Michael Lam

Michael’s interest in web design wasn’t theoretical. It started in 2010 when he was frustrated — genuinely annoyed — by websites that crashed and became unusable on his older mobile phone. Most sites looked great on desktop but fell apart on anything smaller. That frustration became curiosity, then obsession.

He pursued a degree in Interactive Media Design at City University of Hong Kong, finishing in 2011. Rather than jumping into freelance work, he spent five years working at local digital agencies in Quarry Bay and Mong Kok, building websites for everything from financial services to retail. That’s where he saw the pattern clearly: clients and developers alike were designing for desktop first, then trying to squeeze everything onto mobile afterward. It always resulted in compromises, poor performance, and frustrated users.

By 2016, Michael was convinced that the industry approach was backwards. Mobile-first wasn’t just a buzzword — it was fundamentally the better way to design. He started experimenting with his own projects, documenting what worked and what didn’t. He presented his findings at local meetups and conferences, and gradually, people started asking if he’d teach them.

When DesignFlow Academy Limited approached him in 2019, he saw an opportunity to solve a real problem. Many developers across Hong Kong understood responsive design in theory but struggled with implementation. They lacked structured, practical training. Michael built the curriculum from scratch, focusing on real projects, real constraints, and real devices. Not theory — actual work.

Since then, he’s trained over 400 developers. His courses are known for being direct, practical, and sometimes brutally honest about what works and what doesn’t. He doesn’t sugarcoat design decisions. He shows what breaks, why it breaks, and how to fix it before your users encounter the problem.