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I love designing with people rather than for them, using playful and creative tools to collectively reimagine products, services and systems that aren't serving the people who use them. I draw on a menagerie of creative modalities to bring their ideas to life, crafting meaningful and delightful user experiences through visual design, UI/UX design, motion graphics and tangible making.
Hey! I'm jess –
an experience designer, educator, maker and
play enthusiast.
For the last seven years I've worked predominantly in the healthcare space, exploring co-design methods that foster a creative, exploratory and playful environment in which we can collectively imagine the future of health treatment and care. I dream of a healthcare system that is deeply human-centred, warm and idiosyncratic – foregrounding holistic, preventative care.
I've been teaching design for eight years, researching design methods for six, and approaching all endeavours with curiosity and enthusiasm since I came out of the womb. I'm excited by any opportunity to untangle complex wicked problems and collaboratively design experiences that are impactful, idiosyncratic and/or infectiously fun.
things
that i've
done
QUT IVD Graduate Exhibition
Branding + Print Design Manager
QUT
Associate Lecturer + Unit coordinator
DXB102 - Visual Communication
DXH803 - Professional Practice for Designers
Kuuki
Graphic Designer
QUT
Sessional Tutor
DXB102 - Visual Communication
DXB202 - Image Production
DXB302 - Typographic Design
DXB101 - Design and Creative Thinking
DXB402 - Theories of Visual Communication
KKB342 - Work Integrated Learning
DYB123 - Emerging Design Technology
DVB102 - Image Design and Production
DXH702 - Contemporary Issues in IVD
DXH803 - Professional Practice for Designers
DXH801 - IVD Research Studio 2
DYB101 - Impact Lab 1
DYB102 - Impact Lab 2
DVB305 - Design and Health
Health Excellence
Accelerator Lab (HEAL)
Experience Designer
Co-designer.co
Experience Designer + Research Assistant
Healthcare Improvement Unit (HIU) Clinical Excellence Queensland (CEQ)
Experience Design Fellow
QUT ARC Toolkit Project
Lead Graphic + UI/UX Designer
First 100 Days of JIA project
Lead Experience Designer
Ars Electronica Festival
'Teaching City' project
Children's Health Queensland
Senior Advisor Experience and Engagement
Experience designer
Kids Helpline
Woolworths Centre for Childhood Nutrition Research
Clinical
Excellence
Queensland
people i've
worked with
Western Downs
Regional Council
Ars Electronica
Futurelab
Queensland
Clinical Senate
Healthcare Improvement Unit
Matrix Design
+ Health
Queensland Children's Hospital
Metro North
Mental Health
Metro North Health
Arthritis
Australia
QUT Design Lab
Health Excellence Accelerator Lab
Children's Health Queensland
Bachelor of Design (Industrial Design)
Queensland University of Technology
knowledge
gathering
Bachelor of Fine Arts (Interactive and Visual Design)
Queensland University of Technology
⭑ Graduated with Distinction
Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) (Interactive and Visual Design)
Queensland University of Technology
⭑ Awarded First Class Honours
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) (Interactive and Visual Design)
Queensland University of Technology
gold stars
First Year Industrial Design Award
The Emperor's Award
Awarded to the first year ID student with the highest GPA
Awarded to an outstanding project presented at the QUT graduate exhibition by design studio Emperor
IVD Honours Memorial Scholarship
Awarded to one Interactive and Visual Design Honours student annually
Gold DRIVENxDESIGN Brisbane Award for Digital Health
Awarded for my work as Lead Designer on the niggle app for Kids Helpline
Gold DRIVENxDESIGN Sydney Award for Social Design
Awarded for my work as Designer and Illustrator on the COVID Stress + Anxiety Guide
Gold Digital Health Award: Book for Consumers
Gold Digital Health Award: Book for Health Professionals
Awarded to the COVID Stress + Anxiety Guide team
Good Design Award for Service Design - Public Sector Services
Awarded to the HEAL team, under which I led the experience design of VOICeD, The Cancer Wellness Initiative and Stroke Network mapping.
Good Design Award for Social Impact
Awarded to the HEAL team, under which I led the experience design of VOICeD, The Cancer Wellness Initiative and Stroke Network mapping.
Consumer Choice Award
Awarded to the VOICeD telehealth service at the Clinical Excellence Queensland showcase, which I was involved in designing alongside clinicians and consumers as part of my time with HEAL.
