Madeleine Frister

In 2020, I co-founded the software studio Vanilla Noir together with my partner. Since then, we have collaborated with various industry partners on the design and development of responsive websites and web apps. In early 2024, we launched our internal project Balancey - a web and mobile budgeting app for mindful spending. My responsibilities included creative direction, UX research, UI/UX design, prototyping, and frontend development with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript/React.

During a 3-months contract position, I worked on the frontend development of the personalized children’s book ‘Where are You’. I collaborated with product managers, graphic designers, translators, and a QA team on the project. My tasks included integrating text manuscripts with JavaScript (pug.js), adding language-specific functionalities, as well as CSS and SVG styling to build the pages for the storefront.

Within a 6-months industry placement, I collaborated with the Copenhagen-based start-up Write with Laika and helped shape the AI-assisted writing tool Laika from concept through deployment. My responsibilities included UX research, brand positioning and brand identity design, UI/UX design, and frontend development of the Laika web app with React and Typescript.

I am currently in the write-up phase for my PhD research project “Investigating Sources of Perceptual Distraction and their Effects on Task Difficulty and User Experience”. The project aims at improving UX in digital applications through a better understanding of cognitive processes in the presence of distraction. Beside conducting experimental studies, the project involved the design and development of software for research purposes.