Passionate about creating enjoyable, accessible experiences that have a measurable, positive impact.
UX
User Experience Design
Extensive experience with user journey mapping, wireframing, prototyping and low to high fidelity mockups. Enjoys working on co-design principles with multi-disciplinary teams.
Uses human-centred design principles, and comfortable wih lean UX, design thinking, agile and shape up approaches.
Very comfortable transforming designs into engineer-friendly specifications & user stories, shaping & prioritising backlogs, and presenting to everyone from scrum teams to senior stakeholders & c-suite executives.
UI
UI Design
Fluent in most major design tools, including Sketch, Figma, Adobe CC suite, and open source alternatives. Capable with HTML, CSS & JS, and enjoys designing in the browser.
Strong advocate for design systems, and familiar with most prominent systems - such as Google Material Design, Apple's Human Interface Guidelines, Microsoft's Fluent Design, and gov.uk GDS. Tend to use a flexible Atomic Design approach.
Confident in applying interaction design and general design principles such as responsive design, colour theory, typography, branding, visual hierarchy, and many others!
UR
User Research
Capable of identifying key questions and unknowns, planning, preparing, running, analysing and presenting results of numerous user research methodologies.
Experienced with both quantative and qualitative data collection methods. This includes surveys, card sorting, scripted interviews, guerilla testing, task-based & explorative user testing, persona building, service mapping, analytics analysis, and ethnographic studies (online and in person).
Provides excellent insight into behavioural and perceptional patterns revealed in participant data.
CS
Content Strategy
Skilled at both high and low level content strategy, from information architecture planning, to applying thematic principles. Comfortable analysing existing content and producing migration or transformation plans for enhanced efficacy.
Proficient with identifying and defining tone and voice, taxonomic structure, SEO considerations, and writing copy to specifications.
Capable of performing user-generated-content analysis to help build understanding of community makeup from linguistic commonalities.
GD
Graphic Design
Practiced with graphic design and art direction principles such as visual balance, proportionality, rhythm, contrast and using negative space appropriately.
Years of experience with brand design, photography, image editing, digital painting, and vector artwork. Happy designing for screen and print, such as advertisments, books covers, YouTube thumbnails, posters, social media imagery, logos and promotional materials.
Limited but growing experience with motion design and animation, mostly focused on the application of these in UI.
A11y
Designing for Accessibility
Passionate about accessible and inclusive design, with detailed knowledge of WCAG specifications. Capable of performing accessibility audiets.
Experienced with going above and beyond the basics. Use user research insights & guidance from resources such as the a11y project & Microsoft's inclusive design guidelines to capture & resolve otherwise unidentified issues.
Seek out diverse voices from my teams, and foster an inclusive environment which encourages multiple persepctive that always benefits productivity and efficacy.
Work Samples
Some limited examples of my work. Pease ontact me for more detailed presentations.
Case study
I was a senior UX consultant on a government-sponsored project for two years. I can't disclose the client for security reasons, and all sensitive details have been altered or obscured.
The teams I led worked together as a collaborative unit, so claiming sole ownership of any particular elements would be disingenuous. I contributed to all activities described, owning some and collaborating on others.
The Challenge
A service for background checks needed to retire their legacy application and processing system. Replacing it with a modern solution included resolving a large number of requirements, including:
Bringing a decades-old digital interface into line with a new modern design system (GDS), while also contributing to the development of that design system.
Transforming a mostly paper-based processing system into a primarily digital service.
Creating positive, efficient experiences for both service users and employees.
Ensuring the protection of sensitive data.
Designing to reduce errors in important decisions with significant potential impacts.
Catering to a wide audience which could potentially include anyone.
Meeting the highest standards for accessibility.
Read more...
Phase 1
Understanding the problem
There were a lot of unknowns to dig into before we could get very far. Just some of the questions we had to answer were:
What details are actually needed for processing?
Why is each piece of data required?
How can each piece of data be processed?
What fields cause the most problems for users?
What fields cause the most problems for employees processing applications?
What risks are related to wrongly input data, and how can they be mitigated?
How do we improve the efficiency and efficacy without causing a huge disruption to working practices?
A screenshot of the legacy application form.A screenshot of the legacy processing system.
User research
We set about finding out the answers to those questions from a user-focused perspective, using all the tools we could apply to the problem:
Scripted and unscripted user interviews with volunteer users.
Engaging partner companies with experience working with users.
Assessing the analytics data we had on current applications.
Home visits with known service users with disabilities.
Online ethnography and other desk research.
Open discussions with customer support staff about frequently encountered problems.
Card sorting with processing staff.
Data collation and analysis
Presentation of things like needs maps, pain maps, and personas.
One of our MVP-focused user needs maps.
Business analysis
Accompanying the user research, we also needed firm business requirements to ensure that what we built would perform the functions required of it:
Workshops with senior stakeholders and subject matter experts (including employees).
Shadowing employees while they worked.
Examining legal documents and confirming applicable constraints.
Building a prioritised backlog of features.
The remains of one of our workshops exploring the application processing decision-making journey.
Phase 2
Designing something better
The core design team consisted of user researchers, UX &UI designers, service designers, developers and BAs. We also ran regular co-design workshops to include senior stakeholders, SMEs and an employee focus group, to ensure everyone understood and agreed to the end result.
One of my inital roughly sketched user journey maps for the application.
Service design
This was a complex system, including multiple application types with different information, standards of validation, assurance processes, and final results for each. We knew that just replacing the existing service like-for-like would replicate the existing problems, wo we engaged in a lengthy process of service design to put our learnings to use. This process was tightly entwined with the rest of the design team, and produced extremely useful results:
As-is service maps
New service blueprints
Experience maps
Pain point prioritisation
Risk assessments
Strategy assessments and proposals
An example of the detail captured in our experience mapping.
