AGAINST ALL ODDS - MY STORY

Family & School

I was born and bred in what use to be a rural area called Winterveldt in North West on the 31st December 1990; I am the first-born child of Hendrik and Thembi Ngobeni in a family of four with a younger sister called Annah. Although Hendrik is not my biological father he is the only father I know. My biological father left my mother when I was born with a disability, even though I was born with a disability I use to be able to walk at the time. Before my younger sister was born my mother and I were still living with my grandparents, because whenever my mother would go to work I my grandparents would look after me. We later moved from Winterveldt to Soshanguve around the year 1996/1997.

I attended primary, middle and better half of my high school at an Afrikaans boarding school in North West. I later left boarding school around grade 10 to be closer to home, where I later matriculated in the year 2009 at Pretoria-Noord High school.
In the year 2011 I went to further my studies at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) Auckland Park Bunting campus in a National Diploma for Multimedia Design. Towards the end of my first year I started getting sick whereby my entire body started to shake and caused me to lose control over my body, however regardless of my condition at the time I managed to complete and pass the year. In the year 2012 the condition got worse to a point where it was killing me, but luckily I got a Doctor who was willing to help me. I missed the first quarter of 2nd year and because I didn’t want to fall behind I decided to go back to school two weeks after my surgery while in recovery. When I got back to school I had lost the ability to walk so a good friend of mine called Success Maake would come help me get to class everyday and because of that and hard work I completed and passed my second year.
I later went on to complete my diploma and decided to obtain my B-tech (honors) degree in my fourth year at UJ.

Work Experience

During my studies, I did a lot of freelance work for clients, which is not the easiest thing to do as a designer with little experience. In the year 2013 I did a short internship as a graphic designer at The Creative Counsel when they were still located in Sunninghill before moving to Melrose Arch.
In the same year I worked on a project with a design team for the Aspire Group, which was for a learner guide they needed for IQ Academy. I was the digital illustrator, character designer and animator for the project. Some of the characters I designed I would also animate with the rest of the animation and motion graphics team.
In 2014 I did another short internship/shadowing at Quirk which I was there as a UI/UX designer. Some of the roles I had to do was some user testing, research, personas and user interfaces analysis where by I would analyze the design and visual treatment of websites.

In 2013-2014 a few friends and I organized and participated in a disability and social awareness campaign. Whereby we wanted to educate the youth about disabilities and the social awareness of the issues and challenges that we face as young people regardless of who you are, how you look or where you come from. We broke the project down into stages and the first stage was to challenge young people to spend a day with me in a wheelchair, to give them the opportunity to experience the life of a person living with disabilities. Creating an understanding of the subject of disabilities and the people that live with them was key to a great beginning at something that has the potential to be bigger than us all. When the project started in 2013 there was only one person in a wheelchair and in 2014 we got 10 people to be in wheelchairs. I hope we get even bigger in 2015.

Passion for UI/UX Design

It all started when I was little, I had a fascination for art and technology, and at the time I did not know about multimedia because I had not yet been exposed to design. It is through design that we are able to interpret the information around us to make our lives easier. Everything that exists today has elements of design, some designs are tangible objects that can be touched and some designs are made out of systems that cannot be touched only felt and experienced. User Experience (UX) refers to the complete experience a user has with a product. UX is emotional not technical because it is about how a product makes the user that interacts with it feel. For me designing for purpose and functionality makes me enjoy UX because the entire philosophy and principle is about helping others to live a better life.

Why choose UX Design?

I wanted to do UX because it would allow me to create something millions of people would use on a day-to-day basis, even if they wouldn’t know I was part of making the design possible I would know and for me that is enough. Creating something so good that it goes unnoticed by many but used by all.

Hobbies & Interests

My work is my hobby, creating and finding new ways to solve design problems is fun. I also started to take my photography serious and being with friends and attending exhibitions. I enjoy research.
I am interested in being around people that are likeminded, that allow me to grow as a person and a designer. I am interested in music & series as a whole. I love blogs and websites that talk about design business, and technology. A good book is also essential for self-growth.