Strong design works on both sides of the screen

The Challenge

AXS is one of Singapore's long-standing bill payment platforms, the kiosks and app people have used for years to settle utilities, fines, and government fees. It was built around a simple assumption: one person, paying their own bills, one at a time.

Real life is rarely that tidy. A bill gets inherited when a young adult starts earning, or shared across a household where more than one person is footing it. AXS had little for those moments, and for a younger generation that still pictures it as a kiosk rather than an app, little reason to open it at all. The brief was to find out whether early loyalty could be won among the two groups living exactly those moments:

1. First jobbers who had just become financially independent and handling bills on their own for the first time, and
2. Young couples juggling bills who needed a way to share household finances.

Research & Discovery

15Users interviewedFirst jobbers and young couples managing household bills.

8Workshop testersAXS product designers and marketers (1st cut: Design feedback workshop).

5Tasks testedFirst-time use, adding a personal bill, adding household bills, sharing with family, and paying via Vault.

3PersonasThe Transitioner, the Delegator, and the Household CFO.

User Journey

Marcus, The Transitioner

A first jobber inheriting the family utility bill now that he is earning. The account is in his dad's name, he loses hours to password recovery before he can even pay, and he only learns about a missed payment after a late fee. He needs to inherit a bill without inheriting a whole account.

Hana, The Delegator

A partner who wants to stay informed without taking over the workload. She pays the town council bill on payday, has no shared view telling her it is already settled, and discovers the double-payment only through a casual conversation that evening. She needs to see what has been paid, and when, without having to ask.

Firdaus, The Household CFO

The person who tracks and pays every shared bill across spreadsheets and biller apps. He keys in each bill manually every month, hops across 4 to 6 apps to verify a single anomaly, and when a GIRO fails silently he and his wife double-pay because neither knew the other had handled it. He needs to set bills up once and see what is paid and pending in one place.

Solutions

We designed for people already on AXS rather than chasing new users, betting that early loyalty is cheaper to earn than acquisition. Every Vault behaviour had to prove its value in the first session, since first jobbers won't stay around to learn.

One unified dashboard. The household CFO tracked bills across spreadsheets and four to six apps. Now every bill sits in one view, with a calendar that syncs to Google and iPhone.

Opt-in shared visibility. Couples double-paid because neither could see what the other had settled. A read-only shared view (opt-in) and a pre-payment check stop that, without changing who pays.

Direct bill sharing. Sharing one bill meant building a folder just to share it, and only by email. Now a single bill goes out via a copyable link, on WhatsApp or any channel.

Results & Outcomes

Based on AXS staff feedback, we presented the new iteration for usability testing.

On a 1 to 5 ease-of-use scale (1 = very easy, 5 = very difficult).

Validated across two rounds of testing (a staff workshop, then a usability test with members of the public), which drove four targeted redesigns before handover. What was delivered:

Before & After: what the usability test changed

Key Learnings

Payment vs. storage

Users see AXS as a payment platform, yet Vault is structured as storage. Closing the loop between viewing a bill in Vault and paying it through AXS would align the feature with the user's actual goal and unlock the full value of what AXS already does well.

Surfacing AXS's advantage

Many young users don't realise AXS removes the need to log into each biller's app. Surfacing that through onboarding or marketing could reshape how the next generation sees the brand.

This was a collaborative project completed with Kathlyn Teh and Nur Leeyana Bte Roslee.

Client endorsement

"Over three weeks, Mirin and her General Assembly UX team took on our brief to improve bill management in the AXS app and approached it with real professionalism and a strong user-centred mindset. Rather than design from assumptions, they grounded the work in user research, interviews, and a stakeholder feedback workshop to validate their thinking, then prototypes they tested and iterated on thoughtfully. The result was well considered, evidence-based, and practical."

"Mirin showed initiative and sharp analytical thinking throughout. She took the time to clarify requirements and contributed ideas that strengthened the final solution. It was a pleasure working with her, and I look forward to seeing where her UX career takes her."

Debbie Foo Head of Marketing, AXS

The Challenge

Homeowners fear trusting strangers to enter their home. Providers cannot get bookings without an established reputation. This creates a deadlock: users won't commit without trust signals, and providers can't build those signals without bookings. For a home-services marketplace that deadlock is the business problem itself: no trust means no bookings, and no bookings means no marketplace.

Picture Alicia: her young toddler has started to climb, and she has been waiting three days for a window grill installer to confirm a date. His latest message says maybe next week, maybe the week after. She is not waiting any more. She needs someone who can give her a date right now, and she will pay more to get it. What she cannot find is a provider whose real availability shows at a glance, so a booking takes one exchange instead of many.

I designed a trust system that solves both problems at once. Fairness to providers was not an afterthought; it became a core design principle.

I started with the user, then one question reframed the project: what does this mean for the provider? Designing for one side kept surfacing a responsibility to the other.

Research & Discovery

10Users interviewedResponsible for overseeing the cleaning, maintenance and repair of the home.