Second place for Innovation in Palliative Care
I came second in the Palliative Care in Queensland Statewide Awards for my co-design work on the Care Companion – and end of life decision aid.
scholarly
stuff
Co-designing mobile help-seeking toolkit with young people: An Australian case study
Zelenko, O., Stoyanov, S., Staneva, A., Hides, L., Sade, G., Dalgelish, J. & Cheers, J. (2018, September). Co-designing mobile help-seeking toolkit with young people: An Australian case study. In K. Christer, C. Craig & D. Wolstenholme (Eds.), Proceedings of the 5th European International Conference on Design4Health. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Hallam University.
Participatory design: an effective end-user engagement framework to design and develop novel digital interventions
Zelenko, O., Stoyanov, S., Staneva, A., Hides, L., Sade, G., Dalgelish, J. & Cheers, J. (2018, September). Participatory design: an effective end-user engagement framework to design and develop novel digital interventions. Paper presented at the 48th Annual Congress of the European Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Therapies, Sofia.
Zelenko, Oksana, Stoyanov, Stoyan, Sade, Gavin J., Hides, Leanne, Dalgleish, John, & Cheers, Jessica (2018) Enabling transdisciplinary collaboration in design and mental health: Engaging researchers, services, and end-users as partners through co-design. In Society for Mental Health Research 2018 Conference, 2018-11-28, Noosa, Australia.
Using co-design and qualitative research to develop Niggle: a new app supporting young people on their dymanic journey to wellbeing
Stoyanov, S. R., Zelenko, O., Staneva, A., Kavanagh, D. J., Smith, C., Sade, G., Cheers, J. & Hides, L. (2020). Using co-design and qualitative research to develop Niggle: a new app supporting young people on their dynamic journey to wellbeing (Preprint). JMIR mHealth and uHealth.
Stoyanov, S. R., Zelenko, O., Staneva, A., Kavanagh, D. J., Smith, C., Sade, G., ... & Hides, L. (2021). Development of the Niggle App for Supporting Young People on Their Dynamic Journey to Well-being: Co-design and Qualitative Research Study. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 9(4), e21085. Chicago
Healthcare Improvement Unit. (2022). Bridge Labs: A year of collaboration and innovation (View here)
show and tell
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Ars Electronica Futurelab
I exhibited the Teaching City project as part of the Ars Electronica Futurelab in Linz, Austria.
Webinar: Creative methods for engaging consumers and clinicians in co-design
I presented a webinar at the Healthcare Improvement Community of Practice (HICOP), exploring the elusive nature of "true" co-design and introducing creative, playful and immersive methods that we can borrow from the world of design to meaningfully engage consumers and clinicians.
A Designer's lens: Interview from the Bridge Labs annual report
As part of the Inaugural Bridge Labs year-in-review report I was interviewed about my experience as their first Experience Design Fellow, explaining what on earth my role means and where I see it going in the future.
Niggle launch
The Niggle app was launched at The Cube at QUT, inviting stakeholders, industry leaders, health professionals, designers, researchers and project participants to celebrate the collaborative process behind Niggle.
Health Excellence AcceLerator (HEAL) Symposium
At the end of the first inaugural year of the HEAL Bridge Lab program between QUT Design Lab and Clinical Excellence Queensland I presented two projects: the Cancer Wellness Initiative and VOICeD telehealth service at their celebratory symposium event.
Ladies, Wine and Design
The lovely team behind the Brisbane chapter of Ladies, Wine and Design invited me to give a talk about my experiences working as a designer in healthcare, telling the tale of how I tripped and fell into the healthcare system and was surprised to find endless opportunities for play, creative exploration and radical redesign.
Thinking into Being: QUT Alumni Triennial
I was selected as an alumni of Interactive and Visual Design at QUT to exhibit a collection of my work and my design process at the QUT Art Museum Thinking into Being exhibition, celebrating moments of creative collaboration in healthcare.
QLD Healthcare week Patient Experience Expo
In June 2022 I was invited to speak on a Patient Experience panel and give a headline keynote presentation at the Annual Queensland Healthcare week, speaking about my experience working as an experience designer in healthcare and some of the creative methods I use in my practice.
Health Consumers Queensland Annual Forum
Off the back of my ongoing work with Children's Health Queensland developing their co-design framework, I was asked to speak on a panel at the HCQ annual forum on the topic of "Practical considerations and processes to translate an emerging consumer codesign strategy into action in a paediatric setting".
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