Tom Twiby®
Contact Me
Resume.pdf
Outcome
We delivered a live platform (discover.adfcareers.gov.au) that transformed ADF recruitment from a transactional, role-first model to an exploratory, prospect-first experience. The design system and modular architecture set the foundation for future releases, and the creative platform gave the ADF a distinctive, engaging presence in a competitive talent market.
Bringing It to Life
The visual direction drew from topography, terrain mapping, and landscape imagery, creating an abstract but grounded world that felt futuristic and distinctly not like a government recruitment site. The start screen used parallax scrolling and layered photography to draw users in.
The immersive 3D environment was built on procedurally generated terrain with topographic patterns, giving the experience a gaming-adjacent quality.
Shaping the Experience
We mapped the full prospect journey during foundation design sprints, wireframing everything from landing page through quiz, career pathways, profile, registration, search, and content.
Key decisions included a passwordless sign-up to reduce friction, a centralised profile hub for saved roles and career finder results, and structuring career content around five narrative milestones (prerequisites, suitability, training, experience, progression) so each pathway told a story rather than listing requirements.
The "Choose Your Path" quiz sat at the heart of the experience. A personality-driven questionnaire that filtered prospects to a specialty area with three matching roles, using weighted attribute scoring tested across every possible response combination. Each result fed into a career pathway structured around those five milestones, turning role information into a guided journey.
These wireframes and flows were prototyped and taken into user testing before we moved into visual design.
Finding the Real Problem
Through focus groups and interviews with 60+ prospects, we uncovered something that shifted the entire project: self-discovery was just as important to this audience as exploring careers. They didn't just struggle with which role to pick. They didn't yet know what drove them, what they were good at, or where their interests could lead.
This became our north star: enable curious prospects to discover as much about themselves as a career in the ADF.
Testing & Validating
We ran 30+ hours of user testing across the project. Prospects confirmed that freedom to self-direct created richer engagement, that pathways driven by passions and purpose resonated more than job-title-first approaches, and that real ADF personnel stories built trust. Testing validated the career finder and pathway exploration as the highest-value features, directly shaping what made it into Release 1.
The Challenge
The Australian Defence Force was losing prospective recruits before they even applied. Around 70% of applications were abandoned each month, and only 10% converted to enlistment. The existing recruitment experience was role-first, expecting people to already know what they wanted. For a 16 to 24-year-old audience paralysed by career choice, that wasn't working.
We were brought in to create something that could bridge the gap between curiosity and commitment.
My Role
Design Director at R/GA. I led creative platform development, visual and UI design direction, the design system, motion and sound design guidelines, the immersive 3D experience direction and supported with the quiz and decision tree UX and user testing throughout.
The Idea
We developed a concept called "Make Your Move," built around empowering prospects to explore the best possible path for their future. Rather than asking "what job do you want?", we'd help them figure out what drives them, then connect those insights to career pathways across 300+ ADF roles.
The product would be an immersive web experience, part personality quiz, part interactive 3D career map, part narrative content journey. Something that felt closer to a game than a government website.
ADF Career Discovery Hub
Reimagining how young Australians explore a career in the Defence Force.
View the website
View Prototype
Tom Twiby®
Contact Me
Resume.pdf
Outcome
We delivered a live platform (discover.adfcareers.gov.au) that transformed ADF recruitment from a transactional, role-first model to an exploratory, prospect-first experience. The design system and modular architecture set the foundation for future releases, and the creative platform gave the ADF a distinctive, engaging presence in a competitive talent market.
Bringing It to Life
The visual direction drew from topography, terrain mapping, and landscape imagery, creating an abstract but grounded world that felt futuristic and distinctly not like a government recruitment site. The start screen used parallax scrolling and layered photography to draw users in.
The immersive 3D environment was built on procedurally generated terrain with topographic patterns, giving the experience a gaming-adjacent quality.
Shaping the Experience
We mapped the full prospect journey during foundation design sprints, wireframing everything from landing page through quiz, career pathways, profile, registration, search, and content.