UX design
With a wealth of data to feed our designer brains, we worked collaboratively to produce a comprehensive array of design artefacts:
User journey maps
Wireframes
Paper prototypes
Clickable prototypes
Coded prototypes
Rationale maps to explain design decisions
An early wireframe, which became a paper prototype during guerilla testing.
UI design
Designing for a system that included public-facing and employee-facing elements needed a complex and expansive design system. We produced a bespoke Sketch library based on Atomic Design and the GDS, managed by Abstract and accessible by Zeplin. This created an efficient collaboration workflow not only within the design team, but also with the different development departments.
A high level view of the WIP design library.
Validation
We took multiple steps to validate our discoveries and designs as we progressed, including:
Guerrilla testing paper prototypes.
SME workshops.
Employee drop-in sessions.
Anonymous surveys.
Live A/B testing.
Scripted interviews.
Some of our WIP high-fidelity clickable prototypes.
Stakeholder communications
The project had numerous senior stakeholders, including staff team managers, product owners, heads of department, and government ministers, who all needed to be kept up to date with progress. We achieved this through several channels:
Regular show and tells.
Service design reviews.
Project management updates.
Dashboard screens around the office displaying data from multiple sources.
Scrum ceremony engagement.
Phase 3
Delivering the right solution
After exhaustive research and design cycles, we had solutions that needed building. Fortunately, we had been able to bring the development teams along for much of the design process, including their feedback to reduce the difficulty of the handover. But even tighter collaboration was necessary to get the approved designs built. We needed to make sure that what was delivered was correctly communicated, but also that it would be released in a way that made coherent sense. We did this mainly through:
User story refinement sessions
Sprint planning
Release planning
Development
Our collaboration with the developers didn't end with that, though. We took an active part in development and assurance process:
Co-writing test scenarios
Performing manual quality assurance testing
Performing design reviews on delivered code
Consulting on any unclear requirements, or overlooked scenarios
Some of the code I wrote (don't worry, it didn't get into production).
Iteration
Nothing was considered completed the first time it was developed. After rolling out each release of new features, testing was performed to capture any unexpected problems. This included:
Setting relevant, measurable KPIs
Building analytics dashboards to track performance
Monitoring incoming applications for issues
Identifying problems and their causes
Re-designing and re-validating new solutions
Adjusting the agile project plan to account for new backlog additions
Assisting with bug triage
Project Summary
So, when it was all said and done, what did we achieve?
Passed the GDS assessment with flying colours.
Simplified complex processes to increase efficiency and allow for a leaner processing team.
Empowered employees to enhance their responsibilities and reduce friction points in their working methods.
Migrated sensitive data from outdated on-site solutions to a highly secure, heavily automated cloud platform.
Replaced paper applications with digital and assisted digital applications for all but very fringe cases.
Produced some of the first trans-inclusive government-standard research into collecting sensitive data online.
Contributed new and improved components to the GDS.
Created a system trusted and enjoyed by public and employees alike, even in the face of massive changes.
Developed a complex, multi-part, multi-format system while improving consistency and efficiency.
The finished responsive application form.A part of the finished processing system.
Testimonials
Here's some quotes from folks who I've had the pleasure of working with over the past few years, so you know I'm not just blowing my own trumpet.
Bobbu is possibly *the most* open, honest, respectful and thoughtful person I've met, in or outside work, in my many years on the planet.
A++++++++++++++. Would work with again.
- BJSS senior developer
Bobbu has received a wide range of positive feedback from clients and peers alike across the themes below:
Dedication to the role, team and client and acting with integrity
Technical ability; their experience as a developer means they can seamlessly design and explain requirements to dev teams
Passion for UX and creativity in delivering solutions but also structuring engaging workshops and group sessions
Ability to fulfil responsibilities above their role such as Delivery Management, Scrum Mastering and resolving live issues
Relationship building and client management
Bobbu has also done very well in:
Communicating Ethics in the workplace to a wider BJSS audience
The Academy and mentoring
Meetups and other forums
- BJSS 2019 annual review
Bobbu's skills and experience combined with their ability to absorb new information quickly and adapt to the environment allowed them to hit the ground running. They didn't shy away from getting stuck in and taking responsibility for complex designs from day 1 despite any challenges, such as lack of access to the client's systems.
Bobbu has also made a positive impact to the project by helping to improve the client's ways of working, such as breaking silos by working closely with the development team.
Drawing on their varied experience, Bobbu has lead requirements gathering for future design deliverables which has been hugely helpful.
- BJSS business analyst
Bobbu's can-do attitude combined with their candid and respectful approach have been a breath of fresh air especially on a demanding project like this (although they would probably say they've had more challenging gigs in the past!)
Bobbu's commitment to deliver high quality work despite tight deadlines and challenges has been evident by the progress made on design deliverables in the short time they have been on the project.
- BJSS business analyst
Bobbu has shown amazing respect and collaboration with the team, they are very open and honest in their communication and are extremely professional when they represent BJSS with clients. Bobbu doesn't just take information and process it, they take time to question, challenge; and they use their experience and knowledge to drive creativity.
- BJSS delivery manager
Bobbu is one of the most open people I've worked with and has a high degree of integrity. Bobbu is very honest about their strengths and weaknesses and while this takes courage, it really does allow the team to support each other and work towards common goals.
- BJSS business analyst
Bobbu is an asset to the team due to their thoughtful approach to improving working practices and making sure all team members are heard and taking into account when suggesting new ideas.
Bobbu is very proactive with their contribution to the BJSS culture outside of their day-to-day role and this is recognised and appreciated.
