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Skyler Newton
The following are examples of digital service designs and publications created using human centred design practices. These were produced as an ongoing employee with the federal government department IP Australia, and later as independent research and design projects.
For the intellectual property (IP) department IP Australia, I worked as the Trade Marks Search Systems Coordinator between 2017 and 2019; then from 2021 until 2024 I held the Strategic Designer position with the IPAVentures innovation hub. In this role I developed concept designs for policy programs and digital products.
Inner North Band Rooms
Inner North Band Rooms
August 2026
Inner North Band Rooms is a self-initiated product and service design project developed through my UI design studies. My work covered product framing, geospatial map preparation, information architecture, interface design and Figma prototyping.
The starting hypothesis was that live-music discovery is fragmented and can overwhelm users with promotional content and extensive filtering. I wanted to make the local venue landscape visible and help people find events that fit their location and availability.
I structured the experience around geographical orientation, venue and event exploration, and refinement of choices. Venue-based mapping provides the primary discovery layer, while immediate, weekly and monthly time groupings organise events into manageable periods. This structure is intended to focus attention on relevant options and support practical planning and decision-making.
The current end-to-end Figma prototype covers one local government area in Melbourne’s inner north. Its scalable vector basemap can be updated and extended through a repeatable QGIS-to-Figma workflow.
Next steps are to test whether prospective users can find suitable events by location and availability, refine the interface using those findings, and expand venue coverage to the remaining target areas.
Problem - outcome summary
Problem
Research insights highlighted an event-discovery process cluttered by promotional content, extensive listings and exhaustive filtering. Users faced an overwhelming range of choices before establishing what suited their availability and locality. This placed unnecessary demands on decision-making and allowed promotional prominence to direct attention ahead of practical relevance.
Outcome
Designed a venue-led prototype that makes locality the primary entry point for discovering events. Venue-based mapping focuses attention on a relevant area, while immediate, weekly and monthly time periods organise events into manageable groups.
By grouping information around location and availability, the design supports a more focused, contextual planning process. It shifts the emphasis from choosing what receives the most prominent placement to finding events that fit a person’s circumstances and intentions. The resulting prototype is designed to help users move from browsing possibilities towards making realistic plans to attend.
TM Checker
TM Checker
From 2021 - 2023, as strategic designer for IP Australia's lighthouse innovation project, I worked with a team of internal venture analysts and external consultants to investigate advanced innovation opportunities beyond the existing capabilities of the department. We conducted research and exploratory innovation activities and pitched 6 concepts to the executive board - to vote and select one for incubation and delivery as a beta digital service.
The concept incubated was the TM Checker tool driven by machine learning. I contributed to the original research, ideation and concept creation. I also facilitated ethnographic research and iterative testing sessions to align the user interface (UI) with user needs. I also led a new use case analysis sprint, and drafted copy as a subject matter expert that was published by partner organisations.
Note: this tool does NOT use generative AI technology.
Article:
Problem - contribution - outcome summary
Problem
Through more than 12 years of customer-facing trade mark work, I observed that small businesses often investigated IP protection after committing to their brand choices. This reactive approach exposed them to avoidable legal risks and potential rebranding costs. The opportunity was to make trade mark investigation an earlier, more informed part of business development, supported by performance measures focused on customer outcomes.
Contribution
I originated the concept behind TM Checker, drawing on extensive experience translating legislative requirements into practical options that helped customers navigate registration pathways and assess their risks.
I subsequently worked alongside BCG consultants, who initially led the structured research and innovation activities. My contributions included investigative research, qualitative interviews, use-case analysis, journey mapping, hypothesis development and co-creation of MVP definitions for executive prioritisation and incubation.
I later explored additional use cases and designed a data-driven product-performance dashboard and reporting model centred on customer outcomes. I also developed reusable innovation artefacts, sprint-planning resources and training materials to help embed these practices across the department.
Outcome
The work translated an original customer insight into a defined product concept and MVP proposal for executive prioritisation and incubation. It aligned the department’s innovation objectives with small businesses’ need for earlier, clearer guidance on brand risks.
