I make the complex simple

I'm a product and service designer in Melbourne, Australia.

See portfolio
  • Researcher
  • Product designer
  • Service designer

Career highlights

  • 30+ Years practice

    Led design teams for UoM and Telstra, built loyalty programs for Telstra and NRMA, 20 government services digitised, engineered 3d signage for Tattersall's

  • 40+ Organisations

    Trusted by government, universities, insurers, telecoms and Australia's largest digital brands

  • 10% Wallet share lifted

    Researched and guided mobile app design that lifted business outcomes, not just aesthetics

  • 4x Awards & recognition

    Webby Honouree - RMIT, IPAA Service Delivery Award finalist - Vic Gov, Hitwise Best Gaming Website - Tattslotto, AIMIA finalist - Take40

Selected outcomes

All projects
    • Births, Deaths & Marriages Victoria
    • Service Design
    • Research

    Designing trusted digital identity verification

    Digital identity promised convenience, but trust broke down when citizens were unexpectedly handed to a third-party verification service.

    Challenge
    Introducing digital identity verification without increasing privacy concerns or abandonment
    Decision
    Tested an end-to-end service prototype to measure trust, clarity and completion
    Outcome
    Trust risks identified before launch and key recommendations adopted
    View project
    • Government
    • Digital Identity
    BDM Victoria digital identity thumbnail
    • NRMA Insurance
    • Service Design
    • Product Design
    • Research

    Reducing churn risk through loyalty recognition

    Research revealed a surprising risk: some of the most loyal customers felt the least recognised.

    Challenge
    Long-tenure customers felt overlooked by loyalty models focused on product ownership
    Decision
    Used discovery, ideation and Kano analysis to identify recognition opportunities
    Outcome
    Evidence-backed loyalty roadmap focused on retention and recognition
    View project
    • Insurance
    • Loyalty
    NRMA Insurance loyalty thumbnail
    • Consumer Affairs Victoria
    • Research
    • Usability Testing
    • Service Design

    Testing assumptions before launch

    Late-stage testing exposed a major gap between stakeholder assumptions and community needs.

    Challenge
    A government service had been designed around expert understanding rather than user reality
    Decision
    Compared internal experts and community users through usability testing
    Outcome
    Critical usability risks identified before launch and prioritised for remediation
    View project
    • Government
    • Accessibility
    Government digital services testing thumbnail

About meCapabilities

Product Designer Leading

  • AI Whisperer

    Led AI-accelerated discovery for the University of Melbourne Student Services Transformation, helping stakeholders evaluate future-state concepts before committing to Salesforce migration and platform investment decisions. The result was a clearer product vision grounded in evidence rather than assumptions.

  • Student Maze Navigator

    Helped RMIT University transform a complex web ecosystem into a scalable, accessible digital experience and design system, reducing the gap between strategic vision, governance requirements and implementation.

  • Redemption Architect

    Redirected NRMA Insurance's loyalty strategy from transactional rewards toward trust and tenure recognition, creating a customer-validated roadmap that informed future investment decisions and delivery priorities.

Service Designer Advanced

  • Journey Cartographer

    Mapped end-to-end experiences across University of Newcastle services, exposing failures and dependencies that individual teams could not see in isolation and informing a roadmap of 420 prioritised improvements.

  • Paper Reduction Society

    Led discovery and evaluation across Victorian Government service transformations, revealing that customer confusion often presented a greater barrier than paper-based processes. This shifted attention from digitising transactions to improving service clarity.

  • Trust Builder

    Evaluated digital identity services for Births, Deaths & Marriages Victoria, identifying trust, transparency and adoption risks before implementation and thereby influencing procurement decisions.

Researcher Advanced

  • Assumption Detector

    Used comparative usability testing for Consumer Affairs Victoria and other government services to expose where expert expectations diverged from customer behaviour, helping teams avoid designing for internal assumptions.

  • Insight Miner

    Led research for Sportsbet's mobile experience, transforming thousands of observations into actionable recommendations. The resulting changes contributed to a reported 10% increase in customer wallet share after launch.