Key decisions included a passwordless sign-up to reduce friction, a centralised profile hub for saved roles and career finder results, and structuring career content around five narrative milestones (prerequisites, suitability, training, experience, progression) so each pathway told a story rather than listing requirements.
The "Choose Your Path" quiz sat at the heart of the experience. A personality-driven questionnaire that filtered prospects to a specialty area with three matching roles, using weighted attribute scoring tested across every possible response combination. Each result fed into a career pathway structured around those five milestones, turning role information into a guided journey.
These wireframes and flows were prototyped and taken into user testing before we moved into visual design.
Finding the Real Problem
Through focus groups and interviews with 60+ prospects, we uncovered something that shifted the entire project: self-discovery was just as important to this audience as exploring careers. They didn't just struggle with which role to pick. They didn't yet know what drove them, what they were good at, or where their interests could lead.
This became our north star: enable curious prospects to discover as much about themselves as a career in the ADF.
Testing & Validating
We ran 30+ hours of user testing across the project. Prospects confirmed that freedom to self-direct created richer engagement, that pathways driven by passions and purpose resonated more than job-title-first approaches, and that real ADF personnel stories built trust. Testing validated the career finder and pathway exploration as the highest-value features, directly shaping what made it into Release 1.
The Challenge
The Australian Defence Force was losing prospective recruits before they even applied. Around 70% of applications were abandoned each month, and only 10% converted to enlistment. The existing recruitment experience was role-first, expecting people to already know what they wanted. For a 16 to 24-year-old audience paralysed by career choice, that wasn't working.
We were brought in to create something that could bridge the gap between curiosity and commitment.
My Role
Design Director at R/GA. I led creative platform development, visual and UI design direction, the design system, motion and sound design guidelines, the immersive 3D experience direction and supported with the quiz and decision tree UX and user testing throughout.
The Idea
We developed a concept called "Make Your Move," built around empowering prospects to explore the best possible path for their future. Rather than asking "what job do you want?", we'd help them figure out what drives them, then connect those insights to career pathways across 300+ ADF roles.
The product would be an immersive web experience, part personality quiz, part interactive 3D career map, part narrative content journey. Something that felt closer to a game than a government website.
ADF Career Discovery Hub
Reimagining how young Australians explore a career in the Defence Force.
View the website
View Prototype
Projects
Projects
AI Approach
Projects
Kitchen
Projects
Resume.pdf
Projects
Tom Twiby®
Contact Me
Resume.pdf
Outcome
We delivered a live platform (discover.adfcareers.gov.au) that transformed ADF recruitment from a transactional, role-first model to an exploratory, prospect-first experience. The design system and modular architecture set the foundation for future releases, and the creative platform gave the ADF a distinctive, engaging presence in a competitive talent market.
Bringing It to Life
The visual direction drew from topography, terrain mapping, and landscape imagery, creating an abstract but grounded world that felt futuristic and distinctly not like a government recruitment site. The start screen used parallax scrolling and layered photography to draw users in.
The immersive 3D environment was built on procedurally generated terrain with topographic patterns, giving the experience a gaming-adjacent quality.
Shaping the Experience
We mapped the full prospect journey during foundation design sprints, wireframing everything from landing page through quiz, career pathways, profile, registration, search, and content.
Key decisions included a passwordless sign-up to reduce friction, a centralised profile hub for saved roles and career finder results, and structuring career content around five narrative milestones (prerequisites, suitability, training, experience, progression) so each pathway told a story rather than listing requirements.
The "Choose Your Path" quiz sat at the heart of the experience. A personality-driven questionnaire that filtered prospects to a specialty area with three matching roles, using weighted attribute scoring tested across every possible response combination. Each result fed into a career pathway structured around those five milestones, turning role information into a guided journey.
These wireframes and flows were prototyped and taken into user testing before we moved into visual design.
Finding the Real Problem
Through focus groups and interviews with 60+ prospects, we uncovered something that shifted the entire project: self-discovery was just as important to this audience as exploring careers. They didn't just struggle with which role to pick. They didn't yet know what drove them, what they were good at, or where their interests could lead.
This became our north star: enable curious prospects to discover as much about themselves as a career in the ADF.
