Product Designer · Independent

I design calm, considered tools people use every day.

Twelve years shaping software for finance, health, and developer teams. I care about clarity over decoration, systems over screens, and shipping things that hold up after launch.

Selected work

Four of nineteen projects
Fintech · 0→1

Northvane Ledger

A reconciliation workspace for small finance teams. Cut month-end close from days to hours with a single reviewable timeline.

Lead designer·2024
Health · Mobile

Pulsewell Companion

A daily check-in app for chronic care. Reduced logging friction to a single tap and lifted 30-day retention by 41%.

Product design·2023
Systems · Tokens

Halcyon Design System

A token-driven library powering nine product surfaces. One source of truth, themeable, documented for engineers and designers alike.

Systems lead·2022—now
DevTools · Console

Relay Deploy Console

An observability console for release engineers. Surfaced the one metric that matters per deploy instead of forty that don't.

UX & IA·2021

About

A little context

I'm Mara, a product designer based in Lisbon. I started out in editorial and print, which is where I learned that good structure is invisible — you only notice it when it's missing.

These days I work end to end: research, flows, interface, and the system underneath. I like the unglamorous parts — empty states, error copy, the third screen no one demos. That's usually where trust is won or lost.

I work best with small teams who want a partner, not a pixel service. When I'm not designing I'm probably restoring an old film camera or losing an argument with my sourdough starter.

How I work

Craft & tools

Design

  • Product & interaction design
  • Design systems & tokens
  • Information architecture
  • Prototyping & motion

Research

  • Generative interviews
  • Usability testing
  • Journey & service mapping
  • Lightweight analytics review

Practice

  • Figma & variables
  • HTML / CSS handoff
  • Accessibility (WCAG 2.2)
  • Facilitation & workshops

Now

Updated this season
What I'm up to Lisbon, Portugal
  • Current Designing a planning tool for independent clinics.Two days a week, through autumn.
  • Reading Notes on long-lived software and slow interfaces.Collecting essays into a small reading list.
  • Open to One new collaboration for the new year.Prefer 0→1 product work with a clear owner.
  • Side A typeface pairing guide for non-designers.Slowly, and only when it's fun.