1PersonaThe Commitment-Burned Abandoner.

1Dominant emotionFear of provider no-shows.

Alicia is a working professional managing a full household with little spare time. Burned before by a provider who never showed, she needs a simple signal that the person she trusts with her home will actually show up, wants the job sorted fast, and price is not an issue.

Solutions

I kept every trust signal visible even though it added a step, choosing confidence before commitment over the fastest possible booking.

2. Booking is a two-sided promise. Signing in holds her slot for 30 minutes, and the provider has the same window to confirm or she is rematched automatically.

Results & Outcomes

10 user interviews shaped the design. 5 usability test participants validated it.

What was delivered:

Before & After: what the usability test changed

Two friction points emerged from testing. Both were redesigned before the final prototype.

1. Authentication

Users hesitated at account creation before seeing any providers.

Before

Redesigned to show booking details first, making sign-in a slot-protection step, not a barrier.

After

2. Alternate Provider Flow

When her usual contact lets her down, Alicia needs a fast and credible alternative without scrambling across platforms. In testing, users didn't realise the app was already solving that problem for them.

Before

Redesigned with explicit progress indicators and inline provider selection.

After

Key Learnings

Designing Save & Compare revealed that retaining an undecided user is as valuable as converting a confident one.

Without it, users not ready to commit had nowhere to go but out. Designing for the full range of user states (ready, undecided, returning) builds a more resilient experience than optimising only for the confident user.

Solving for user trust creates a fairness problem for providers. Reputation can't be assumed; it has to be built into the system, so good design had to serve both sides.

Thinking through the provider's experience sharpened the buyer-side design. When both parties have something at stake, that mutual commitment builds a stronger trust foundation than any one-sided reassurance. A system designed for both the person booking and the person showing up is one both sides can trust.

The Challenge

Dazzle Dew is a new online jewellery store. The brief was to design an end-to-end shopping experience for a confident online shopper who turns cautious the moment she lands on an unfamiliar jewellery site, where small uncertainties about fit, cost, and trust quietly stop a sale.

Picture Grace at 9:30pm, scrolling Instagram. A delicate gold bracelet stops her, exactly her style. She taps through to a store she has never heard of, reads the product page, decides the price feels fair, and adds it to her cart. Then checkout demands she create an account. She closes the tab and never comes back. She had already decided to buy. The site's own design was the reason she did not. For a new store with no brand recognition, every shopper who closes the tab like that is a sale lost and a first impression that gets no second chance.

I designed a store that removes the decision-making barriers which pressure a first-time shopper to commit before the experience has earned her trust.

Research & Discovery

10Users interviewedOnline shoppers across fashion and lifestyle.

1PersonaThe Cautious First-Timer.

1Card sort40 items, 7 categories.

Grace is financially independent and a confident online shopper across Shopee, Zalora, and Taobao. She is spending-conscious but pays fairly when she feels certain, and rarely creates an account unless she trusts the store.

Five frustrations came up, led by two that are specific to buying jewellery online:

Solutions

I made the account optional, giving up the sign-up up front in exchange for a completed first sale and a reason to come back.

Each solution answers a moment where Grace's confidence breaks during a considered purchase.

Guest checkout, account optional. An account demanded before the store had earned trust sent her closing the tab. Now she buys without signing up; account and rewards come later, when they help.

Size and fit guidance. With no ring-size help, she had to guess. A how-to-measure image and on-body scale sit on every product page.

Material and allergy info. She couldn't tell if a piece was hypoallergenic or what it was made of. Now each product flags its material and any allergy considerations.

Transparent cost, surfaced early. Shipping only appeared at the final step. Now price and shipping show while browsing, plus a free-delivery unlock banner at the cart.

Add to Compare. She weighs options across several visits. Side-by-side comparison, novel for jewellery, lets her do it in one place.

Pre-payment summary. Before committing, she wants the full picture. A clear review of item, cost, and delivery shows before payment.

Results & Outcomes

Three issues surfaced in testing, with the returns policy the single biggest visibility failure, all addressed below. What was delivered:

Before & After: what the usability test changed

Four fixes came directly out of testing, each tied to where Grace lost confidence.

1. Returns policy visibility

With only an "Exchange Policy" and no "Returns Policy", shoppers could not tell whether items could be returned at all.

Before

Renamed, repositioned, and summarised the returns information at the product-page level, so reassurance arrives before payment, not after a search.

After

2. Add to Compare

The feature users loved most was broken: Add to Compare worked only from the collection listing, not from the product page.

Before

Enabled Add to Compare directly on the product page so it works wherever she is evaluating.

After

3. Cost transparency timing

Cost clarity worked at the cart, but users wanted it sooner ("usually it's when you are ready to cart, then you look at the shipment").

Before

Moved shipping and cost cues earlier into the browsing journey, at the product level, so the full picture is visible before commitment.

After

4. Size guide & checkout

The size guide was present but easy to miss (font too small, low contrast), and the billing-and-delivery checkbox went unnoticed, causing form confusion and repeated errors.

