Transforming Vision into Design Impact

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Remote Toilet Design & Testing - Madagascar

Challenge: Design aspirational sanitation products for rural Madagascar during COVID-19 restrictions, requiring innovative remote collaboration methods whilst ensuring authentic local participation and cultural sensitivity.

My Role

As Senior Design Manager, I supervised and designed this groundbreaking project, leading a multicultural team spanning four countries. I developed comprehensive research strategy, supervised ethnographic studies, conducted user testing methodologies, and established pioneering remote co-design frameworks.

Key Achievements

• Developed innovative remote Human-Centred Design coaching framework for global teams
• Led comprehensive ethnographic research uncovering critical cultural insights and taboos
• Supervised prototype development and real-world testing in challenging field conditions
• Created sustainable methodology for equitable cross-cultural design collaboration
• Achieved successful product validation through comprehensive sales pilots and user feedback
• Established cyclone-resilience testing through advanced structural modelling and analysis

Innovative Methodology

Established comprehensive remote collaboration framework including agile team management across multiple time zones, multilingual communication strategies (English, French, Malagasy), real-time data collection using ONA platform, and extensive capacity building programme positioning local team members as design leaders rather than implementers.

Transformative Impact

This project pioneered a new approach to remote co-design that enables more equitable participation of local voices in global development projects whilst significantly reducing carbon footprint. The methodology has been adopted as standard practice for future iDE projects worldwide, demonstrating sustainable innovation in design practice and cross-cultural collaboration.

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HCD for WASH Digital Platform - Global

Challenge: Create an accessible digital resource to help WASH practitioners worldwide integrate Human-Centred Design into their projects, overcoming perceptions that HCD methodologies are too complex and time-consuming for field implementation with limited resources.

My Role

As Senior Design Manager, I led the comprehensive co-design process with WASH practitioners globally, supervised extensive user research across multiple countries, and guided development of both content strategy and user experience design for the HCDforWASH.org platform.

Key Achievements

• Co-designed comprehensive digital platform with global WASH practitioner community
• Developed five core design principles for accessible design education delivery
• Created bilingual resource platform (English/French) with 50+ tools and templates
• Established sustainable framework for ongoing design capacity building programmes
• Successfully launched platform serving practitioners across 40+ countries
• Achieved measurable improvement in HCD adoption rates among target user groups

Design Principles Established

1. Accessible & Encouraging: Used familiar WASH sector language to make HCD approachable for practitioners
2. Incremental Progress: Showcased achievable wins throughout project cycles rather than overwhelming users
3. Problem-Solving Focus: Prioritised addressing real field challenges over purely methodology teaching
4. Shareable Resources: Emphasised toolkit shareability over purely aesthetic design considerations
5. Seamless Navigation: Broke down complex concepts into actionable, sequential steps for implementation

Comprehensive Research & Co-Design Process

Led extensive discovery research with WASH practitioners, project managers, and donor representatives across multiple regions to understand systemic barriers to HCD adoption. Facilitated multiple co-creation sessions and iterative usability testing rounds to ensure the platform addressed genuine user needs and organisational constraints rather than theoretical ideals.

Lasting Impact

The platform successfully democratised access to design thinking methodologies for the global WASH community, making complex approaches accessible to practitioners with limited time and resources. It continues to serve as a primary resource for USAID-funded programming worldwide, demonstrating scalable impact in design education and capacity building across the development sector.