My portfolio
My relationships with my clients definitely aren’t average: they’re much bigger, and better, than that.
From scoping and research to adding those final touches, take a look at some of my recent projects to see how I combine indepth research with UI and UX design.
I’ll be writing up each project over the coming weeks, in the interim I’d be delighted to discuss any of these projects with you.
Macknade
Project overview: Combined eCommerce and brochure site for leading Kent food business. Focus was predominitely B2C.
My role: Research (commission, contribution and client presentation), wireframe production (content architecture), functional specification writing, design prototyping (with component library), client liaison, production review, accessibility review.
Details: Macknade are a long established and now rapidly growing food business in the heart of Kent. Two new outlets were added in the last couple of years and two more in the planning stages as Macknade shrug off pandemic worries.
Our research, combined with the company's brand positioning highlighted the aspirational, middle class position of the company and allowed me to understand the audiences, both towards the online shop and those wanting the in person experience. This was the challenge as I took two separate websites and combined to a single entity, later built by the development team on the Shopify platform.
From a design perspective I was directed by their brand guidelines but encouraged to push them forward, so long as we added no highlight colours! Having worked on multiple Shopify projects I was able to understand the planned extensions and know what elements that needed to be shown in design planning.
An incredibly tight turnaround but I project I am proud to have been a part of and will watch as the client takes it forward.
Crucible Law
Project overview: A new London legal chambers (the first for decades) needed the full startup treatment.
My role: Sales lead (with proposal writing), research (commission, contribution and client presentation), brand creation co-ordination, wireframe production (content architecture), functional specification writing, design prototyping (with component library), client liaison, production review, accessibility review, client CMS training.
Details: Crucible Law opened their (virtual) doors in November 2020, during some of the worst months of the pandemic. They were united in wanting to add 21st century tools to their business model and approached my employer to develop their new branding and website. The launch date was an immovable target and everything I undertook was on very strict deadlines in order to hand over to the development team on time.
Research highlighted differing usage patterns of visitors; private clients were more likely to search the site for legal specialisms whereas legal peers were tending towards a people search. Both these approaches were modelled and built, people pages highlighting the selected barrister’s specialisms and the specialism pages listing those members with relevant experience, this creating an interlinked site with a carefully considered user journey.
I needed to plan and create a platform that speaks clearly to private clients, offers direct contact to the barristers and also showcases Crucible to their peers too, with a modern approach for one of the oldest professions.
From research I created low-fidelity wireframes to illustrate the content types on each page, holding many video calls with the client team to explain and iterate before moving on to combining the branding direction and guidelines with the content types highlighted in the wireframe sprint.
The design prototypes followed the same pattern as wireframes with update meetings with the client team and I produced prototypes across device sizes before handing over to development – on time.
Once the beta site had been built, I undertook testing of functionality as well as ensuring the design was represented pixel perfectly before training the client group in how to use the CMS and upload their content.
A great launch with great reviews from the client group.
Food Prepped
Project overview: A startup to link independent food retailers with member of the public.
My role: MVP creation nad planning phased approach, research (commission, contribution and client presentation), brand creation co-ordination, wireframe production (content architecture), functional specification writing, design prototyping (with component library), client liaison.
Details: Food Prepped approached my employer with a brand document and an idea! I worked with the client to hone the ideas and produce a pathway through various phased releases starting with an MVP.
Research (as ever) pointed the way and the WordPress platform was the right way to go, given what we will need at MVP phase as well as the forthcoming phases after launch. We also identified the personas and what their requirements would be.
We needed multiple paths for our users to find food outlets they need with various search facilities. Users will be able to search by location (with geo lookup), food type, name search or via an interactive map.
We also need to advertise to the food businesses throughout the site and encourage them to register whilst the product is in beta.
The design itself is presented with a minimalist palette with plenty of white space to make the most of the lifestyle images.
This project is a work in progress with an expected Q2 2022 launch.
HV Wooding
Project overview: Brochure website for leading metal manufacturers.
My role: Sales lead (with proposal writing), research (commission, contribution and client presentation), wireframe production (content architecture), functional specification writing, design prototyping (with component library), client liaison, production review, accessibility review, CMS training.
Details: HV Wooding are one the UK’s oldest and most successful metal fabricators and their work can be found in Formula 1 cars, wind turbines and the Large hadron Collider at CERN. With such a distinctive history their current website had fallen well behind the times. I worked with their Marketing Director to establish a roadmap to bring the website up to date and to create a plan to maintain it.
As ever, research took the lead and identified the brand’s mission and direction, customer types and quantitative data reports on current usage.
Based on this I created wireframe designs to show how the site is all inter-connected with services pages identified as the key drivers to quality enquiries. With this in mind, I created sections for articles and project reports for reassurance (as well as SEO) which in turn lead back to related services to steer the visitor back towards the sales funnel.
My client was spoken to throughout the process with prototypes shared often and I liaised with the our development lead to ensure what was being presented was appropriate within budgets.
The design itself was grid based but the fun came in breaking the grid and certain places to create something new, refreshing, easily navigable and right on brand for my client.
A happy client and a very successful first 6 months for this new platform.
The Mighty Roar
Project overview: Booking website for ecological volunteering company.
My role: Sales lead (with proposal writing), research (commission, contribution and client presentation), functional specification writing, design prototyping, client liaison, production review.
Details: The Mighty Roar was one of my first projects after joining my current employers and as an ecologically focussed one it was also very close to my heart.
Right from day one my client and I agreed on the need for stunning visuals to represent the communities where volunteers can make a real difference. It really is a great trade, you get a very reasonably priced trip to some of the world’s most stunning locations and in return you make a difference to the communities you visit, such a persuasive argument that a member of my own family is planning a trip with The Mighty Roar!
I designed a lot of sideways scrolling sections which translate really well across devices but always mindful that such scroller are not always intuitive and you need to hand sections “off the page” to show how an element can be interacted with.
The content architecture allows our visitor to such by the conservation type or the location, the latter drilling down through regions, countries and specific locations within.
An older project and one before I had established our research team but one that still looks and works great and one that has been expanded on over the last few years.
Leaksafe
Work in progress for the UK's leading flood prevention technology.
Paramount Timber
Timber engineering company website built on WordPress.
East Kent Recycling
Work in progress of a brochure site with recycling booking portal, expected launch Q1 2022.