About
The designer who does the analysis and the craft.
Johannesburg, South Africa — Remote
I'm André Swanepoel, a UX/UI designer based in Johannesburg, South Africa. For 16+ years I've taken products from the very first question all the way to a build-ready front end — the analysis and architecture at the start, and the interface craft at the end. UX is my specialism, but UI is the part I love: I can just sit and design apps all day.
What's rare, I've come to realise, is doing both in one head. I hold a product as a whole system — how the pieces connect, where the boundaries are, what can and can't be built — while also caring about the exact weight of a button and the calm of a dense screen. That single continuous thread, from research to reusable component library to front-end code, is what I bring.
Recently, AI has supercharged the analytical half of my work. I lean on Claude and Gemini to move faster through comparative research, gap analysis, and big-data reading — Gemini's large context window is a genuine unlock for deep-research and large documents. It doesn't replace the thinking; it accelerates every stage of it, which leaves more room for the craft.
What drives the work
Whole-product thinking
I hold the whole system in my head — how the parts connect and where the boundaries are — so the interface reflects real structure, not just screens.
Speed from clarity
Sharp analysis up front is what makes the design fast later. Clarity, not corner-cutting, is where the pace comes from.
One continuous thread
The same person carries the work from the first question to build-ready UI, so nothing is lost in the hand-offs between analysis, design, and code.
Show the process
I record the work stage by stage. The thinking is visible, not just the pretty final screens — because the thinking is the part that lands.
Toolkit
Analyse, design, craft & deliver — the whole thread.
Analyse
Design
Craft & deliver
Tools & AI
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