Profile

Penny works as a Design Strategist assisting organisations to take a collaborative approach to the design of organisational process, strategy, products and services.

Over the last 14 years Penny has instigated, designed and produced a range of online and interactive projects in Australia and New Zealand for commercial and community clients including Creative New Zealand, Inspire Foundation, NSW Guide Dogs, Cancer Institute of NSW, Amnesty International, WWF, UTS, UNSW, Windlab, Climate Risk, CSIRO, BigPond, Vodafone and Westpac. Penny has also assisted in the delivery of a range of training programs in design and digital strategy for organisations such as E-Vision, MTC Works Solutions, MetroScreen and the University of Technology, Sydney.

Starting out as a interactive designer Penny became interested in design research methods when designing weather interfaces for pilots at the MetService in Wellington in 2000. This triggered a ongoing interest in how people-focused design methods help us to design systems and services better and the methods and strategies we can use to involve people in design. Penny further honed her design research skills at the Interaction and Design Practice Lab at UTS researching emerging mobile methods, interaction design and participatory design. In 2006, Penny joined social design agency Digital Eskimo as their Projects Director/Strategist helping to grow the company from 3 to 15+ staff, introducing numerous design research methods, overseeing design strategy and production on all design projects and mentoring the team on user experience and participatory design methods.

Since 2009 Penny has worked as a Design Strategist and consultant, presenter and lecturer specialising in developing custom stakeholder engagement programs for community and social change projects. She regularly publishes in academic and professional forums and completed her Phd on participation in design using social technologies in April 2011. Penny recently returned to NZ after 10 years in Sydney.

A list of recent public engagements is listed below, for further bio info see Penny’s linkedin profile

Professional Engagements

2011 Judge – Ozchi24 Design Challenge

2011 Mentor – Mozilla Open Design Project

2011 Guest Speaker – Design Thinking Drinks at Digital Eskimo, Sydney

2011 Guest Speaker and Panelist - 2020 Library Summit – The Future of Academic Libraries

2011 Invited Workshop: Codesign Methods – DAB Masters Programme, UTS

2010 Co-Chair Industry Day & Presenter: Participatory Design Conference

2010 Examiner – Interactive Media and Learning Masters Assessment Panel - UTS

2010 Guest Lecture: User Centred Design – DAB, UTS

2010 Judge: Australian WebAwards 2010

2009 Panelist Ozchi: Designing Effective Systems: Contributions from Human Factors and Human-Computer Interaction

2009 Judge: User Experience/Usability – McFarlane Prize

2009 Guest Speaker – Universal Favourite Design talks: Connecting brands, services & participation

2009 Guest Lecturer – Designing Future Strategies Public Lecture Series, UTS – Design and Use: Tools and Trends in design

2009 Presenter UX Australia – Emerging a User Experience Strategy: People, pencils and post-its

2009 Participant/Presenter – Jeanette Blomberg Service Design Course, UTS

2009 Guest Lecturer – DAB Design Research Course: Personas and Scenarios

2008 Keynote Speaker Making Links – Reaching out or Moving Closer: connecting with your networked community

2008 Invited Panelist, Beyond the Hype: Sustainability & HCI. CHI2008

2007 Guest Lecturer – Design in Context HCI Undergraduate Subject UTS

2006 Profiled in Design Professionals, Ed. Shari Davies, Published by Career FAQs, 2006

Reviewer – UxAustralia, OZCHI, CHI, CCS, PDC, CT&T, Foundations and Trends in
Human-Computer Interaction Journal.