Strategic thinking for human-centred products and services
With multiple years in design leadership and management, I have been at the fore-front of creating transformative digital products and services for major UK organisations the BBC, Pearson, DK, UK Government, NHS and Babylon Health
I work with and lead product teams, where I excell at understanding and surfacing customer and user behaviours, turning insights into action. Helping shape both people and processes to create high functioning teams that make products and services that delight users, increase adoption and deilver tangible benefits.
I am most effective working on gnarly problems where design has a real impact. This is reflected my work in healthcare and education, but my process isn't limited by sector. I apply user-centred approaches to any problem, drawing insights from a deep understanding of users to make great products and experiences.
After many years in the UK, our path has taken us back to Perth. This is selection of work, taken at key points of my career in the UK.
Key projects over the last few years
These are key projects over the last decade, chosen as they symbolise both breadth of experience and highlight approaches to building human-centred products.
Selected writing
I write about topics that sit across design, product, strategy and agile. Trying to put my personal take on the many organisations I have worked with. Additional posts can be found on Medium
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2023-11-29How Telling the Business That You Can’t Trust Our Users, Leads To Ways You Can Trust Users More
Recognizing user data's unreliability in product design is crucial. Using diverse research methods transforms this challenge into innovation.
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2023-11-23Digital experiences are better designed non-digitally
Drawing, beyond a simple sketching tool, sharpens thinking, aids problem-solving, and enhances digital design through its tangible process
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2023-11-07Feature-Driven vs Connection-Driven Design: recognising the often ignored levels of user experience
In many cases, people think primarily in terms of features, but that''s usually just the first level of an expereince. To connect with users, we must connect with users in terms of narratives -- created with a deep understanding of how they live their lives and what's important to them
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2022-01-06‘Dual track’ is often just another ‘feature factory’
Merging Agile and Design is a challenge. Agile is delivery mechanism and Design combines explortation, research, understanding and making. To traverse the methodoloial bridge - Many places I haveadopted a ‘dual track’ approach in an attempt to synchronise these two processes. All have had problems. And it is always the delivery of features that is prioritised over solving the right problem.
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2021-12-01Build the Right Thing
Great teams I have been involved have always been keenly focused on understanding their user as the basis for building the right thing. But what happens if those teams focus on the wrong thing - and what do they do to avoid it?