Testing & Validating
We ran 30+ hours of user testing across the project. Prospects confirmed that freedom to self-direct created richer engagement, that pathways driven by passions and purpose resonated more than job-title-first approaches, and that real ADF personnel stories built trust. Testing validated the career finder and pathway exploration as the highest-value features, directly shaping what made it into Release 1.
The Challenge
The Australian Defence Force was losing prospective recruits before they even applied. Around 70% of applications were abandoned each month, and only 10% converted to enlistment. The existing recruitment experience was role-first, expecting people to already know what they wanted. For a 16 to 24-year-old audience paralysed by career choice, that wasn't working.
We were brought in to create something that could bridge the gap between curiosity and commitment.
My Role
Design Director at R/GA. I led creative platform development, visual and UI design direction, the design system, motion and sound design guidelines, the immersive 3D experience direction and supported with the quiz and decision tree UX and user testing throughout.
The Idea
We developed a concept called "Make Your Move," built around empowering prospects to explore the best possible path for their future. Rather than asking "what job do you want?", we'd help them figure out what drives them, then connect those insights to career pathways across 300+ ADF roles.
The product would be an immersive web experience, part personality quiz, part interactive 3D career map, part narrative content journey. Something that felt closer to a game than a government website.
ADF Career Discovery Hub
Reimagining how young Australians explore a career in the Defence Force.
View the website
View Prototype
Projects
Projects
AI Approach
Projects
Kitchen
Projects
Resume.pdf
Projects
Tom Twiby®
Contact Me
Resume.pdf
Outcome
We delivered a live platform (discover.adfcareers.gov.au) that transformed ADF recruitment from a transactional, role-first model to an exploratory, prospect-first experience. The design system and modular architecture set the foundation for future releases, and the creative platform gave the ADF a distinctive, engaging presence in a competitive talent market.
Bringing It to Life
The visual direction drew from topography, terrain mapping, and landscape imagery, creating an abstract but grounded world that felt futuristic and distinctly not like a government recruitment site. The start screen used parallax scrolling and layered photography to draw users in.
The immersive 3D environment was built on procedurally generated terrain with topographic patterns, giving the experience a gaming-adjacent quality.
Shaping the Experience
We mapped the full prospect journey during foundation design sprints, wireframing everything from landing page through quiz, career pathways, profile, registration, search, and content.
Key decisions included a passwordless sign-up to reduce friction, a centralised profile hub for saved roles and career finder results, and structuring career content around five narrative milestones (prerequisites, suitability, training, experience, progression) so each pathway told a story rather than listing requirements.
The "Choose Your Path" quiz sat at the heart of the experience. A personality-driven questionnaire that filtered prospects to a specialty area with three matching roles, using weighted attribute scoring tested across every possible response combination. Each result fed into a career pathway structured around those five milestones, turning role information into a guided journey.
These wireframes and flows were prototyped and taken into user testing before we moved into visual design.
Finding the Real Problem
Through focus groups and interviews with 60+ prospects, we uncovered something that shifted the entire project: self-discovery was just as important to this audience as exploring careers. They didn't just struggle with which role to pick. They didn't yet know what drove them, what they were good at, or where their interests could lead.
This became our north star: enable curious prospects to discover as much about themselves as a career in the ADF.
Testing & Validating
We ran 30+ hours of user testing across the project. Prospects confirmed that freedom to self-direct created richer engagement, that pathways driven by passions and purpose resonated more than job-title-first approaches, and that real ADF personnel stories built trust. Testing validated the career finder and pathway exploration as the highest-value features, directly shaping what made it into Release 1.
The Challenge
The Australian Defence Force was losing prospective recruits before they even applied. Around 70% of applications were abandoned each month, and only 10% converted to enlistment. The existing recruitment experience was role-first, expecting people to already know what they wanted. For a 16 to 24-year-old audience paralysed by career choice, that wasn't working.
We were brought in to create something that could bridge the gap between curiosity and commitment.
My Role
Design Director at R/GA. I led creative platform development, visual and UI design direction, the design system, motion and sound design guidelines, the immersive 3D experience direction and supported with the quiz and decision tree UX and user testing throughout.
