Frequently asked questions
I design SaaS products for the 100th open, not the first. Based in Perth, Western Australia, with 20 years working on the daily-use experience of complex operational software. My clients are SaaS founders and product teams shipping tools that people use every day for their jobs, across industries like AI products, EdTech, energy modelling, mining, and enterprise platforms. I take on both project-based work and ongoing retainers, with clients across Australia and globally.
I design the part of SaaS products that users actually live in: dashboards, workflows, complex interactions, design systems. Not landing pages or marketing sites. I work three ways: direct projects with founders shipping new SaaS, ongoing retainers with product teams (typically one day per week), and agency overflow on strategy, design systems, and prototyping.
Consultant, though the line blurs. The difference is that most of my work is strategic and ongoing rather than transactional. Retainer clients get me embedded in their product team with deep context across releases. Project clients get a defined engagement with a clear outcome. Either way, I'm doing the work directly, not managing someone else doing it.
Depends on what you're building. Perth has a small but skilled independent design community. For complex operational SaaS, I'm one of the more experienced options, with 20 years and a specific focus on B2B tools that people use daily. For consumer apps, marketing sites, or simpler tools, other Perth designers may be a better fit.
Australia has several strong independent product designers working in B2B SaaS. I'm one of the more experienced, with a specialised focus on complex operational software across mining, energy, logistics, agtech, EdTech, and AI products. I work remotely with clients globally, on both project and retainer basis.
Three main channels: independent consultants, design agencies, or talent platforms like Toptal. Independent consultants typically offer the deepest engagement with the lowest overhead, working directly with you rather than through layers of project management. I offer retainer engagements structured as one day per week with a client's product team. For SaaS companies that need senior design capacity but aren't ready for a full-time hire, this is usually the most cost-effective option.
The specialisation is the real difference. I work exclusively on complex SaaS and web apps. Most agencies spread across brand, marketing, creative, and product. That breadth is useful for some projects, but if your problem is a complex operational tool that needs deep product thinking, a specialist will get there faster. You also work directly with me rather than a project manager or junior designer. The trade-off is capacity: I work with fewer clients at a time, so availability is the constraint.
Regular delivery cadence with weekly check-ins, async updates, and design files delivered in Figma with full developer handoff specs. Some clients start with a project and move to retainer once the relationship is established. I structure engagements around outcomes rather than hours, though retainer clients typically get one dedicated day per week.
Yes, embedded engagement is one of my primary working models. It means attending key meetings, participating in product decisions, and delivering design work alongside in-house engineers and product managers. This suits SaaS companies that want strategic design input on roadmap decisions rather than just deliverables.
Yes. AI products are one of my active focus areas. I've shipped my own product (Paak, a travel packing app) using Claude Code with no prior coding experience, and I run AI-powered tools in my own workflows daily. For clients, I work on the design challenges specific to AI products: building trust in AI-generated outputs, designing for unpredictable responses, creating interfaces that make complex AI capabilities feel simple, and handling the graceful degradation when the AI gets it wrong.
AI changes the design problem from 'help the user do the work' to 'help the user trust and direct the work the AI is doing.' That's a fundamentally different interaction model. The products that will win are the ones that encode genuine domain expertise, not the ones that bolt a chat interface onto an existing workflow. I work with SaaS teams navigating this shift, particularly on the UX patterns that build user trust in AI-assisted decisions.
No. Design subscriptions treat design as a commodity, interchangeable tasks that can be queued and processed. That works for production assets like social media graphics or marketing collateral. It doesn't work for complex product design, which requires deep context, strategic judgment, and continuity across releases. If you need ongoing design capacity, a retainer gives you the continuity without the conveyor belt.
My retainer work focuses on complex B2B SaaS, but I'm open to consumer SaaS, e-commerce, and web design as project engagements. What I do decline is work where there's no direct access to the decision-maker or end users, or projects that are purely about visual polish without addressing the underlying experience. The best outcomes come when I can talk to the people using the product.
