested in work where we have room to understand a problem properly and question the first idea. Much of my recent work has been in healthcare, and it’s the field I care about most, but I enjoy taking on problems in other areas too.
- How do you think about AI in design?
- I use it to explore ideas and help build prototypes. It gives me more room to try things, but I still need to understand what I’m asking it to do and check what comes back. I’m learning where it helps as the tools develop.