The Idea
We developed a concept called "Make Your Move," built around empowering prospects to explore the best possible path for their future. Rather than asking "what job do you want?", we'd help them figure out what drives them, then connect those insights to career pathways across 300+ ADF roles.
The product would be an immersive web experience, part personality quiz, part interactive 3D career map, part narrative content journey. Something that felt closer to a game than a government website.
ADF Career Discovery Hub
Reimagining how young Australians explore a career in the Defence Force.
View the website
View Prototype
Projects
Projects
AI Approach
Projects
Kitchen
Projects
Resume.pdf
Projects
Tom Twiby®
Contact Me
Resume.pdf
Outcome
We delivered a live platform (discover.adfcareers.gov.au) that transformed ADF recruitment from a transactional, role-first model to an exploratory, prospect-first experience. The design system and modular architecture set the foundation for future releases, and the creative platform gave the ADF a distinctive, engaging presence in a competitive talent market.
Bringing It to Life
The visual direction drew from topography, terrain mapping, and landscape imagery, creating an abstract but grounded world that felt futuristic and distinctly not like a government recruitment site. The start screen used parallax scrolling and layered photography to draw users in.
The immersive 3D environment was built on procedurally generated terrain with topographic patterns, giving the experience a gaming-adjacent quality.
We built the design system using atomic design principles, developed alongside a front-end UI kit deployed as an NPM package for reuse across the web app and immersive experience. The system covered navigation, profile, career finder, registration, search, and content templates, all responsive for a mobile-first audience.
We also produced some motion guidelines around the principle that motion should guide, educate, or reward, never distract.
Sound design was a big part of this expereince, an ambient soundscape that layered Australian bush, canopy, and treetop atmospheres as users moved through the 3D terrain, with atmospheric UI tones that reinforced the immersive feel.
Shaping the Experience
We mapped the full prospect journey during foundation design sprints, wireframing everything from landing page through quiz, career pathways, profile, registration, search, and content.
Key decisions included a passwordless sign-up to reduce friction, a centralised profile hub for saved roles and career finder results, and structuring career content around five narrative milestones (prerequisites, suitability, training, experience, progression) so each pathway told a story rather than listing requirements.
The "Choose Your Path" quiz sat at the heart of the experience. A personality-driven questionnaire that filtered prospects to a specialty area with three matching roles, using weighted attribute scoring tested across every possible response combination. Each result fed into a career pathway structured around those five milestones, turning role information into a guided journey.
These wireframes and flows were prototyped and taken into user testing before we moved into visual design.
The Idea
We developed a concept called "Make Your Move," built around empowering prospects to explore the best possible path for their future. Rather than asking "what job do you want?", we'd help them figure out what drives them, then connect those insights to career pathways across 300+ ADF roles.
The product would be an immersive web experience, part personality quiz, part interactive 3D career map, part narrative content journey. Something that felt closer to a game than a government website.
Finding the Real Problem
Through focus groups and interviews with 60+ prospects, we uncovered something that shifted the entire project: self-discovery was just as important to this audience as exploring careers. They didn't just struggle with which role to pick. They didn't yet know what drove them, what they were good at, or where their interests could lead.
This became our north star: enable curious prospects to discover as much about themselves as a career in the ADF.
We studied behavioural frameworks (gamification, narrative psychology, social learning, nudge theory) and looked outside the category at products like Duolingo, Strava, and personality tests to understand what makes young people engage, progress, and come back.
Testing & Validating
We ran 30+ hours of user testing across the project. Prospects confirmed that freedom to self-direct created richer engagement, that pathways driven by passions and purpose resonated more than job-title-first approaches, and that real ADF personnel stories built trust. Testing validated the career finder and pathway exploration as the highest-value features, directly shaping what made it into Release 1.
The Challenge
The Australian Defence Force was losing prospective recruits before they even applied. Around 70% of applications were abandoned each month, and only 10% converted to enlistment. The existing recruitment experience was role-first, expecting people to already know what they wanted. For a 16 to 24-year-old audience paralysed by career choice, that wasn't working.
We were brought in to create something that could bridge the gap between curiosity and commitment.