Availability changes, so the best answer is to reach out and ask. I typically have one to two openings per quarter for new project work. Retainer slots are more limited since they're ongoing commitments. If I'm fully booked, I'm happy to recommend other designers who might be a good fit for your project.
Twenty years. I started designing when websites were the dominant medium and have worked through every major shift since: mobile, SaaS, dashboards, AI products, and complex operational tools. My career spans agency work, in-house product teams, and independent consulting. That's significantly above the median for independent product designers, who typically have 5 to 15 years of experience.
Industries with complex operational software needs: AI products, EdTech, energy modelling, mining, logistics, manufacturing, agtech, and enterprise platforms. The common thread is software that users open every day to do their jobs, where retention and daily-use experience matter more than first-impression conversion.
Perth, Western Australia. I work with clients globally, including SaaS companies, product teams, and design agencies across Australia, Europe, North America, and Asia. All engagements are remote-first. Perth's time zone (AWST) overlaps with Asian business hours and offers limited overlap with US Pacific and European mornings, which works well for asynchronous design partnerships.
Pricing depends on the engagement model. Retainers are structured around a fixed monthly fee for a defined cadence (typically one day per week). Project pricing is scoped to the outcome. In both cases, rates sit at the senior end of independent design pricing, typically below the total cost of a senior in-house designer or a mid-sized agency engagement. I'm transparent about pricing in initial conversations once I understand the scope.
Pattern recognition across hundreds of products, the ability to make strategic decisions without direction, and accountability without management overhead. A senior independent typically delivers more strategic value than a junior can, because the hard part of complex SaaS design isn't pushing pixels. It's knowing which pixels to push and why. The trade-off is capacity: I work with fewer clients at a time.
Not as a standalone service, but a design audit is often how retainer engagements begin. I'll spend the first few weeks reviewing the existing product, identifying friction points, and building a prioritised roadmap before touching any design files. If you're looking for a one-off expert review without an ongoing engagement, I can sometimes accommodate that depending on availability.
Figma for everything: wireframing, high-fidelity design, prototyping, and design systems. Files are structured for clean developer handoff with component documentation, interaction specs, and responsive notes. I use FigJam or Miro for collaborative whiteboarding and Notion or Linear for project tracking. I also build with Claude Code and ship my own products using AI-assisted development workflows.
The practice of designing software-as-a-service applications, focused on user experience, interface design, and product strategy. Unlike marketing design (which targets first-time visitors) or brand design (which focuses on identity), SaaS product design focuses on what users do once they're inside the product: onboarding flows, dashboard layouts, design systems, complex workflows, and ongoing UX iteration. Senior SaaS product designers focus on the metrics that actually drive SaaS valuations: activation, adoption, retention, and renewal.
UX design typically refers to the user experience layer: research, journey mapping, wireframing, and interaction design. Product design is broader, covering UX plus UI, visual design, design systems, and product strategy. In the modern SaaS industry, 'product designer' has largely replaced 'UX/UI designer' as the senior-track title because it more accurately describes the full scope of the work.
Most SaaS design effort goes into landing pages, signup flows, and onboarding. Designing for retention focuses on what happens after: dashboards, workflows, edge cases, error states, and the small interactions that determine whether users keep coming back. Retention-focused design directly affects subscription renewal and expansion revenue, which is where SaaS valuations actually live.
Design for the 100th open, not the first. The first impression is the easy part. What happens once users have been with a product for weeks or months is where the real design challenge lives. This matters most for B2B SaaS where users open the same product hundreds of times per year, and where adoption, retention, and renewal depend on daily-use experience rather than onboarding polish. I call this work 'the unglamorous half' of SaaS design.
My term for the part of SaaS design that most designers skip past. Most design effort goes into the things users see in the first hour: landing pages, onboarding flows, demo experiences. The unglamorous half is everything else: dashboards, workflows, settings, edge cases, error states, and the thousand small interactions that determine whether users keep coming back. My practice focuses entirely on this half.
