I am passionate about helping people achieve their goals in life and I feel well placed to do this as they engage with creative solutions and compositions.
I am a User Experience and Graphic designer and I would love the opportunity to assist you and your organisation.
Thinking outside of the box comes naturally to me, my attention to detail, problem solving skills and thinking strategically have been of great benefit in producing preferable outcomes.
On a personal level, I enjoy a good cold brew coffee, playing futsal and dancing with my two young daughters.
This is a small sample of my work
A sample of work created while completing the Graduate Certificate of Interaction Design at the University of Queensland. There is an example of a real world interactive experience (a product of Design Thinking methodology), a health and fitness mobile phone application and an infographic which communicates complex data.
You can view the latest print version of my graphic design portfolio here.
To foster friendliness in community for mothers with young children at shopping mall food courts, our team proposed an augmented reality station as the ideal solution. Following the Design Thinking process, this project was completed and tested to the level of low fidelity prototype.
The global pandemic has caused considerable uncertainty and anxiety. This has resulted in feelings of loneness and isolation amongst many. To help address these issues our team was briefed with the overarching question:
“How might we design site-specific technologies that promote certain people to collectively experience friendliness?”
Through incorporating the Design Thinking process the team aimed to foster positive communal interactions for a specific user group at a particular venue.
As part of a five person team, I was involved in a number of ways. My research was used as the foundation of the project, with the site and user group identified from this work. This positioned me as a leader in the team, guiding the overall direction.
As a team we employed ideation methods, but ultimately an idea I proposed was selected by the team. As a team we also worked together on many other processes, such as co-design workshops and response to critique.
For the final stages I was involved in the creation of the prototype and presentation video, facilitated/organised the user group for testing, and played a major role in creating the final report.
After conducting initial research in the chosen site (observations, interviews and surveys in a Westfield Shopping Centre food court), a primary user group and user value themes were identified (mothers with young children and a desire for human connection). Additionally, a fringe group was identified and considered - people who do not speak English as a first language.
With these criteria in mind the team followed the Design Thinking process in order to answer the question.
For greater definition, we further analysed the research, employed the use of concept maps and matrices. Ideation incorporated the use of four methods: Brainstorming, Six Thinking Hats, Powers of Ten, and BACE, which led to around 200 ideas being explored. Prototyping made use of personas, scenarios, storyboards and created a low fidelity prototype which users could interact with. Our prototype was created using Instagram augmented reality filters on a mobile phone, which was projected onto a large screen. Testing was conducted with other studio teams critiquing the idea, followed by multiple co-design workshops and in person testing of the prototype with users from our target group. Testing proved valuable in terms of helping to refine the idea, examine language used and confirm the concept as a viable option for further development.
'Powers of Ten' ideation method and a sample of thumbnail sketches.
To the question: “How might we design site-specific technologies that promote certain people to collectively experience friendliness?”
We proposed the answer to be an augmented reality station within a shopping mall food court for the user group of ‘mothers with young children’.
Within a designated, central area of the food court, people can collectively interact with fun filters and simple games via a camera and large screen.
Final idea sketch, prototype diagram and photo of prototype.
Early indications gained through low fidelity prototype testing suggest this idea successfully meets the brief in that it is site specific to a food court, targeted well to our designated user group, allows for a collective experience and promotes friendliness.
There are positive indicators to show this concept would most likely promote certain people to collectively experience friendliness using site-specific technologies. User testing showed through reactions of the user group and their responses to questions about the experience, that this design worked well for them.
It was also discerned that this design would work well for people who have English language difficulties (our identified fringe group). People may connect with each other through this design as it is simple to use and does not require the use of spoken language for it to function.
If this design was further development, I would recommend public, onsite testing in a food court as the next step. This would require a more technically advanced prototype (not necessarily fully realised) but the user data collected in user testing suggests this step is warranted. The next features to integrate would be a camera placed higher and out of reach so the space captured would be larger and the technology could be safer. The filters should also be updated to reflect recent testing. Finally, a child-friendly activity panel would ensure that users could interact with the design completely independently, providing additional data not captured in the first user testing. With longer testing periods, different activities from the co-design workshops could be tested for popularity in larger groups.
