No two projects are the same, but some of Hana’s previous work includes a mobile site aimed at informing and educating refugees who’ve arrived in new countries, a program to get Indian women online, a digital toy to teach children computational thinking and a dictionary that takes obscure tech terminology and translates it into everyday examples.
She sums it up pithily on her own website – “I like making good things with good people, for good causes.”
The Lab is a good fit for Hana’s creative energy and her willingness to play different roles, using different skills and thinking in different ways. It mirrors how she sees the design world changing, and with it the role of designers.
“The world is moving quickly, and things are changing all the time. Until recently we were mostly designing for desktops, phones and tablets. But now we also have to think about designing for watches, cars, and invisible voice-powered interfaces. Then there’s other things like augmented reality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and machine learning.
“What will enable most creatives to endure in this environment of rapid evolution isn’t deep knowledge in one of these areas, it’s their ability to flex and adapt to entirely new sets of circumstances. For me it’s about embracing a design approach that is less rooted in traditional practices, and more rooted in the realities of human experiences.”