Morne Leander
About me

Experience

Hi, I'm Morné. 👋 I’m a Joburg-based UX Lead & Product Designer. I bring over 2 decades of design expertise, including 14 years dedicated exclusively to Product, UX, and UI leadership. I specialise in leading teams and scaling high-impact mobile products.

Proven scale: I Lead high-performing teams to design & scale big mobile ecosystems, including the My Vodacom App & VodaPay mini-apps.

My approach: I bridge the gap between business strategy, user needs, and Agile execution to deliver measurable product growth.

Download CV


I was one of 20 designers who contributed to designing the South African Parliamentary Emblem.

Emblem

Skills

UX leadership & strategy

- Design team management & mentorship
- Stakeholder management & alignment
- Mobile-first product strategy
- Cross-functional Agile leadership
-Design systems architecture
- Design-led process

User research & data analysis

- Information architecture & journey mapping
- Wireframing & interactive prototyping
- Usability & accessibility testing
- Interaction & Ui design

Software & tech

- Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD, Axure
- Keynote, Miro, Balsamiq
- AgilePM certified
- Ai assisted design integration

UX Design Lead93%
Product Design97%
User Experience Design97%
User Interface Design95%
Interaction Design93%
Visual Design91%
Graphic Design91%
Portfolio

My work

Testimonials

What people say

  • "It was a pleasure working with Morné. He is very talented, creative and humble. He thinks out of the box and it was amazing to see things in a different creative point of view. I am very thankful for his guidance and support. I highly recommend him"

    Elaine Rose Naidu

    Designer and Developer

  • "Morné takes time out of his busy schedule to assist others. He has exceptional expertise in leadership, coaching and motivating individuals to become successful in the UX field. He is dedicated, self-motivated and is not only a reliable and forward-thinking Designer, but also an inspiring team player"

    Yuseerah Jhetam

    UX Researcher

  • "Morné takes pride in his work, the first UI expert I've worked with in my career, who would sit with the developers, and insist on pixel perfect adjustments, a clear indication that his involvement doesn't end on the design software, but extends to the whole lifecycle of the project. He comes highly recommended by me."

    Mthokozisi Malaza

    Software Engineer

Tech talks

Latest articles

  • Creativity within very busy Agile teams

    By Morné Leander 31 August 2021

    Designers often feel that they are not granted enough time to be creative within Agile teams and that a Sprint of two weeks is not enough time to be creative. In order to be creative and to improve the customer's experience, more time is needed than the allotted two week Sprint.

    What is the typical responsibility of the UX Designer? Let's unpack...

    The UX Designer is responsible for the following:
    • Understanding the business goals and user needs
    • Research
    • Competitor analysis
    • Collaboration with team members of the Agile team
    • Collaboration external stakeholders
    • End-to-end experience of the product or serve
    • Wireframe creation
    • Creation of high fidelity prototypes
    • Visual design
    • Interaction design
    • Copywriting
    • User testing
    • Data analytics

    Phew, that's a lot of work to execute in a short time, agree?
    The Agile methodology favours a fast pace delivery team, and its roots lies in the Japanese automotive car maker Toyota. The focus is on delivery or building and less so on creativity; sorry Designers, there's no real time to be creative during a Sprint! So what do you do as a UX Designer?

    5 Top tips on how to be creative within Agile teams:
    • Work at least 2 Sprints ahead of the rest of the Agile team e.g, you start at Sprint 0 and not Sprint one.
    • Working ahead of Sprints will allow you to be focussed on the task at hand and in turn, you'll be more creative.
    • Gain time by not attending meetings where you're not needed. This will free up some more time and boost creativity.
    • You don't have to design "just about every screen" for the product or service, e.g. if you designed what a form field looks like, you don't have to necessarily design another screen regarding a form field.
    • Involve your stakeholders early enough within your creative process
    • There's clear differences in methodology between Agile Sprints and the desires of UX Designers. The Agile Sprint has clear structure and outcomes in contrast with the liberty and the freedom of the UX Designer
    • The two methodologies can work together if understood correctly and if considered when and how to tackle the appropriate processes as mentioned.
  • Latest articles

    Great experiences require "great fights"​

    By Morné Leander 14 August 2021

    There’s often said to be friction between Business Analyst and UX Designer In my experience, its often a misunderstanding of each other's disciplines. If there's a common goal, the disciplines get even more blurry!