Other additional features could be added such as short tutorials explaining how the design works when the AR becomes inactive, and controls for switching activities. Further areas for exploration with AR could also be pursued such 4D experiences (making the floor shake, introducing wind or releasing smells etc) to make the experience more immersive. Educational activities could also be considered, including social issues like bullying and kindness. There is much potential in this design both in the short and long term.
To address major concerns about obesity levels, a mobile app to resolve issues of diet and exercise was produced and tested to the level of high fidelity prototype.
Obesity levels for the general population in Australia have increased significantly since 1995, which leads to serious health effects such as high blood pressure and coronary heart disease. While more than 250,000 apps have been developed in an attempt to counter this, there is little evidence to show that any of them have made a significant impact.
Our team believed there may be underlying reasons as to why people struggle to successfully implement health and fitness programs. In exploring why this is the case, we believed the evidence could point to the foundation for a much more effective approach.
As part of a five person team, I was involved in a number of ways. Initial research was provided by another team member, which I analysed and offered input relating to ideation and direction. I suggested many new ideas and refinements which appeared in the final product.
We collaborated as a team to discern best direction for the target user group and divided the application into five main areas. While my primary focus was on producing the fitness section (one of the largest parts of the app), I was also involved in helping others improve their areas and had significant input on the over all look and feel of the product.
After initial research was conducted, team members analysed the data and discussed direction and ideation. After outlining the system concept, requirements, and UX goals, user personas were created and scenarios explored. Each section was defined and detailed, then divided between team members who drew up a low fidelity prototype of their section.
The team then conducted two evaluation methods; System Usability Scale (SUS) and Think Aloud, with five participants involved. Each participant fell into the target user group with a desire to be healthier. The first method conducted was Think Aloud. Upon reviewing results from both methods, it was considered that the best results were gained from the Think Aloud method. The results of evaluation methods led to refinements and improvements.
At this stage each team member created a high fidelity prototype of their section followed by further evaluations: a design walkthrough in tandem with an additional SUS. The additional SUS was used in order to compare results with the earlier test. Further refinements were made and the design was submitted.
A map map of the research and user persona.
The application addresses the obesity epidemic by identifying user needs (relating to issues such as motivation and direction) and provides recommendations to achieve health and fitness goals.
It takes a multifaceted approach to help users, working through personal recommendations, different kinds of goals, making diet and exercise choices easy to choose and log, helping users to discover new options, and enabling users to encourage each other.
Filtering through to other sections of the application, the user can answer a series of questions designed to help personalise settings and recommendations as they create a profile. This step is optional, but if it is skipped recommendations for goals, meals and exercises cannot be made by the system.
In the diet section, system functions include (but are not limited to): logging meals, saving recipes, searching for recipes based on specific ingredients, discovering new healthy meals.
In the fitness section, system functions include (but are not limited to): Create and save a personalised workout routine, discover a range of exercises, automatically record and track user workouts through the device camera, find a local personal trainer, engage in a virtual workout class, select supplements to purchase at an external website.
User can create goals (whether recommended or manual), edit and track them. The system recommends specific goals based on the questionnaire. They can also connect socially enabling them to socialise with other users on the platform, share achievements and discuss goals, engage with content (such as articles) shared by connections.
View of the entire application.
The biggest challenge we encountered as a team was that to effectively address the issues of obesity required an extensive and carefully thought out product. The product needed to hit several key targets with solutions of depth. This meant that the product became far greater in scope than we had originally intended, requiring a significant amount of time and effort.
While our product was only developed to a high-fidelity level prototype, our testing results showed it successfully addresses the needs of the target user group. With further development it has the potential to address the obesity challenge facing the nation, and change many lives for the better.
An A2 poster (for print) was required to communicate the visual translation of complex data with additional supporting information. The data was to be composed in a meaningful way for the reader to easily interpret and understand it.
The data chosen for this infographic is a snapshot of Norwich City Football Club which plays association football in the United Kingdom. The complex dataset displays historical league and cup data, top scorers and notable events by season, manager and chairman. Additional supporting information includes key stakeholders, stadium, song, celebrity supporters, highest transfer fees and mascot.
To track the overall success relating to league performance, a sankey diagram was employed with each league divided into quarters. These are sufficient groupings to identify general levels of success and simplify the complex nature of the data.
