Hi there! I’m Monica Nowak, a designer based in Boston, Massachusetts.

Monica Nowak smiles in a white button up with tiny oranges on it, in front of a lush green backdrop.

My journey as a designer began at Bentley University in Waltham, MA - rather Bond University near Brisbane, Australia where I had decided to spend a semester junior year abroad. On my first day of my first ever design class that I so eagerly enrolled in, my professor made us all shout “I AM A DESIGNER”. I don’t think we believed ourselves at the time. After four months of the most rigorous and rewarding design program and many late nights in the design lab, on that last day when we were yelling “I AM A DESIGNER”, we knew it to be true. To this day, I credit that class and that professor for sparking my passion and leading me to my calling.

Graduating in 2017 with a major in Information Design and a minor in Computer Information Systems, I already had a year as a graphic design intern at Nuance Communications under my belt. My courses senior year at Bentley included Graphic Design, Web Design, Java, and most importantly Design Thinking in User Experience Design. I was enjoying my time at Nuance and wanted to stay at the voice technology company after graduation, so networked internally into a User Interface Designer role.

Today I am a Senior User Interface Designer at Nuance - now a Microsoft company. In my tenure at Nuance I’ve learned invaluable skills, lessons, practices, and processes while working with the most collaborative, bright, kind, and hardworking individuals. I create meaningful applications and experiences that are built with every user in mind. My belief is that great design requires empathy, attention to detail, communication, and compromise. My passions are user experience, design thinking, visual design, and accessibility for disabled individuals in design.

Please refer to the My Work tab to see some examples of the projects I’ve participated in.