When I originally made her in D1, she didn't have a name or anything like a personality, as Destiny was just a game that came with my PS4 that I figured I might as well play with my husband (I was terrible at shooters).
I picked Exo because they looked the most unique of all the races, and Hunter because I like small quick characters, but aside from that there was really only a couple design choices made:
I wanted her and her little bot friend to match. The white, orange, and blue on her are meant to match the Generalist Shell and Nolanbot's (Dinklebot at the time) little eye. I really liked his little orange triangle matching her orange forehead triangle thingy. That's largely why I don't consider any other shell canon for him. I can't seem to replicate the colors right with other shaders.
I knew the characters used light as a power, so made her eye/mouth lights white. Had there been an option to split them, the mouth lights would have been blue or orange. The idea to have the outer rings on her eyes change color with mood came much later once I was invested in the story (let's be honest, there really wasn't much of one originally).
I picked the forehead beak thing because I liked the swoosh part of her decal but not the star, and it covers the star. Now I really like the bird motif, but it wasn't originally a consideration. It also matches Nolanbot's little orange triangles.