With horizontal bar charts on either end, cup success can be quantified and top scorers from each season (with goals scored) identified.
Chairmen and managers in charge at any given time can be pinpointed, enabling easy recognition of who oversaw the greatest levels of success and mediocrity.
The Club Crest is illustrated in the top left corner as it is a major identifying mark of the club. Dauphin Font is used for headings as the club employs it for significant branding. Helvetica Neue is used for blocks of text as a supporting typeface.
Shades and tints of green and yellow have been incorporated across the design as they are the official team colours. Greyscale is used for additional elements.
A line-drawing style has been used to illustrate the appearance of key stakeholder and other content items. For stylistic purposes small elements have been coloured in shades of green and yellow.
Where possible, other data has been highlighted and represented with small symbols.
A section of the main visualisation is broken down to show the flow of data.
The period chosen includes the most successful period in the history of the club (1972-1995) and only shows data from when they competed in the highest league during this time. Data which does not fit into this period and league position has been removed from this example.
Cup data is presented with a horizontal bar chart using three darker shades of green and yellow. The legend at the top signifies the data type by connecting the cup name with the colour for the relative bar.
A cup is displayed to more easily identify when the team succeeded in the competition. Behind the bars opaque green and yellow vertical rectangles help the user to track progress more easily.
Chairman, Manager and Notable Events data is separated by green and yellow blocks of colour behind each label, allowing periods of time to be identified. White lines have been added to help the user comfortably track data from each season.
Season data is coloured according to the final league position by quadrant to ensure a clear connection is made. Labels for seasons are mostly displayed in black, with white used when darker colours are present to increase contrast for easier reading.
Final League Position by Quadrant is divided by colour in order to discern meaningful divisions. The term ‘Highest League’ was used to remove confusion related to league names and hierarchy.
Top Scorer is presented using a horizontal bar chart with soccer balls representing goals scored. Behind the balls opaque green and yellow vertical rectangles help the user to easily track the amount of goals scored.
Delia is a famous chef who appears on TV therefore a camera presented with a chef hat seemed appropriate symbolism. Michael owns a publishing business therefore an open book seemed appropriate. Flags are used to identify their nationality and a pram in club colours is used to show they have been fans from a young age.
Stuart has orchestrated promotion to the highest league with two different clubs, therefore a symbol designed to look like the league logo is presented. Stuart was instrumental in helping the club become solvent, therefore a money-like symbol is used. A flag is used to identify his nationality.
Daniel has won the EFL Championship twice, therefore two cup symbols are used. Prior to moving into association football club management, Daniel studied economics at university. Stacks of coins with arrows pointing upwards seems appropriate to represent this. A flag is used to identify his nationality.
Grant has won the EFL Championship three times, therefore three cup symbols are used. When an association football player represents their country, they receive a special hat to memorialise it. To show his international pedigree, this hat has been illustrated. A flag is used to identify his nationality.
The club song is displayed within a speech bubble to suggest people sing it. Musical notes imply it is a musical composition. The refrain and end chant are presented in a larger and heavier style to give the main parts of the song greater emphasis. Information about the origins of the song is listed next to the speech bubble to show it is related information.
As many famous people support the club, an appropriate symbol representing their field of expertise was chosen and displayed in club colours. For example, the sock and buskin (masks) are commonly used to symbolise acting, therefore it is appropriate to use them to represent the actor Hugh Jackman.
The current mascot, Captain Canary is illustrated. Heads of the previous mascot duo symbolise them. A love heart suggests a romantic relationship with a secondary club mascot.
A line illustration has been created to display the appearance of the stadium. Pitch size is shown with dimensions of the field. Capacity amount is displayed using a stadium seat.
As transfer fees relate to amounts of money changing hands between clubs, stacks of coins were considered an appropriate way to represent it. Opaque blocks of green and yellow were placed behind in order to assist the user in tracking amounts.
I have been active in a range of design work, from full branding campaigns, to graphics designed for use at a church, to logos, various print and mobile UI.
Nurturing Nannies was an Adelaide based, start up nanny agency seeking to provide high quality care for families. It was my wife’s business and I was required to conduct the entire branding and marketing solution from launch onwards.
Nurturing Nannies were looking to create a business identity which visually represented their approach to business. They positioned themselves as providing professional, personal, friendly, in-home care for every family they were employed by.
