UX Engineer

• 97% of neurodivergent people say their neurodivergence makes debt harder to manage
• 64% never ask their creditors for help
• Only 32% of those who reach debt advice disclose being neurodivergent at all

(StepChange/Equifax, 2025)

The gap isn't awareness. It's shame: overwhelm, anxiety and stigma are the top reasons people go quiet exactly when they need support most.

For users with a PDA profile, it goes further. Demands themselves trigger anxiety and avoidance, so the more a notification pushes "pay now", the more it gets ignored. The app has to lower the demand, not raise it.

Something needs to change.

Every decision started from the same question: what does this app do on someone's worst day? The paid/unpaid toggle became on time, late, short or overpaid, because a binary only works if life is binary. Due dates get logged rather than left to memory, so the app carries that load instead of asking for it back. The balance owed stepped aside for a live debt-free-by date, one that moves closer with every entry instead of just measuring distance from a goal. And arrangements got a third state, because most real debt sits unresolved, not settled: in place, needs setting up, or awaiting response.

Nothing in the interface was allowed to punish. No red, no streaks, no scolding, because shame is what stops people opening the app in the first place, not what gets them to pay. Jade green and peach replace the harsh contrast the category runs on, set in Atkinson Hyperlegible, with a leaf standing in for growth instead of debt.

• Branching payment states: on time, late, short, overpaid
• Optional notes on every payment
• Partial and overpayment support
• Due date tracking per debt
• Live debt-free-by date
• Arrangement status: in place / needs setting up / awaiting response
• Creditor contact email field
• Shame-free visual language and copy throughout
• Jade green and peach palette, Atkinson Hyperlegible typeface

Mirian is built and live, ready for its first testers. Five payment states, four payment options, full auth and a Supabase schema scoped with row-level security per user. No red crosses. No harsh binaries. Just a debt tracker that assumes a bad month, rather than punishing one.

As a freelance web developer working with multiple clients at once, my projects were organised across ClickUp, Notion and various Google apps. As an AuDHD individual, I often found this overwhelming and frustrating to work with. Clients also found having to learn ClickUp and Notion confusing, and it felt like an unnecessary step in the project, so I decided enough was enough.

I needed a system that was intuitive and easy for clients, rather than one that had me finding ways to work around a set system and adapting my way of working to suit it. It had to be flexible.

Starting with hand-drawn wireframes, I thought about what I needed to see and when: what was the vital information that had to get my attention, and how would I make this work?

Everything had to be meaningful and serve a purpose, and I designed it all to fit on one screen, because scrolling to find things was grating.

Phase 1 is live, and cancelling the Notion and ClickUp subscriptions has cut my monthly expenditure. I now have one system where I can:

• communicate with clients directly
• manage all document uploads
• produce invoices and get approvals
• create custom project templates
• book meetings
• track my own tasks
• create tasks for clients

I am extremely proud of this product, and v2 is planned. It will include:

• a calendar API, so a Google Meet no longer has to be added in two places
• payments taken directly
• notifications
• custom UI functionality

LUCENT Biopharma wanted a fresh design that communicated their new brand guidelines, and a website that demonstrated their expertise and skill in the field. Research suggested potential clients were fed up with websites that were too heavy on the science and not transparent enough about their services.

I conducted a full UX audit and report, detailing users' pain points and providing data-driven solutions for how the website should be designed. Working alongside LUCENT Biopharma's copywriter and graphic designer, wireframes were produced in Figma, structured around the persona-led IA.

Services, employees and Insights (the blog) were consolidated into Webflow's CMS collections, with a custom filter and card animations in JavaScript and CSS.

A formal UX report was provided, and the LUCENT Biopharma team were trained to manage their website independently moving forward.