  • Fast Failure Enthusiast

    Embedded experimentation into product development at Sportsbet, helping teams identify customer and product risks before launch when change was still inexpensive and practical.

Prototyper Advanced

  • Click Before Brick

    Built and tested navigation prototypes for RMIT University, replacing stakeholder opinion with customer evidence when making information architecture and design decisions.

  • Government Sandbox Veteran

    Used prototypes across Victorian Government programs, including services delivered through the Department of Justice, to align stakeholders around shared service concepts before implementation.

  • Behaviour Translator

    Converted research findings from projects including Landmate, Consumer Affairs Victoria, Births, Deaths & Marriages Victoria and the Neighbourhood Justice Centre into practical recommendations that delivery teams could implement.

Design Engineer Advanced

  • Token Tamer

    Established design-system foundations across multiple digital platforms, including work for RMIT University, connecting design decisions with implementation standards and governance.

  • Pixel To Production

    Delivered production-ready solutions for organisations including Commonwealth Bank, Honda, Chevron, Caltex, Tatts, TABCorp and TAFE NSW, bridging the gap between design intent and technical implementation.

  • Motion Mechanic

    Designed and developed digital and physical experiences for Tatts, combining customer engagement, jackpot information and local advertising into a unified interactive system.

Strategist Advanced

  • Roadmap Wrangler

    Turned research, stakeholder input and organisational priorities into delivery roadmaps for University of Newcastle, NRMA Insurance and Victorian Government programs, helping decision-makers sequence investment and implementation.

  • Opportunity Spotter

    Identified unmet customer and organisational needs across Victorian Government, University of Newcastle and NRMA Insurance initiatives, helping stakeholders focus on the opportunities most likely to deliver measurable value.

  • Business Outcome Translator

    Connected customer insight to retention, accessibility, adoption and operational efficiency outcomes for organisations including NRMA Insurance, Telstra, University of Melbourne and multiple Victorian Government departments, enabling informed executive decision-making.

Facilitator Practising

  • Post-it Traffic Controller

    Designed and led workshops for NRMA Insurance, Victorian Government agencies and university stakeholders, creating alignment around decisions rather than simply generating discussion.

  • Consensus Crafter

    Helped stakeholders at the University of Melbourne, University of Newcastle and Telstra navigate competing priorities through structured evaluation and transparent decision-making frameworks.

  • Practising Sage

    Facilitated collaboration across executives, delivery teams and subject matter experts at organisations including Telstra, NRMA Insurance and Victorian Government departments, turning complexity and competing agendas into practical next steps.

Industry experience

  • Corporate

    • CommBank
    • NRMA Insurance
    • Sportsbet
    • Tattersall's
    • TAB
  • Government

    • Landmate
    • Neighbourhood Justice Centre
    • Consumer Affairs Victoria
    • Births, Deaths & Marriages Victoria
    • Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions
  • Education

    • University of Melbourne
    • Monash University
    • RMIT University
    • University of Canberra
  • Arts & culture

    • National Museum of Australia
    • National Gallery of Victoria
    • NZ Buddhist Council
    • White Cloud Records
    • MCM Entertainment Take40
    • Show-Ads Interactive
  • Technology

    • Telstra
    • Squiz
    • Intracom
  • Automotive

    • Finke Desert Race
    • Caltex
    • Honda
    • Chevron

30 years solving complex problems

Illustration of Dave Hone

For 30 years, I've helped organisations across government, education, finance and telecoms solve complex customer problems and deliver better outcomes.

Great design should be measurably better, not just beautiful.

My work spans research, strategy, service design and product design. I'm as comfortable facilitating executive workshops as I am building prototypes or diving into customer insights.

Whether you need a design lead, researcher, strategic partner or an extra pair of experienced hands, I'd love to help.

I work well as:

  • Senior contributor embedded in a team
  • Design lead for a project or transformation
  • Researcher running discovery and validation
  • Facilitator aligning teams and stakeholders.