A logo, website, stationary and marketing materials were required.
I was responsible for the overall direction of the entire composition of all designs, which needed to both appeal to my wife and her customer base.
The logo: The typeface (Centrale Sans Rounded) was chosen for its rounded letterforms and elegant form. This gave a friendly, yet professional feel, which was of primary importance to the client. The symbols were chosen to show a care for a range of genders and age groups, centred by a heart, which projected a nurturing approach at the core of their thinking. The colours were more pastel rather than vibrant to communicate a softness and caring nature. The position of the symbols were likened to a mobile hanging over a baby's cot.
This logo was chosen over four other designs at an early stage by my wife as she felt this direction not only represented them well, but was not pushing into areas of cliché, such as using an umbrella (Mary Poppins).
The Website: The client desired an uncluttered interface that was easy to navigate and made the most important content easily accessible. This was resolved by adding contact information in the header and footer, with the main three areas (hiring a nanny, being hired as a nanny, and services at weddings) as prominent panels on the homepage. The colours and soft stylings continued throughout the site.
Digital Marketing: Advertising was conducted through Facebook to families and for nannies. Examples include an infographic on dietary needs for children.
Print Advertising: Nurturing Nannies produced DL flyers and A3 posters to be placed in appropriate advertising locations, such as cafes known for mothers meeting and universities where students were studying teaching.
Grace Bible Church is a church in Brisbane which seeks to serve God and the community. Information needs to be presented in a clear and aesthetically pleasing way.
Grace Bible Church has over 400 weekly attendees and each week presents a lot of content. Presentations normally require slides to be used, which should be aesthetically pleasing and clear. The church also makes use of graphics for other forms of communication, such as invites to church events.
Grace Bible Church employed me as a pastoral intern, and the church was able to capitalise on my skills as a designer. I was able to make use of my design abilities in a variety of ways, such as making slides and flyers for worship services and events. In cases that involved multiple preachers, I was given the name of the series and allowed the freedom to propose the graphical concept and its execution as appropriate.
Over a period of over two years I produced many graphics for the church to use. Here is a sample of my work.
Seeing the Real Jesus in 2020 was a network Easter campaign which sought to clarify what Jesus did at Easter. This campaign (and other major campaigns) required the design to be presented in a variety of formats, such as an A5 flyer, Website graphics, Facebook images, in-service projector slides etc. Unfortunately this campaign was not used due to Sunday services being affected due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Robbing the Reaper was a flyer created for an Easter series. The idea is that the Grim Reaper was surprised to find the tomb of Jesus empty on Easter Sunday morning.
Generous Gifts was a Christmas campaign across all three network churches, which explored the idea of gift giving and gifts being given. Again, this campaign required the usual range of formats for digital and print.
Refresh you Marriage was a marriage seminar at the church.
Called to be One is the title slide for a sermon series on the book of Ephesians. The major theme is unity of Christians, which is visually represented by the symbol.
Foretold was a sermon series for Advent. The focus was on prophetic passages which spoke about King Jesus coming in the future.
How to Deal with Heat is the title slide for a sermon on Psalm 37. The main point of the sermon was about what to do when life starts to get hard.
That you may know is the title slide for a sermon series on the book of 1 John. There are many different elements related to God throughout the book, which are each represented by an icon inside the heart in the main composition.
The Greatest Thing is the title slide for a sermon on Psalm 84. The main point of the sermon is that life with God is the greatest thing.
I am is the title slide for a sermon series on the 'I am' sayings that Jesus makes in John's Gospel. Jesus makes a number of claims about his divinity which include the words ‘I am’.
I have had the privilege of being involved with a number of independent projects. Here is a small sample of them.
JBP is the logo symbol created for Joseph Burford Photography. The client asked for a logo which incorporated the letters 'JBP' and could be clearly identified as a representing a photographer.
CD is the logo symbol created as a personal identity for the sound engineer Christopher Denton. He asked for something that could incorporate his initials, yet symbolically be seen as connected to audio equipment.
Jackie Watson asked for a logo for her work as a professional nanny. She wanted an identity which was feminine, professional and would show her as someone that works with children.
