About Mandla
I design products that hold up inside complex organisations.
I'm Mandla Nkala, a senior product designer based in Johannesburg, South Africa, with over 12 years of experience.
Since 2017 I've consulted for some of Africa's leading financial institutions, including Old Mutual, Liberty, Absa, FNB, Hollard, Nedbank, and more recently Momentum as a freelancer.
Most of my work sits where business rules, legacy platforms and customer needs meet. I work closely with BAs, architects, developers and subject matter experts to turn intricate requirements into journeys that feel simple for customers and fit the platform underneath, including Salesforce-based products.
I cover the full range, from research and strategy to high-fidelity UI, prototypes and design systems, and I can build front ends and websites when a project needs it.
- Based in
- Johannesburg, South Africa
- Experience
- 12+ years, consulting since 2017
- Focus
- Banking, insurance and asset management
- Open to
- Freelance, consulting and full-time
12+
years designing digital products
7
leading African financial brands
7+
designers led as a design lead
How I work
What clients and teams can expect.
-
01
Start from the problem, not the screen
I map the journey, the business rules and the platform constraints before designing UI, so the solution survives delivery.
-
02
Design with the whole team
I'm used to being the designer embedded with BAs, architects and SMEs, and I keep everyone aligned through shared artefacts.
-
03
Test with real people
Usability testing and audits guide decisions, from small studies to programmes with 500+ participants.
-
04
Build for scale
Design systems and clear specs reduce rework and help teams ship consistently across products.
Experience
Career so far.
Most recent first, from freelance work today back to leading my first design team.
-
May 2026 – now
micro1
AI Training Expert (Contractor)
- Review and evaluate AI model outputs against detailed quality guidelines.
- Write clear, structured feedback that helps train frontier AI models.
- Bring a designer’s eye for detail and consistency to labelled data and quality checks.
-
Jun 2024 – now
Freelance
Product Designer
- Design and build for clients end to end, from UX and UI to fully functional websites.
- Led the redesign of the Old Mutual Malawi app.
- Completed a three-month engagement with Momentum in 2026.
- Post-launch maintenance and optimisation for client products.
-
May 2023 – May 2024
Liberty Group
Senior UI/UX Designer (Consultant)
- Core designer in a team of SMEs deploying Salesforce-based products: Claims Live, Nurses on the Road and the Client Portal.
- Customised Salesforce for both business-facing and client-facing tools.
- Maintained and evolved the Liberty IAM design system.
-
Feb – Sep 2022
Absa Group
Senior UI/UX Designer (Consultant)
- Designed for the Absa Everyday Banking app and web platforms.
- Worked with business units and product management to define requirements.
-
Aug – Nov 2021
Freethinking Business Consultants
Design Lead (Consultant)
- Mentored and managed a team of 7+ UX and UI designers.
- Set up design processes and design systems for two major corporate clients.
-
Aug 2020 – Jun 2021
FNB
Senior UI/UX Designer (Consultant)
- Usability audits that reduced user complaints by 15%.
- Aligned designs with FNB OCEP standards for brand consistency.
-
Aug 2019 – Jan 2020
Hollard Insurance
Senior UX Designer (Consultant)
- Lead designer on the self-service claims platform redesign, alongside BAs and developers.
- Validated workflows through user testing with 500+ participants.
-
Jun 2017 – Jul 2019
Nedbank
UX Designer (Consultant)
- Designed 10+ features for the Nedbank Money app and web banking during the bank’s digital transformation.
- Worked with SMEs across several countries.
-
Dec 2014 – Apr 2017
Yookos
UX/UI Lead
- Led and mentored a 7-person design team.
- Redesigned Yookos 4.0.
Toolkit
Skills, tools and what I'm learning.
01
Expertise
- Product design
- Interaction design
- UI design
- Prototyping
- User research
- Usability testing
- Journey mapping
- UX audits
- Design systems
- Front-end build
- Web design
- Design QA
02
Tools
- Figma
- Framer
- Adobe Creative Suite
- Sketch
- Principle
- Webflow
- Miro
- Notion
- VS Code
- Cursor
- Claude
- v0
Development
- HTML
- CSS
- JavaScript
- React
03
Learning
- BSc Computer Science, University of the People (in progress)
- Information Architecture (Udemy)
- UX Strategy (Udemy)
- Android App Development