Thuso is available for hire
Hire ThusoThuso Mbedzi
Verified Expert in Design
Designer
Location
Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Toptal Member Since
August 16, 2017
Thuso designs extraordinarily clean interfaces for web and mobile products condensing over five active years (and over 10,000 hours) of user experience design spent helping awesome clients from Africa, America, Australia, Asia, and Europe. He's excited to help you, too.
Portfolio
Work Experience
User Experience Design Consultant
2021 - PRESENT
Majid Al Futtaim
- Worked on building standalone products as part of a larger ecosystem of an aggregate leading-edge AI-powered voice-driven interface. This involved stakeholder insights, benchmarking, ideation, wireframes, mockups, and prototypes.
- Designed an AI-driven, voice-powered mobile eCommerce product. This involved stakeholder insights, benchmarking, ideation, wireframes, mockups, and prototypes.
- Re-imagined the onboarding flows for key products within an AI-powered cutting software solution.
Technologies: Figma, Notion, Microsoft Teams
Independent Remote UX Designer
2018 - PRESENT
Toptal Projects
- Provided UX audits, UX design, UX consultation, branding, front-end web design, and graphic design.
- Placed emphasis on reduced complexity, decluttering UX processes, and keeping a bare-bones approach so that future work can be carried out as seamlessly as possible.
- Kept all communication and all digital assets strictly private and confidential.
- Created, rapidly updated, and used design system libraries with version control to drive design for a harmonious experience across all platforms.
- Worked with notable recent Toptal clients including Dormzi and Anitashousekeeping.
Technologies: Slack, UXPin, Figma, Webflow, Zeplin, Adobe After Effects, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Sketch, MindNode, User Testing, InVision, GitHub, Design Systems
Contracted Lead UX Designer for NayaLabs
2019 - 2019
JamboQuote
- Created a B2C portal for car insurance quotes for users.
- Handled responsive web design for a consistent desktop and mobile experience.
- Built the car insurance quote form in such a way that it felt responsive to user input while not being too obtrusive.
Technologies: Framer X, Zeplin, Sketch, MindNode, User Testing, InVision
Lead Designer contracted by NayaLabs
2018 - 2019
HealthPlanUSA
- Headed branding, brochure, and responsive web design.
- Created an 8-page vibrant marketing brochure for helping our onboarding efforts. After user research and a brainstorming session with the team, we built our user persona, set up a mood board in InVision, and got to work. Brochure wireframes were created in UXPin, validated, and then designed in Adobe InDesign.
- Kept our product as simple as possible in order to circumvent the frustrations most users reported experiencing when dealing with healthcare platforms.
Technologies: Zoom, UXPin, Figma, Webflow, Zeplin, Sketch, MindNode, User Testing, InVision, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Slack
Contracted Lead UX Designer for NayaLabs
2018 - 2019
OmniArsenal
- Designed a responsive web experience..
- Initially built wireframes in UXPin, and then Sketch was used to build a vibrant mockup. Figma was used briefly and Principle for Mac became the prototyping tool of choice.
- Created the illustration on-the-go whilst also working on creating a harmonious experience from web to mobile under a contracted delivery period.
Technologies: Slack, UXPin, Figma, Webflow, Zeplin, Sketch, MindNode, User Testing, InVision
Remote Lead UX Designer
2018 - 2019
NayaLabs
- Served as the lead designer and UX consultant on a wide range of mobile and web apps helping build them up from inception to shipped product.
- Contributed to a number of tasks including project roadmaps, user research, market research, user flow diagrams, workflow diagrams, user personas, wireframes, mockups, prototyping, and developer handover.
- Ensured extremely high-quality products were created and gathered constant feedback from focus groups with the sole intent of ensuring success in launching the products.
Technologies: Figma, Framer X, UXPin, Principle, Adobe Experience Design (XD), Sketch, Adobe Illustrator, Draw.io, User Testing, InVision, Digital Product Design, User Research
Independant Lead UX Designer on Toptal
2018 - 2018
Dormzi
- Designed the user experience from the ground up, from ideation to the final prototypes.
- Effectively managed scope creep and ensured that we stuck to the core features so that we could launch our platform on time in such a way that it would be immediately intuitive to use.
Technologies: UXPin, Figma, Webflow, Zeplin, Sketch, MindNode, User Testing, InVision, Skype, Slack, Digital Product Design, UI Design, Mobile App Design, Mobile App UI, Mobile Design, Mobile UI, iOS App Design, User Research
Owner/Independent UX Architect and Front-end Engineer
2014 - 2018
Mbedzi.com
- Featured on Behance Graphic Design Gallery for my Branding work: http://bit.ly/2fTzPto.
- Featured on Behance Adobe Illustrator Gallery for Branding work: http://bit.ly/2fTzPto.
- Featured on UpLabs Shot of the Day & Debut Shot for Landing Page Animation: http://bit.ly/2BId8Rc.
- Featured in Muzli Animation Weekly Gallery for Animation of a Mobile Interface: http://bit.ly/2CuyiaG.
- Awarded "Website of the Day" for design work done on http://goldtree.co.za . Work involved Wiureframing, High Fidelity Mockups and Coding (HTML, CSS and JQuery). Further work included Experience Optimization. This was - 22 Dec 2014. Link: http://bit.ly/2nxF0lX.
- Nominated for the CSS Light Website of the Day for design work done for http://goldtree.co.za: http://bit.ly/2CgzKJv - 22 Dec 2014.
Technologies: Adobe Photoshop, Principle, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Dreamweaver, UXPin, Sketch, InVision, Stationery Design, Mobile App Design, Digital Product Design, UI Design, Mobile App UI, Mobile Design, Responsive Web Design (RWD), Mobile UI, iOS App Design, Responsive UX Design
UX Designer
2015 - 2016
Ideaing
- Designed the User Experience and high fidelity mockups for a large Amazon-product curation web portal.
- Designed how the mobile (UX) for key pages which included the Home page, Landing pages, Product Listing pages, Products Details pages, Information pages and contact pages.
- Created over 50 vector custom icons in Adobe Illustrator and refined them constantly to reflect the evolution of the portal.
Technologies: Adobe Illustrator, InVision, UXPin, Responsive Layout, User Flows
Contract UX Designer
2015 - 2015
Sappad
- Re-designed a bespoke Android App for Food Delivery service.
- Carried out swot analysis, research and them built the wireframes leading all the way to beautiful mockups in Illustrator with a strong vibrant Design Language.
- Iterated on the designs over an extended period to get above 75% skews in the User Tests towardsthe designs that would eventually make it to the final products.
Technologies: Android, Draw.io, User Testing, Adobe Photoshop, InVision, Adobe Illustrator, User Research
Marketing & User Experience Design
2012 - 2013
Genuine Media Magazine
- Carried out extensive website UX Audits.
- Redesigned the Genuine Media website using best practise.
Technologies: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Responsive UX Design
Lead UX Designer
2012 - 2013
Docci Me
- Led branding and User Experience design.
- Designed mobile applications, specifically Android.
Technologies: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator
Graphic Designer
2010 - 2011
Tropics Magazine Int
- Designed the Tropics Magazine layout.
- Strategized on Advert allocations to maximimze profits and continue to give users a great reading and viewing experience.
- Continued to give Product Support after project completion in 2010.
Technologies: CorelDRAW
Education
2002 - 2004
Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science and Engineering
National University of Science and Technology - Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
2001 - 2002
Advanced Diploma in Advanced Computer Databases and Networking
City and Guilds London Institute - Bulawayo, Zimbabwe