The dashboard and reporting design provided a framework for evaluating the service’s contribution to customer decisions, extending the focus beyond departmental productivity to the value delivered to small businesses.
By design, this tool is intended to serve as an early phase business risk-reduction resource - by embedding it within must-use touch points for small businesses across the Australian start-up and business administration landscape. The goal being to provide users with live insights on the potential ramifications of choosing a brand when launching products and services in Australia - before this demographic would typically conduct such a brand availability investigation.
Aside from the trade mark data search AI and ML (machine learning) system, what was arguably the most innovative aspect of this digital service is the cross-sector partnership framework and relationship management process used during the beta pilot. This was designed to strategically embed and maintain relevant resources in public and private sector digital touch points.
Insights
Insights
<4% Australian SMEs hold trade mark rights.
78% are unaware about trade marks when choosing their brands.
48% needed to rebrand because a trade mark was unavailable.
Out of >1000 SMEs surveyed, 65+ interviewed
Strategy
Strategy
Embed targeted content and tools in must-use business touch points.
Engineer an AI driven database searching tool, to provide live insights about brand availability.
Increase uptake of IP rights and unlock corresponding business growth.
Outcomes
Outcomes
Framework of 16+ new partnerships with private and public sector providers promoting IP.
Equivalent of thousands of years human effort saved so far - through groundbreaking TM data processing innovation.
New API platform strategy for reducing IP processing effort across the ecosystem.
Generative AI and the IP System
Generative AI and the IP System
In early 2023, as the strategic designer for the IPAVentures team, we used public sector anticipatory innovation methodologies to investigate issues that could arise from widespread use of new generative AI technology. The outcome was publishing an interactive resource to present our research findings within a very short timeframe. This was designed for both the general public and policy-makers to consider possible uses of generative AI and ramifications on the IP system as it currently exists.
Problem - contribution - outcome summary
Strategic Designer
Perform investigative fututes and horizon scanning research - analysis of industry white papers, trends, stakeholder activity, map regulatory driven use cases and stakeholder jobs to be done (JTBD).
Arrange and conduct interviews with industry stakeholders to gather insights and create stimulus for ideation and service design concepts.
Perform synthesis and ideation activities - to design and generate strategic research materials for the executive.
Facilitate stakeholder testing sessions - to determine likelihood for hypotheses to impact the IP system and the department's vision and objectives.
Undertake new use case exploration and idea generation - to investigate future uses of generative AI in respect of IP rights and registration administration.
Insights
Insights
AI is moving fast and presents a material, very possibly existential, risk to the IP rights system.
The foundation of the IP system is about providing protection to novelty, yet the barrier to meeting this criteria will likely reduce significantly.
Strategy
Strategy
Conduct a 12 week investigatory sprint, designed to explore the breadth of issues that generative AI presents.
Intensive research and wargaming analysis of anticipatory insights, beyond the surface level enhancement opportunities presented by generative AI.
Outcomes
Outcomes
Responsive publication of research findings, presented in the form of an interactive online resource.
Achieving significant reach across the international IP landscape in both the initial stakeholder engagement process and the subsequent digital publication. This was recognised by IP experts and academics in both public and private sectors.
Australian Trade Mark Search
Australian Trade Mark Search
From 2017 - 2019, my role as trade mark (TM) search system coordinator commenced at the vendor hand-over transition period. I worked to maintain iterative qualitative research processes, consulting IP professionals around the country on their search system needs. I also transitioned and collated a JIRA backlog of outstanding tickets and update requests - categorising and tagging these to enable report extraction based on ticket issue type and their associated systems or processes. In addition, identified relevant user touch points and, to help people structure queries in search system more effectively, by upgrading the help page and embedding instructional video content.
Further to this, in response to high call volumes regarding trade mark status updates, I led a project to to improve transparency and user comprehension of trade mark application progress information. Working in the customer intelligence team, I analysed feedback and concluded that the available information was not clear enough to provide a holistic view of the TM application process. So I designed a visualisation of the TM journey by creating a contextual breakdown of definitions, which more clearly outlines to applicants when and why a specific status applies to their application. An interactive PDF version was also provided to customer service officers, to use along with their standard scripts, and help answer enquiries more efficiently.
Contact
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