I’m a Senior / Lead
// UX designer
// UX strategist
// Design Manager
I have over 14 years digital experience working in-house for major companies and more recently nimble startups.
Recent experience highlights
16
Wealth & Insurance products managed / delivered
1 of 8
in the global design
leadership team
15+
designers hired (perm), led & managed
I specialise in working with business & product owners to understand their targets and goals, research and test customer understanding, their expectations and needs, before bridging the two into a user experience to manage and exceed expectations.
I learned my trade through hands-on design experience and organically grew to lead both projects and people, building and managing a global design team for Wealth & Insurance products in a major bank.
CV
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More about recent roles
Design lead & manager
Culture change
A large part of my role was making sure our product teams understood the value of design and allowing space and the time to do it well. An ongoing challenge but I made huge progress.
Design processes
Ensuring the design approach and processes allow for high standard UX and design process and output, including quant and qual research and user testing.
Design strategy
I worked closely with product owners, the head of W&I product and other design team leads to take a strategic view and approach to our designs & products
Concept to delivery
Many of these products were new concepts for the brand. taken from early exploration and research all the way through to execution & delivery.
CX vision & mapping
I worked closely with product owners, senior stakeholders and heads of department to take a strategic view and approach to our designs across the whole suite of products.
Designer growth & mentoring
My disposition means I dedicate a lot of time to mentoring and helping designers – to share my experience and move their growth forward. What’s good for them is good for the team and increases my job satisfaction.
What kind of products & services?
Secure Banking
Responsive Web
Native iOS / Android
Mobile apps (native)
Main banking mobile app services and brand new, standalone mobile apps – for example a dedicated app for FX focussed customers with cross border / currency needs
Examples include: Easy Invest stock trading app, FX app, Jade premium app
Responsive web
Responsive web is de facto across my web design work.
Examples include: Wealth Insights Hub, Travel insurance, Life Insurance, Medical Insurance, Online Robo Advice
Secure ‘core’ banking
I’ve worked on all core internet & mobile banking services and functions. It’s very far-reaching work, impacting millions of customers daily lives
Examples include: Payments, Bill payments, Account transfers, Global banking redesign
Beyond core banking…
Wealth & Insurance brings some of the most challenging product and customer challenges to design for – this is much more than basic banking service/functionality
Examples include: Online Robo Advice, Self select Investments [slimline], Structured Products
Cross-platform experiences
The stock trading platform was a replacement for an archaic ‘sharedealing’ service – the new platform spanned responsive web, accessible within secure banking as well as a standalone native mobile app.
Examples include: Wealth Insights Hub, Stock Trading Browser & mobile
Staff tablet experiences
Designing tablet experiences to improve both the staff user experience and ultimately give a great experience for the customer they’re serving in branches.
Examples include: Premier customer branch experience
What kind of customer challenges we faced?
The customer expectations, problems and opportunities I handled across all W&I product design were deep & broad ranging – and I believe by far the most challenging and interesting design work within the bank.
Some examples:
First timers: investments
We found customers who would greatly benefit from financial advice often lack awareness or actively seek it. The process can feel complex, and making investment decisions can be emotionally challenging.
Child Education abroad (IEPS)
Customers in China have currency challenges with government RMB quotas . We discovered a large chunk of customers needed to make payments abroad for their child’s education – we helped with an innovative university direct payments solution.
Expert investors (information-heavy)
More experienced users need data/information readily, to help their decision and execution – for example stock trading or FX transfers; a very different design challenge –vs -novice users.
Cross-border challenges
Many banking customers are ‘international’ by nature and don’t neatly slot in to today’s banking org / country structure. Designing for their unique needs demanded much empathy & research.
Portfolio
My portfolio showcases a combination of detailed case studies and excerpts of work.
How I approach design
Whilst I always assess new work in it’s full context, a typical process would be:
1
Listening & Questioning
Appreciate both business and customer needs, through listening & questioning
What do and don’t we know right now – and with what level of confidence?
2
Research & Discovery
Who are our users & what are their challenges and expectations?
What do and don’t we know, and with what level of confidence? How can we explore, research and fill in those gaps?
3
CX Strategy & planning
Where does this experience fit within the broader, holistic customer experience?
Is the direction clear enough?
What outcomes will mean success for us? What limitations must we work within?
4
Execution & Implementation
With a clear enough direction, start designing: structurally first before moving deeper into detail – validating with user testing & iterating throughout when needed
5
Analysis & Reporting
Tracking outcomes, metrics, user feedback and feeding changes back in to the wider process
Broad experience
UX design
Very much my ‘bread and butter’, I’ve honed my ability over many years. Listening, assessing, researching and knowing the right questions to ask at the right times – is what I bring to all my roles. This includes designing carefully for product/service conversions and optimisation (including A-B and at times, multi-variant testing).
Service design
A lot of the work I’ve done lives in (or certainly crosses into) today’s Service Design arena. My personal approach to design has always been rooted in understanding and exploring as much about the customer/user holistically and their interaction with the services/brands in context of their lives.
Interaction & UI design
I create visual designs to complement user’s understanding and engage with the content/brand. The work I’ve done often includes emotive topics and circumstances – eliciting a feeling, a reaction, trust, confidence – plays an important role in my work.
Web development
I have a core understanding of dev and databases and handle html/css and other basics. Whilst I’m no coder, I understand it well enough to allow me work very well with developers – including (but not limited to) design build support on any given delivery.
Marketing
I’ve designed content and experiences with marketing and SEO in mind – many of the projects have a marketing component to them, so I’m no stranger here.
Stakeholder Management
Starting out as a project manager and since then constantly working closely with stakeholders of all levels, I’m very adept in managing my working relationships.