Alfi Oloo

Alfi Oloo

Discovery & Foundations Specialist

I'm a discovery specialist and product builder with over 10 years of experience in product design. I work at the intersection of customer research, AI-assisted prototyping, and team enablement, helping organisations figure out what to build, proving it works through hands-on experimentation, and teaching teams to do the same.

Currently at Yoco, I lead product discovery for the card machine range; going to the field to talk to merchants, mapping opportunities with solution trees, and building testable MVPs using tools like Lovable and Supabase. Outside of product work, I run The Ordinary Group, building infrastructure between education and employment through mentorship. I sit on the Industry Advisory Council for Red & Yellow's Post Graduate Diploma in User Centred Design, teach at The Sensemakers Club, and guest lecture at Mitra Academy. I've spoken at TEDx Pretoria, UX South Africa, Google I/O Extended, and several other conferences on learning, mentorship, and the evolving role of designers.

What I Do

What I Do

Discovery & Research

Customer interviews, opportunity mapping, continuous discovery practices, opportunity solution trees

Prototyping & Building

Full-stack MVP development with Lovable, Supabase, and AI-assisted tools. From database architecture to deployment

Workshops & Training

Hands-on team workshops on vibe coding, continuous discovery, and modern product development practices

Mentorship & Advisory

Curriculum design, case study design, Guest lecturing and industry partnership architecting.

Experience

Experience

Product Designer

Yoco

July 2024 - Present

Responsible for design across all Yoco card machine products. Lead quarterly planning workshops to align product roadmaps with design priorities. Spearhead product discovery — conducting field research with merchants, building opportunity solution trees, and designing experiments that connect user needs to business outcomes. Built and facilitated the "Build with AI" workshop series, teaching designers and PMs to go from idea to deployed app. Spoke at UX South Africa on continuous discovery.

Responsible for design across all Yoco card machine products. Lead quarterly planning workshops to align product roadmaps with design priorities. Spearhead product discovery — conducting field research with merchants, building opportunity solution trees, and designing experiments that connect user needs to business outcomes. Built and facilitated the "Build with AI" workshop series, teaching designers and PMs to go from idea to deployed app. Spoke at UX South Africa on continuous discovery.

Entrepreneur / Founder

The Ordinary Group

July 2023 - Present

Building the missing infrastructure between education and employment. Designed and deployed a saleable mentorship framework empowering both aspiring mentors and mentees. Created mentor training material and learning journeys guiding individual contributors through the journey of becoming a mentor. Designed and co-taught a cohort-based peer-to-peer mentorship program for mid and senior designers with The Sensemakers Club (USA). Conceptualised a B2B offering and took it to market.

Building the missing infrastructure between education and employment. Designed and deployed a saleable mentorship framework empowering both aspiring mentors and mentees. Created mentor training material and learning journeys guiding individual contributors through the journey of becoming a mentor. Designed and co-taught a cohort-based peer-to-peer mentorship program for mid and senior designers with The Sensemakers Club (USA). Conceptualised a B2B offering and took it to market.

Product Designer

IoT.nxt

Jan 2022 - Jun 2023

Established the foundational design system using the atomic framework, used for both client and in-house products. Made the business case for migrating from Sketch & Zeplin to Figma, then led the migration effort and developed new ways of working. Filled gaps as a service designer where electronic engineering processes and hardware capabilities needed to meet platform features.

Established the foundational design system using the atomic framework, used for both client and in-house products. Made the business case for migrating from Sketch & Zeplin to Figma, then led the migration effort and developed new ways of working. Filled gaps as a service designer where electronic engineering processes and hardware capabilities needed to meet platform features.

Product Designer @ Absa Bank

Freethinking

Aug 2019 - Dec 2021

Conducted qualitative customer research including product discovery and usability testing for the Savings & Investments business, interviewing 29 participants across 60-minute sessions to map personal financial management behaviours. Led Banking App Design System work, managing backlog and creating documentation templates. Conceptualised and designed Absa's first lotto experience, setting the standard both in industry and across Absa's digital platform.

Conducted qualitative customer research including product discovery and usability testing for the Savings & Investments business, interviewing 29 participants across 60-minute sessions to map personal financial management behaviours. Led Banking App Design System work, managing backlog and creating documentation templates. Conceptualised and designed Absa's first lotto experience, setting the standard both in industry and across Absa's digital platform.

User Experience Designer

King James Digital

Nov 2016 - Jul 2019

Client-facing UX designer for brands including Visa, Multichoice, Allan Gray, and Sasfin. Responsible for visualising design processes for stakeholders and collaboratively developing requirements with clients. Performed customer research, developed personas, created information architecture, and produced low and high-fidelity prototypes.

Client-facing UX designer for brands including Visa, Multichoice, Allan Gray, and Sasfin. Responsible for visualising design processes for stakeholders and collaboratively developing requirements with clients. Performed customer research, developed personas, created information architecture, and produced low and high-fidelity prototypes.

Tools

Tools

Design Tools
Design Tools

Framer

Figma

Vibe coding
Vibe coding

Bolt

Lovable

Claude

Supabase

Vercel

V.0

Research writing & architecture
Research writing & architecture

ChatGPT

Claude

Google docs

Notion

Saas Infrustructure
Saas Infrustructure

Loops

Paystack

Advisory & Teaching

Advisory & Teaching

Industry Advisory Council Member

Red & Yellow Creative School of Business

Nov 2025 - Present

Appointed to the Industry Advisory Council ensuring the programme is aligned with international and local industry trends. Responsibilities include programme design input, student reviews, assessment guidance, masterclasses, and mentoring faculty, helping bridge the gap between academic curriculum and industry practice.

Appointed to the Industry Advisory Council ensuring the programme is aligned with international and local industry trends. Responsibilities include programme design input, student reviews, assessment guidance, masterclasses, and mentoring faculty, helping bridge the gap between academic curriculum and industry practice.

Instructor In Residence

The Sensemakers Club

November 2023 - Present

Co-author & instructor of the "Making sense of Yourself: Developing a Personal Information Architecture" program.

Co-author & instructor of the "Making sense of Yourself: Developing a Personal Information Architecture" program.

Curriculum Design & Teaching

Shaper

2024

Shaper Skills Development, curriculum design and teaching in design thinking and no-code tools.

Shaper Skills Development, curriculum design and teaching in design thinking and no-code tools.

Speaking

TEDx

Self-Directed Learning

Pretoria

UXDX

Mentorship in tech

EMEA (Onine)

UX South Africa

User Experience Design

Johannesburg, ZA

Google I/O Extended

Google Products

Pretoria, ZA

Cosac

Cyber Security

Melbourne, AUS

UX Healthcare

User experience

London, UK

Level Up RR.Conf '24

Retro Rabbit Conference

Pretoria, ZA

Node JS One

NodeJS Conference

Johannesburg, ZA

I Code Java

Java Conference

Johannesburg, ZA

Makesensemess

Information architecture

Remote conference

Let's get connected

Copyright 2024 © Alfi Oloo

Copyright 2024 © Alfi Oloo

Copyright 2024 © Alfi Oloo