Before

Raised the size guide's visual prominence and made the address checkbox clearer, so both read at a glance.

After

Key Learnings

A high-involvement purchase is decided across touchpoints, not in one visit.

Grace researches jewellery over several sessions, so the experience has to build confidence in fit, materials, cost, and returns wherever she is, rather than push for an immediate decision.

Cost transparency needs to meet the shopper during browsing, not at checkout.

Surprises after emotional commitment are where cautious shoppers walk away. Surfacing the true cost early keeps trust intact through to payment.

The account request is not the problem; its timing is.

Asking her to sign up before the experience has earned trust is what costs the sale. Guest checkout with an optional account lets the Cautious First-Timer commit on her own terms.

The Challenge

Medication non-adherence, simply not taking medicines as prescribed, is one of Singapore's quiet but costly health problems. Local studies put it at 25.7% to 56.4% of patients (Ministry of Health). It drives avoidable readmissions, worse chronic illness, and higher death risk, and it works against national goals like Healthier SG. The misses are rarely careless, though: complex routines, side effects, forgetfulness, and low health literacy all get in the way.

In order to adhere to their medication schedule, many workarounds like generic phone alarms, memory, and pen and paper were used, none of which know what was actually prescribed or when a course changes. HealthHub already holds that prescription data and is the national health app most Singaporeans already have. In March 2025, the Ministry of Health (MOH) announced it will consolidate HealthHub and the three cluster apps into a single national app by 2027. So the opportunity was less about building something new and more about putting the information the system already has to work, without asking anyone to set up yet another app. That is why, as a team concept project for our UX design bootcamp, we chose to redesign within HealthHub rather than propose a standalone reminder app.

Research & Discovery

15Users interviewedYoung adults (mid-20s to 30s) and seniors (50s to 70s), on how they manage medication.

5Users testedAcross the full setup-to-adherence journey.

5Tasks testedEach targeting a critical moment in the flow.

1PersonaThe Proactive Patient.

Our research started where the problem already had a solution people were quietly rejecting. In our competitor analysis, Health Buddy, one of the three cluster apps being folded into HealthHub, already offered reminders. Watching users try it explained the rejection: it demands a Health Profile before anything else, which most users had never set up, and that alone discouraged them from proceeding. It does not surface the medications already on a user's record, so people had to scroll a long list or type a name most could not recall. Many abandoned it during testing and fell back on memory, phone alarms, and written notes. The reminders were never the hard part; the first two minutes of setup were.

The Proactive Patient. This user takes their medication on time, but recreates the details by hand in alarms and written notes, even though HealthHub already stores them. The data was not missing; it just sat unused while they did the work themselves.

Across the interviews, one conclusion stood out: a medication reminder feature had the highest potential to add value to users' existing experience on HealthHub.

Solutions

The research was clear about why Health Buddy failed: it demanded too much, too early. Every solution did the opposite.

We auto-filled everything from the prescription but kept one confirmation step, trading a single extra tap for the safety of the user checking their meds.

Prescription sync, primary flow. Setup used to ask for everything up front, so people gave up. Now reminders switch on from the prescription list, pre-filled with name, dosage, frequency, and timing. No re-entry.

Progressive disclosure. Medication details stay out of the way during setup; the user only confirms dosage timing.

Optional manual entry. Not every medicine sits in HealthHub. A secondary path covers over-the-counter and personal medication.

A window into adherence. Reminders only help if they stick. A simple view of whether you're keeping up turns them into a habit loop.

Results & Outcomes

Every participant got through every task on the first prototype, with no dead ends. Where they slowed down, the friction pointed straight to a fix. Participants found the pre-filled setup faster and easier to follow than entering the details themselves. What was delivered:

Before & After: what the usability test changed

Two friction points surfaced in testing. Both were redesigned before the final prototype.

1. Prescribing clinic as an entry point

Users struggled to notice the prescribing clinic as a way into setting up a reminder, so the path from a prescription to a reminder was not obvious.

Before

Made the entry points clearer, so moving from an existing prescription to a reminder is an obvious next step.

After

Less clutter, clearer entry point

2. Medical abbreviations confused setup

Medical abbreviations like PO and TDS created confusion during setup, so users were unsure what they were confirming.

Before

Switched to plain-language medication details, and added a confirmation step that catches duplicate reminders before they are created.

After

Key Learnings

From a scheduling tool to a daily habit.

HealthHub already had what it needed to be part of users' daily lives: the prescription data was there. The win wasn't adding more, it was putting that data to work so the app earns a daily return instead of a once-a-visit open. A reminder isn't just a nudge; it's the start of a habit, and a habit is what makes an app genuinely valuable.

Cognitive load is a safety issue.

In healthcare, reducing setup load isn't a convenience. A feature too hard to set up correctly won't be used, or will be set up wrong, and both outcomes are worse than nothing.

This was a collaborative project completed with Rowan Tay and Sherlyn Chow.