My Role
Design Director at R/GA. I led creative platform development, visual and UI design direction, the design system, motion and sound design guidelines, the immersive 3D experience direction and supported with the quiz and decision tree UX and user testing throughout.
ADF Career Discovery Hub
Reimagining how young Australians explore a career in the Defence Force.
View the website
View Prototype
Projects
Projects
AI Approach
Projects
Kitchen
Projects
Resume.pdf
Projects
Tom Twiby®
Contact Me
Resume.pdf
Outcome
We delivered a live platform (discover.adfcareers.gov.au) that transformed ADF recruitment from a transactional, role-first model to an exploratory, prospect-first experience. The design system and modular architecture set the foundation for future releases, and the creative platform gave the ADF a distinctive, engaging presence in a competitive talent market.
Bringing It to Life
The visual direction drew from topography, terrain mapping, and landscape imagery, creating an abstract but grounded world that felt futuristic and distinctly not like a government recruitment site. The start screen used parallax scrolling and layered photography to draw users in.
The immersive 3D environment was built on procedurally generated terrain with topographic patterns, giving the experience a gaming-adjacent quality.
We built the design system using atomic design principles, developed alongside a front-end UI kit deployed as an NPM package for reuse across the web app and immersive experience. The system covered navigation, profile, career finder, registration, search, and content templates, all responsive for a mobile-first audience.
We also produced some motion guidelines around the principle that motion should guide, educate, or reward, never distract.
Sound design was a big part of this expereince, an ambient soundscape that layered Australian bush, canopy, and treetop atmospheres as users moved through the 3D terrain, with atmospheric UI tones that reinforced the immersive feel.
Shaping the Experience
We mapped the full prospect journey during foundation design sprints, wireframing everything from landing page through quiz, career pathways, profile, registration, search, and content.
Key decisions included a passwordless sign-up to reduce friction, a centralised profile hub for saved roles and career finder results, and structuring career content around five narrative milestones (prerequisites, suitability, training, experience, progression) so each pathway told a story rather than listing requirements.
The "Choose Your Path" quiz sat at the heart of the experience. A personality-driven questionnaire that filtered prospects to a specialty area with three matching roles, using weighted attribute scoring tested across every possible response combination. Each result fed into a career pathway structured around those five milestones, turning role information into a guided journey.
These wireframes and flows were prototyped and taken into user testing before we moved into visual design.
The Idea
We developed a concept called "Make Your Move," built around empowering prospects to explore the best possible path for their future. Rather than asking "what job do you want?", we'd help them figure out what drives them, then connect those insights to career pathways across 300+ ADF roles.
The product would be an immersive web experience, part personality quiz, part interactive 3D career map, part narrative content journey. Something that felt closer to a game than a government website.
Finding the Real Problem
Through focus groups and interviews with 60+ prospects, we uncovered something that shifted the entire project: self-discovery was just as important to this audience as exploring careers. They didn't just struggle with which role to pick. They didn't yet know what drove them, what they were good at, or where their interests could lead.
This became our north star: enable curious prospects to discover as much about themselves as a career in the ADF.
We studied behavioural frameworks (gamification, narrative psychology, social learning, nudge theory) and looked outside the category at products like Duolingo, Strava, and personality tests to understand what makes young people engage, progress, and come back.
Testing & Validating
We ran 30+ hours of user testing across the project. Prospects confirmed that freedom to self-direct created richer engagement, that pathways driven by passions and purpose resonated more than job-title-first approaches, and that real ADF personnel stories built trust. Testing validated the career finder and pathway exploration as the highest-value features, directly shaping what made it into Release 1.
The Challenge
The Australian Defence Force was losing prospective recruits before they even applied. Around 70% of applications were abandoned each month, and only 10% converted to enlistment. The existing recruitment experience was role-first, expecting people to already know what they wanted. For a 16 to 24-year-old audience paralysed by career choice, that wasn't working.
We were brought in to create something that could bridge the gap between curiosity and commitment.
My Role
Design Director at R/GA. I led creative platform development, visual and UI design direction, the design system, motion and sound design guidelines, the immersive 3D experience direction and supported with the quiz and decision tree UX and user testing throughout.
