Cait Hopper

I’m interested in the ways technology can extend and enhance our physical reality. I enjoy designing for tangible experiences, considering movement quality, feedback and the context of use in physical products. I enjoy creating play based experiences that explore wicked problems with an element of fun, making them more approachable and addressable. I’m a strong proponent of accessible design. I believe that when our designs are inclusive and accessible they provide better outcomes for everyone.

There’s no singular future, but instead a multitude of potential futures, shaped by the decisions we make now. I enjoy helping businesses and individuals imagine both desirable and undesirable futures and map out the signals that might indicate which direction their current decisions are taking them.

I’ve made both physical and digital provocations to prompt the exploration of possible futures for companies as well as leading development teams and leadership teams through speculative design workshops.

I currently run two design led startups:

• Pocket Money Stickers

• Pocket Money Fundraisers

I’ve previously worked at the seafood industry startup FishNett where we had a residency at UOW’s iAccelerate, was chosen to take part in Australia’s biggest green business startup boootcamp Climate KIC with a fashion startup concept and have taken part in a bunch of extra-curricular startup courses at QUT’s The Foundry. I love helping early stage startup founders work out how they can validate their ideas using low tech and low cost solutions. Contact me if you’d like help finding out if your startup idea is viable and how to take it from an idea to reality!

I take a user centred design approach in all my work. I enjoy the research process, conducting interviews, field studies and workshops but also love a good literature review and working through data analysis, both physically with processes like affinity mapping but also digitally with tools like EnjoyHQ. I love the ideation and prototyping stage of design, both physically on products in a workshop and digitally with Figma, it’s a thrilling time of creative expression.

As I learn more about circular and regenerative design I’m starting to move to a beyond human or more than human centred approach to consider the impact of our designs on the planet as well.

I entered the world of design through a one night workshop in Design Thinking while I was living in San Francisco. Since then I’ve taken part in a couple of UX workshops and started facilitating workshops myself using skills I’ve gained from AJ & Smart’s workshoppers guides. Being an educator at heart (ex primary school teacher) and a bit of an introvert, I believe that a well facilitated workshop has the power to make space for real learning, faster decision making and taking action whilst ensuring everyone’s voice is heard.

I’ve facilitated workshops in person, hybrid and remote for groups of 4 to 30+. These have included stakeholders from all levels of higher education, government, industry and corporate.