    I'm sharing handy advice to the UX Designer, but the inverse applies to the Business Analyst or any other stake holder on the team.

    The UX Designer advocates for customers (and users) and the Business Analyst advocates for Business needs (rules) and what is technically possible. There’s clearly a difference in mindset. How do you work together towards a common goal than?

    The common goal: If the two professionals work within an Agile team, there’s a mutual understanding that the customers (and users) are priority and that everything else should revolve around that goal. If that mutual understanding isn’t established it’s going to be a hard time, not only for BA and UX disciplines to work together, but also everybody else on the team.

    7 Top tips for UX Designers:
    • Follow a Design thinking approach; understand, prototype, test, monitor analytics (and repeat the process)
    • Understand (and dream of it) all points of views not only customer (and user) needs, but business goals and what is technically possible too
    • Use your user testing results to motivate for change
    • Treat your high-fidelity prototypes as “throw aways” (I know it's difficult)
    • Don’t make emotional decisions
    • Involve your stakeholder (s) "early enough" within your design process
    • Translate your design in clear, simple language to your stakeholder (s)
    • Build trust, by “giving some” and “taking some”, e.g. you can “give some” if the BA wants the button blue and not your preferred red - as long if the blue button doesn’t compromise the user experience, "give to the BA".

      • Like all relationships, value one another’s disciplines; it’s about “give and take”, You give some, you get some. Its in your favour to be a UX Designer that understands the business rules and its okay to be a Business Analyst that understands customer (and user) needs.

      Continue 'great fights', great experiences require "great fights!

      KO...

  • Seeing it through, not PlaneCrazy!

    By Morné Leander 22 March 2017

    We just released a mobile game called PlaneCrazy Game to the AppStore and I'm thrilled! The game took a while to be released and I'll share with you how I as a Designer (practicing user experience) went about the journey and the stumbling blocks I endured.

    The story
    PlaneCrazy Game took flight when I started making jets for my daughter and the kids in our complex. The kids had great fun playing with the paper jet-planes, and soon wanted to learn how to make their own. So I taught them. This experience got me thinking of a game which could introduce jet-throwing, as well as teach "jetters", children, and all plane-crazed enthusiasts, alike to make their very own jets. PlaneCrazy launched from this.

    I was excited and started sketching. After many sketches, brainstorming sessions (with myself and friends), exploring illustration styles and taking photos, I started prototyping. For a while things didn't take off and the high fidelity prototypes lived as pictures in a folder on my computer and as a desktop screenshot. Until a former colleague asked me one day what my desktop screenshot is about. I explained its a scene of a game that I prototyped and would like to have it coded. Well, the rest was history as he (Developer) agreed to code the game.

    Key learnings/findings
    • Sketch a lot and change your mind a lot based on feedback you get
    • Introduce user/s into your experimental phase early on to get opinions
    • illustrations have to be spot on and interesting
    • Keep the user engaged and guessing
    • Find a good, trustable Developer
    • Set up a NDA (this just protects both you and the Developer)
    • Have patience and lots of it too
    • Download the software which your Developer uses and run the app on your device in order to get user feedback and also to get a feel of the app
    • Set up social media accounts Twitter, Facebook etc and spread the word
    • Create a website
    • Create a media kit (for journalists)
    • Respond to user feedback
    • Get an expert in writing skills (copy writer) to look at your copy (it makes a great difference)
    • Release the app as soon as possible and treat it as an experiment (mvp) rather than a "complete" app

    Ultimately, I really enjoyed seeing everything come together, especially working with the Developer and the excitement when PlaneCrazy Game went live on the AppStore

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