ADF Career Discovery Hub
Reimagining how young Australians explore a career in the Defence Force.
View the website
View Prototype
Projects
Projects
AI Approach
Projects
Kitchen
Projects
Resume.pdf
Projects
Tom Twiby®
Contact Me
Resume.pdf
Outcome
We delivered a live platform (discover.adfcareers.gov.au) that transformed ADF recruitment from a transactional, role-first model to an exploratory, prospect-first experience. The design system and modular architecture set the foundation for future releases, and the creative platform gave the ADF a distinctive, engaging presence in a competitive talent market.
Bringing It to Life
The visual direction drew from topography, terrain mapping, and landscape imagery, creating an abstract but grounded world that felt futuristic and distinctly not like a government recruitment site. The start screen used parallax scrolling and layered photography to draw users in.
The immersive 3D environment was built on procedurally generated terrain with topographic patterns, giving the experience a gaming-adjacent quality.
We built the design system using atomic design principles, developed alongside a front-end UI kit deployed as an NPM package for reuse across the web app and immersive experience. The system covered navigation, profile, career finder, registration, search, and content templates, all responsive for a mobile-first audience.
We also produced some motion guidelines around the principle that motion should guide, educate, or reward, never distract.
Sound design was a big part of this experience, an ambient soundscape that layered Australian bush, canopy, and treetop atmospheres as users moved through the 3D terrain, with atmospheric UI tones that reinforced the immersive feel.
Shaping the Experience
We mapped the full prospect journey during foundation design sprints, wireframing everything from landing page through quiz, career pathways, profile, registration, search, and content.
Key decisions included a passwordless sign-up to reduce friction, a centralised profile hub for saved roles and career finder results, and structuring career content around five narrative milestones (prerequisites, suitability, training, experience, progression) so each pathway told a story rather than listing requirements.
The "Choose Your Path" quiz sat at the heart of the experience. A personality-driven questionnaire that filtered prospects to a specialty area with three matching roles, using weighted attribute scoring tested across every possible response combination. Each result fed into a career pathway structured around those five milestones, turning role information into a guided journey.
These wireframes and flows were prototyped and taken into user testing before we moved into visual design.
The Idea
We developed a concept called "Make Your Move," built around empowering prospects to explore the best possible path for their future. Rather than asking "what job do you want?", we'd help them figure out what drives them, then connect those insights to career pathways across 300+ ADF roles.
The product would be an immersive web experience, part personality quiz, part interactive 3D career map, part narrative content journey. Something that felt closer to a game than a government website.
Finding the Real Problem
Through focus groups and interviews with 60+ prospects, we uncovered something that shifted the entire project: self-discovery was just as important to this audience as exploring careers. They didn't just struggle with which role to pick. They didn't yet know what drove them, what they were good at, or where their interests could lead.
This became our north star: enable curious prospects to discover as much about themselves as a career in the ADF.
We studied behavioural frameworks (gamification, narrative psychology, social learning, nudge theory) and looked outside the category at products like Duolingo, Strava, and personality tests to understand what makes young people engage, progress, and come back.
Testing & Validating
We ran 30+ hours of user testing across the project. Prospects confirmed that freedom to self-direct created richer engagement, that pathways driven by passions and purpose resonated more than job-title-first approaches, and that real ADF personnel stories built trust. Testing validated the career finder and pathway exploration as the highest-value features, directly shaping what made it into Release 1.
The Challenge
The Australian Defence Force was losing prospective recruits before they even applied. Around 70% of applications were abandoned each month, and only 10% converted to enlistment. The existing recruitment experience was role-first, expecting people to already know what they wanted. For a 16 to 24-year-old audience paralysed by career choice, that wasn't working.
We were brought in to create something that could bridge the gap between curiosity and commitment.
My Role
Design Director at R/GA. I led creative platform development, visual and UI design direction, the design system, motion and sound design guidelines, the immersive 3D experience direction and supported with the quiz and decision tree UX and user testing throughout.
ADF Career Discovery Hub
Reimagining how young Australians explore a career in the Defence Force.
View the website
View Prototype