Affiliate Brochure is an example of some of the printed materials requested by Cashflow Manager during my employment with them. This tri-fold brochure was created to attract and explain the affiliate process to website owners. The concept was to show that you can enjoy yourself while your website passively earns for you.
TIC Free Workshop and Come in from the cold are examples of some of the work I completed for The Investors Club. One was a poster advertising an event and the other was a campaign encouraging members to connect back in with the club.
It's Coffee Time and La Biondina are conceptual advertising posters for the coffee chain Cibo and Primo Estate Winery.
Succulent Magazine was a publication produced for a University assignment, for which I received a High Distinction.
Cashflow Manager needed to enable their invoicing functionality to work within an iOS app. They required me (as a part of a team), to redesign the desktop UI for iPhone and iPad, which included for their US, UK and Canadian offerings. The transition from desktop to mobile was based largely on examining what was already present in the iPhone UI (such as in ‘Contacts’) and substituting in elements from Invoice Manager.
For 30 years Cashflow Manager has created financial products to assist small and medium businesses. For the majority of this time their main product has included a bookkeeping solution, an invoicing product and a payroll system. Most of my time as a designer at Cashflow Manager involved updating/improving usability within existing parts of their products, adding new features, and transitioning/refining functionality as they built an online offering.
After eighteen months working in technical support, it was helpful to build user personas in order to better understand the needs of the user base on the whole.
This section presents some general observations, followed by three user personas.
After working in technical support for eighteen months, I became very familiar with the user base, and gained a deeper understanding of who the typical customer is. Whilst there are individuals outside of the normal user case, they can be summarised in the following ways:
They are small to medium business owners who tend to be middle to retirement aged. They often do their own bookkeeping, invoicing and process their employees wages, but would much rather be working on their business than doing their books. Many users are not comfortable nor confident in their ability to use computers, but while they struggle with the transition from paper to digital, they understand how important and useful it is to move to a software solution.
Many users are advised to employ the software by their accountant and frequently, once they move to Cashflow Manager they continue to use the product for many years.
"As a budget conscious and computer illiterate tradesman, I need accountancy software which is both easy to use and affordable."
Chris is a 40 year old male, married to Sarah, a stay at home mum, with two young children. He worked in sales for ten years before he decided to retrain in something with a more stable income and hours. He has a Certificate 3 in bricklaying. Chris is a sole trader and takes home $60,000 per annum.
Chris has been a building contractor since he finished his apprenticeship in 2011.
While he personally does most of the brick laying, he often sub-contracts when needed.
As a contractor he needs to organise the business - working with the site manager, managing sub-contractors, and doing the books.
Chris would call himself ‘a typical Aussie Bloke’, and enjoys having friends over for a BBQ and a few beers while watching sport on TV. He values family and enjoys time with them, but would like to be able to provide more for them.
As a contractor, Chris enjoys the flexibility that comes with running his own business; including being able to manage his time to the benefit of his personal life. This may mean working over weekends or finishing early when the business allows to spend time with his family.
Chris takes guidance for his business primarily from his accountant.
Chris would like to grow his business and employ people to work for him. He would like to transition from manual labour to a more managerial focus as he gets older.
Chris and his wife, Sarah try to live within their means, but would appreciate extra income as their children grow up.
Chris is primarily a tradesman, having a limited ability to work his finances. He is not an overly tech savvy person, therefore computers are a bit of a challenge for him.
Chris needs to learn how to do his books and thinks that using a simple product on his computer is the best solution.
Chris is a budget conscious person, and always tries to shop for good value.
"I'm always looking for better ways to make the business work for me. A simple yet thorough bookkeeping solution makes it easier for me and saves me time."
Karen is a 50 year old female, married to John, a train driver. They have three adult children who all live locally.
Karen began working in furnishings after she finished high school, and has not completed further education.
Karen takes home a salary of $110,000.
Karen worked in the furnishing manufacturing industry for ten years before having children. When her children started school some former clients asked her to work for them independently.
Her business grew quickly and now she employs ten others.
Karen mostly runs the business rather than making the products herself, which includes liaising with clients, managing staff, quality control, and organising the finances.
When Karen gets time outside of her business, she loves to spend it with her children and grand children. She enjoys family gatherings, and looks forward to special occasions such as Christmas and birthdays.
Karen has a number of people in her professional circles. She takes advice from her accountant and other small business owners in her local network.
