Marketing tells people why a product matters. UX makes sure it does. I design with both in mind.
I didn’t take the traditional route into design. I started with , moved into , and became fascinated by how products were sold to me. That curiosity led me to at Drexel, where everything clicked: marketing and UX both start with understanding people.
Today, I bring storytelling, visual thinking, and that understanding into the products I design.
Big family, busy city, and a calling I found by building things.
I grew up in a busy city, in a big extended family. We traveled a lot, so I changed schools often and learned early how to walk into a new room and make friends.
Moving to Canada and getting into project-based work is where I found my calling: building things that make life easier for people.
A gamified learning platform that teaches adults life skills like filing taxes and renting an apartment through interactive modules.
Role
Sole Product Designer. Discovery, the design system, module design and testing.
Worked with
CEO, Unity developers, internal team
Stage
Alpha, preparing for beta
Tools
Figma, Figma Make
The problem
Most adults are never taught the life skills they need.
Filing a tax return, reading a rental lease or understanding a mortgage usually gets learned the hard way. Adult You set out to teach these skills through play. It began as a vision from a CEO with deep experience in educational content, so the content, modules and structure were shaped from the ground up.
Taxes, leases, mortgages, budgeting
Built from a vision, from zero to one
Product discovery
Making the product concrete before designing screens.
The work started from content: sample modules, card parsers to simulate real interactions, and example flows the team could review, with quick wireframes alongside to show how it would look on screen. That gave everyone something concrete to react to and set the product direction.
The pivot
Modules moved from reading to doing.
The first version of the modules was text-heavy. Adult life is hard as it is, and topics like budgeting can be intimidating. Design exploration and testing made the case for a game: content broken into smaller interactive segments that are easier to digest, progress tracking and achievements, and each module structured as something to play through. It took many rounds of iteration to get there.
BeforeText-heavy lessons that users read
→
AfterInteractive modules that users play through, with progress and achievements
Final solution
The prototype shows how a module works from start to finish.
This is the interactive prototype. Step through a module: make a quick guess, see the answer and its source, then move from Bud to Bloom. Growth is the core of Adult You, and a tree's bud, bloom and blossom stages show users where they are and what comes next.
I broke lessons into small interactive segments with progress tracking and achievements, so tough topics feel approachable and each step builds on the last.
Decision 2: A custom design system
The game mechanics needed components no existing UI kit had, so I built the system from scratch for the interactive Unity modules. It covers reusable components, interactive buttons, gamified image states, module patterns, UX principles and branding direction in Figma. The Unity alpha build uses it today, and it let developers build in parallel with a clear reference.
Decision 3: Letting prototypes lead the conversation
Working closely with a hands-on CEO, I used prototypes and test findings to anchor design and testing decisions. They gave everyone something concrete to react to, made the product clearer, and sharpened the CEO's pitch too.
Decision 4: Agreeing on content before wireframing
With the product still taking shape, design was expected to set the direction while module content kept evolving, and each content change meant reworking the module screens. To keep the work focused, I proposed a shared content review as the first step for every module: the team agreed on the content together, then I wireframed. That cut out repeated rework and kept the project on track for usability testing.
First approachWireframes built while content was still changing
→
DecisionReview content as a team first, then wireframe
Decision 5: Exploring layouts fast with AI prototyping
There were no examples of gamified adult education to point to, so I explored button hierarchy and module layouts quickly in Figma Make. I reviewed and refined every output before it went into the design.
Decision 6: Testing with college students
College students are a big part of the target audience, and a partnership with Drexel University made them easy to reach. I set up the session to double as a workshop for the students on running in-person usability tests.
Testing with 20 college students
75%
said they would use an app like this to learn life skills.
Testing
Two rounds of testing shaped the alpha build.
Testing ran in two rounds: first with the internal team, then with 20 college students. It also surfaced:
Questions about privacy and how their data would be handled
Too much text, which confirmed the need for more interaction
Places where navigation and actions were unclear
After testing, the text was cut further and the modules shifted toward interaction-first learning. This groundwork shaped the alpha build.
What carries forward
Aligning on scope early makes everything move faster.
Agreeing on requirements up front, in a PRD or something like it, answers questions before they slow the work and gives everyone the same expectations. Being the only designer also built a habit that carries into every project: backing each structural decision with prototypes and test findings.
