I'm Refiloe Digoamaye, also known as Ref. I am a dedicated user experience design professional with 5+ years of experience in helping clients better serve their customers, employees, and business stakeholders in a number of different industries including the financial services and mining sectors.
"He who can see the invisible can do the impossible."Â - Frank Gaines
Design is a way for me to express my empathy and values-driven approach to serve others. As a multi-disciplinary designer, my goal is to bridge the gap between users and great experiences. A one-of-a-kind experience like this can be challenging, a challenge I embrace in that it allows me to put my skillset and knowledge to use to help users see the invisible where others see the impossible.
My design process is as follows:
My design approach begins with anticipating users’ needs and exploring existing solutions to address any assumptions I may have about the problem at hand. This typically includes performing research research activities such as heuristic evaluations of a client’s existing website or app (when available), competitor analysis, or meeting with stakeholders to help develop a common understanding of how they envision their solution.
I focus on synthesising insights from gathered from users and stakeholders to articulate a clear and actionable problem statement. I use this to drive alignment between client requirements and user needs.
With a well-defined problem statement in hand, I collaborate closely with stakeholders to brainstorm and conceptualise visual solutions, creating design components that align with their business requirements and goals. This involves crafting a presentable solution usually in the form of an interactive prototype.
I then use the proposed solution to test with users to gather real, actionable feedback to validate designs. If necessary, quickly iterate on designs based on feedback from stakeholders and learnings found in user testing.
Evaluate post-launch performance and user feedback to gain insights into user experiences and identify opportunities for ongoing design improvements.
Research and apply UX/UI best practices while adhering to a user-centered approach.
Design prototypes built for desktop and mobile platforms and test them. If necessary, iterate on the design based on feedback from the testing.
Create customer journey maps and service design maps to visualise pain points or touch points to be addressed in the user journey.
Conduct workshops with stakeholders to gather requirements and better understand their needs.
Produce prototypes according to requirements using Sketch, Figma, or Adobe XD. Once the prototypes have been approved by stakeholders, hand them over to the front-end developers.
"Ref's professionalism, kindness and excellent communication skills stand out to me most! I hope to work with him again in future, as his attitude towards the copy-design relationship is inspiring. Thank you, Ref!"
“I’ve worked together with Refiloe at Nedbank. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with Refiloe because he was teachable, humble and very mature with a great attitude. He’ll definetly get far in life and be of great value wherever he finds himself. He also models leadership qualities together with energy to work hard and to add value.”
“I had the privilege of working with Refiloe when he first joined IQbusiness and was relatively new to UX design. His enthusiasm and ability to take on new challenges within the business is what separates Refiloe from his peers when the going gets tough. He's a team player that motivates the people around him to do better!"
“Refiloe is a pleasure to work with. He is constantly seeking opportunities for growth while delivering quality. He is an asset to any team he works with.”
“Refiloe is a great UX designer. He’s always willing to learn from the research team and he always puts the users’ needs on the frontline. He’d be an awesome addition to any team!”
refiloe.digoamaye@gmail.com