Karen would like to streamline her business and make tasks such as doing her books more efficient in order to spend more time with her family.
She is thinking about retirement in the future and how she can make the business easier to sell by putting systems in place that will prepare it for the next owner.
Karen started doing her books with a spreadsheet, but soon realised she needed something more advanced due to her business’ needs.
Her accountant suggested she use some accounting software, but the one he recommended was too difficult and she became frustrated. She wanted something easier to use that will save her time.
"Better records more easily kept gives greater peace of mind for my sons and I."
John is a 59 year old male, married to Sheila, a teacher aide at a local primary school. They have two adult children who live locally.
John finished high school and gained a Pest Control Certificate from TAFE.
John takes home a salary of $90,000.
After John finished high school he worked for the local hardware store, and became interested in pest control. After a few years he bought a pest franchise, which he closed after five years to start Bee Gone!
John runs his business with his two sons Peter and Paul. While John attends each site they work at, his sons do most of the physical work, and John runs the office.
John is a keen DIY buff, doing all his own home and car maintenance. He and his sons love to go sea fishing together and take family trips to Fraser Island. John and his family are all actively involved in their local church and love being a part of the community.
John primarily makes business decisions with his sons. He has a good relationship with the church treasurer, who is a retired accountant, and helps him with financial advice.
John would like to build up the business so that when he retires his sons will have a more profitable position.
He would like to enjoy his retirement, rather than worrying about the business he leaves to his sons.
Whilst John takes the lead in the office side of the business, he would like to spend less time on a computer and less time doing his books.
He is not overly comfortable using computers and would prefer to be running his business rather than learning new technology and software.
Cashflow Manager enables users to import their inventory items into the invoicing section of the software. They needed to simplify this complex process.
Clients often have large inventory lists for items they sell and frequently need to import them into the software.
The functionality already in the software was a complex and confusing process which required a twelve and a half minute training video to explain how to do it. Many users spent a long time on support calls trying to work it out.
We hypothesised that if we made the process simpler it would save the user time and give them greater satisfaction in using the product.
I was the sole UX designer in a team with two developers, a project manager and some support staff.
I was responsible for the overall direction of the redesign while collaborating with the rest of the team on ideation and user testing. We were required to make the process simpler, easier and quicker.
After researching and comparing how several products using similar processes (not just those importing products) resolved this issue, and taking into consideration user personas, I proposed a number of solutions (in conjunction with the developers and project manager) after which I conducted user testing with support team members (observation, surveys and Interviews to collect qualitative and quantitative data).
A presentation was made to the CEO, and he conducted final testing remotely with a group of users of his choosing.
A small selection of products examined for their importing process.
Pictured: Xero, MYOB and Freshbooks.
We proposed a solution which retained the same functionality, but was reduced to three steps with vastly simpler instructions.
We created an Excel spreadsheet, which the user downloaded from the software, validated the data and identified changes the user needed to make prior to importing.
Competitors tried a variety of ways to approach this process, which suggested it was somewhat previously unresolved.
The main difficulty was resolving how to best import data in different formats while remaining compliant with application requirements and making the process simpler.
While some iterations were too complex and others too simple but not fully taking into account application requirements, we were able to strike the right balance in the final solution.
Users were able to import their data much more quickly and easily, which led to them saving time and having greater satisfaction with the product. This likely led to greater retention of customers. Support staff now spend less hours working on the issue, which saves business hours. Feedback about the new process from clients (via the support team) is significantly more positive than it was with the old process.
I learned that sometimes complex problems have not been well resolved by others. However, team work, and parts of the solution from different sources can give inspiration for an appropriate way forward.
Cashflow Manager enables users to customise their invoice layouts within the invoicing section of the software. The process needed a complete overhaul to become a better user experience, and then transferred from desktop to web.
When businesses send invoices they often have different requirements for what they need presented. The software allowed for default invoice configurations along with the ability to customise them. However, the defaults were often too limited and the customisable process too complex to use. It often did not function as most users expected, with language/terms hard to understand, it was very frustrating and time consuming for them.
Clients would often spend hours trying to work it out, and then eventually ask for someone in technical support to do it for them.
After the project was completed on the desktop system, we needed to transition it to the developing online platform. This required thinking through the different technology and the process being refined further.
