Hi, I'm Alan
Lead Product Designer based in Melbourne with over 15 years of experience helping teams navigate complexity, designing for people, and delivering outcomes that move businesses forward.
I'm proud to have led design across some genuinely hard problems: helping injured workers navigate the road to recovery, redesigning how Australians access tertiary education, and improving vessel safety for crews navigating the open seas.
The work has been complex. The approach has always started with people.
How I work
I believe the best work happens when you take care of the people first. If the team is clear, supported, and moving in the same direction, the product takes care of itself.
In practice that means I spend a lot of time in the room before spending time in Figma. Reading the dynamics, asking the questions nobody else is asking, finding the real problem sitting underneath the stated one. I have learned that the brief is rarely the whole story. The interesting work is always a layer or two deeper.
I’m equally comfortable leading design direction and getting into the detail of the craft. I still care about the interaction, the copy that lands just right, the moment an experience feels so intuitive it disappears. That part has never left me. I believe it is the most important thing to hold onto as you move into more senior roles.
Experience
Lead Experience Designer
Scyne Advisory
2023 – Present
Senior Experience Designer
PwC Digital
2019 – 2023
Senior Digital Designer
Adelphi Digital / Ernst & Young
2016 – 2019
Mid-weight Designer
Schiavello International
2013 – 2016
Digital Designer & Project Manager
AndMine Digital Agency
2010 – 2013
Education and credentials
Bachelor of Design, Communication
RMIT University
User Experience Design
General Assembly
Certified ScrumMaster (CSM)
ScrumAlliance
Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
ScrumAlliance
Nielsen Norman Group Intranet Design Annual 2019
Cited by name, Best Intranet Design · BHP Digital Workspace
Leading Complex Projects
IDEO U
Beyond the work
I have always been drawn to the creative expressions in this world: architecture, branding, print, fashion, music, motion, photography. I chose the digital space because that is where people actually are, and I believe it can be richer, warmer, and more alive than it often is. That belief is what keeps the work interesting.
Outside of projects I try to stay connected to the design community in Melbourne through local meet-ups. It’s all about the conversations that happen around them, meeting other designers, exchanging ideas, talking through the hard parts of the job with people who genuinely get it.
There is something valuable about being in a room with people who care deeply about design but bring entirely different worlds with them, different disciplines, different lived experiences, different ways of approaching the same challenge.
Becoming a dad of two has probably shaped how I work more than anything else in recent years. It has made me more patient, more deliberate, and more honest about what people can realistically carry on any given day.
When you spend time teaching a small human something new, you quickly realise that repetition is not a sign of failure, it is just how learning actually works. You learn to break things down, to try a different angle when one is not landing, and to meet people where they are rather than where you expect them to be.
I have found that carries over into everything: how I mentor, how I run workshops, how I give feedback, and how I show up for the people I work with.