We hypothesised that if we made the process simpler it would save the user time, give them greater satisfaction and allow our support team to avoid spending hours on fixing invoice layouts, saving the business wages.
I was the sole UX designer in a team with two developers, a project manager, support staff, and in the transition to the cloud, a remote team located overseas.
I was responsible for the overall direction of the redesign while collaborating with the rest of the team on ideation anduser testing. I was required to make the process simpler, easier and quicker, and produce final products for two different formats.
Usability testing and customer response when interacting with technical support demonstrated that this part of the software was hard to understand, difficult to use, time consuming and unable to create user satisfaction.
We decided to implement a complete overhaul of this part of the software primarily by implementing usability principles and results of research.
We conducted usability testing of the product (observation, surveys and Interviews to collect qualitative and quantitative data), considered other products in the same field (such as Xero, MYOB, Freshbooks and Zoho), or with similar functionality (such as iWeb), developed wireframes and made a number of iterations before the desktop version was released. After this we considered the web version, and refined it further.
We proposed a solution which moved towards a WYSIWYG system with the ability to turn on and off options on the page via a panel of options. This enabled the user to easily do what they needed to, more quickly and without frustration.
The final product in the cloud was much closer to the original proposal, with the layout visible as the user chose their selections.
Screenshots from final desktop and online offering. Online offering also includes an example of direction/descriptions for the remote team overseas.
Initial iterations required greater consideration to technology limitations. This meant early iterations were more inspirational than final for the desktop, but were more realised with the online version.
Limited ability to incorporate user testing outside the business during the transition to web made it more difficult to gauge end results. Final user testing with external clients was conducted by the CEO with a select group of his choosing.
Working with a remote team overseas was a challenge in terms of communication. Information needed to be extremely clear, being presented as precisely and thoroughly as possible in order to avoid miscommunication.
Users could much more easily achieve their goals of creating a custom invoice layout. New users for the online product would not be put off the product by the previous method of customising invoices.
The business benefitted by committing less support hours to helping people to customise invoices and likely turned less potential clients away due to functionality which does not work as expected. Feedback from support given by clients using the new approach was significantly more positive than with the old system.
We learned that each technology has different limitations and requires a slightly different approach. We also learned that resolving long running issues through design can increase client satisfaction, save staffing hours and help to onboard new clients.
Cashflow Manager enables users to reconcile their bank accounts in order to ensure they have recorded everything accurately. The process needed to be refined and then be transferred from desktop to web.
As a part of the transition from a desktop to an online product, I was required to condense the process of the bank reconciliation to something more manageable. I was also assigned the task of refining the visual style.
The process was begun by the remote development team overseas without a focus on usability, and it required a focus on refinement and consistency.
I was the sole UX designer in a team with a project manager, some support staff, and a remote development team overseas.
I was responsible for the refinements of the redesign and ensuring the new style was tidied up and clearly identified to the remote development team overseas.
User experience observed through the support team found that the bank reconciliation took a significant amount of time, which needed to be reduced for the online product.
We decided to make the process shorter. We considered our user personas and thought about how we could make it as easier for 'middle aged and older small business owners who are not overly computer literate'. After the process was refined, we tested how quickly support operatives were able to complete the task.
I implemented the new style as per the online requirements and delivered it to the remote development team overseas.
We decided to refine the process through removing and condensing redundant stages. We began with ten steps and were able to reduce it to six. This was done by removing steps which were not necessary (as they could be completed elsewhere) and by putting some related items together.
The biggest challenge was not having access to external user testing as it only allowed us to have limited, internal assurance that the product was achieving the desired goal.
A more minor challenge was related to working with the remote development team overseas. They had begun the process of implementing the process from desktop to the cloud before the UX work was complete. This led to many interface issues to resolve with 'correcting' the work already completed (such as with consistent styling and other basic design elements), and requiring them to redo the process based on the new, refined approach.
A comparison of interface changes from before and after refinements were made.
Due to the process being faster and simpler, users were able to complete the task with greater ease, producing higher levels of user satisfaction. Comments from users via technical support operatives were positive about time saved and the simplification of the process.
It was good to have internal feedback, and comments via support, but external testing would have allowed greater understanding of the effect for users.
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