ux / pm projects : 2015 - 2017 oliver askew · pdf filewoodfordeõs oliver askew ux / pm...

Oliver AskewUX / PM PROJECTS : 2015 - 2017

OLIVER ASKEW UX / PM projects 2015 - 2017 / 232

ContentsPAGE 3

Product design & Project management for UK-based FMCG firm’s new mobile app.

Woodforde’s

Product scoping and consultation for a new mobile app.

Norfolk County Council

Wireframing and project management a responsive upgrade for a national publisher’s

e-Commerce subscription store

Archant

Wireframing and project management a new responsive WordPress-powered site for a

renewable heating startup.

Finn Geotherm

Performance, SEO and Content appraisal of 2 new websites plus heuristic UX evaluation.

Global event production firm

PAGE 7

Product scoping and consultation for a new mobile app.


PAGE 7

PAGE 12

PAGE 15

PAGE 20

Woodforde’s


I was responsible for overseeing design and development of a new mobile app for Woodforde’s, a FMCG firm in the craft ale sector, which resulted in over 4000 app downloads and over 8000 virtual stickers collected throughout their 2015 Ale Trail.

The objectives were:

After finalising the functionality, user journeys and screen layouts myself, I worked with an

in-house developer to create a prototype, Woodforde’s designer to finalise UI and a

freelance developer to develop the apps. We chose to build the apps using the hybrid

framework Appcelerator, in order to maintain a single codebase.

I completed the following tasks:

• Reduce the high costs and carbon-footprint associated with printing 50,000

copies of a 50-page Ale Trail guide;

• Allow participation in the trail to be more convenient; remove the need for a

participant to carry their trail guide with them when visiting participating

pubs & bars in order to collect stickers and redeem prizes.

1. 1-to-1 interviews with most valuable

customers to build insights on how

the guide is used;

2. Ideation / storyboarding of different

methods of collecting stickers and

locating participating pubs;

3. Co-development of a lightweight

HTML/CSS prototype for user testing

and stakeholder engagement;

4. Producing hi-fi wireframes for mobile

and tablet versions which could be

used to create a consistent UI;

5. Creating a spec of User Stories and

project managing app, API and CMS

development in sprint iterations;

6. Deploying app binaries to app stores,

orchestrating beta testing by end

users and adding store artwork.

DELIVERY DATE

July 2015

PROJECT DURATION

8 months

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Product Scoping / Strategy

• UX Design

• Project Management

DELIVERABLES

• iOS + Android mobile apps

• Administrator CMS (PHP)

• REST API (PHP)


This consultation work helped to identify a new digital product for The Norfolk County Council - supporting the popular 26-mile Marriott’s Way trail in the heart of the Norfolk countryside - noted for it’s rich railway heritage and biodiversity. My report helped secure over £100k Lotto funding to develop the new app in 2018.

The objectives included:

I was appointed to undertake the consultancy role on behalf of Grit Digital, and

completed the following process:

• Specify a new digital product to help increase tourist and community traffic

throughout the trail;

• Increase learning and engagement towards the Railway heritage, biodiversity and

conservation efforts throughout the trail.

1. 1-to-1 interviews with members of the

local community using the trail for

commuting leisure and fitness

activities;

2. Focus groups to gather feedback

from spokespeople of conservation

organisations, archive groups and

local government;

3. Stakeholder meetings with different

council departments to understand

how the app and its data could

support their initiatives;

4. Surveying the data infrastructure of

the trail and key points of interest to

support ideation and uncover

potential challenges;

5. Creating design and Framer

prototype of my ideas to share with

stakeholders and community

members and seek their feedback;

6. Submitting a consultancy report of

technical considerations and design

recommendations.

DELIVERY DATE

April 2016

PROJECT DURATION

4 months

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Product Design / Strategy

• Stakeholder Management

• Technical consultation

DELIVERABLES

• User research

• Ideation and prototyping

• D&B recommendations


DESIGNS

OLIVER ASKEW Norfolk County Council / 238

I noted down our observations from the workshop and constructed affinity diagrams to

summarise research patterns with an insight and a design mandate. This could focus my

thinking when deciding on functionality, and reinforce my rationale to stakeholders.

DATA ANALYSIS


I chose to create 7 user personas to champion the design process. I also analysed their

goals and referred back to my research to define mental models – the process the would

normally go through to complete a goal without the use of the app. I wanted to ensure

that the process within the app felt as familiar as possible, and to verify that the app was

providing a real benefit to users, as opposed to being ‘just another way of doing it”.

I approached other Council department leaders (such as conservationists, data analysts

and archivists) to share my strategy to date, and explore weather collaborating with their

department could gain mutual successes. We found there were other departments which

could benefit from data which could be gathered from the app.

Speaking to Heritage and Biodiversity consultants also surveying the trail, I learned that

it is favourable to discuss wildlife in the context of habitats and food chains, as opposed

to simply as species. For Heritage, people discuss events in the context of locations and

people involved, as opposed to simply by chronology.

PERSONAS AND MENTAL MODELS


INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

I sketched out some ideas for features which I tested amongst peers and stakeholders to

verify that they met the goals of the personas. I iteratively finalised a full sitemap from my

sketched screens which conveyed the scale of the app along with individual sections.


Archant

Archant required that their national subscription website needed a new responsive front-end to remain competitive. We needed to take care designing new templates that would remain compatible with the company’s large custom back-end systems.


I completed the following processes;

• Provide UX and development work for the new website, collaborating with the

current design agency to finalise the UI;

• Storyboard and design journeys for user scenarios such as arriving from

targeted e-shots, print adverts and special offers.

1. Wireframing mobile and desktop

templates;

2. Working with UI designers to design

key screens and web components;

3. Project managing internal front-end

development team to build

responsive web and email templates;

4. Project managing freelance back-end

developers to integrate the new

templates with the existing CMS and

payment gateways;

5. Testing the new site and overseeing

deployments.

DELIVERY DATE

September 2015

PROJECT DURATION

4 months

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Wireframing

• Project management

DELIVERABLES

• Responsive web wireframes

• Responsive email designs

• Web development


DESIGNS

WIREFRAMES

The website can be seen at https://www.subscriptionsave.co.uk.

OLIVER ASKEW Archant / 2313

https://www.subscriptionsave.co.uk

WIREFRAMES (CONTINUED) MOBILE DESIGNS

OLIVER ASKEW Archant / 2314

Finn Geotherm

Finn Geotherm are an exciting startup in renewable geothermal heating provision. Their website however, was failing to engage and convert leads due to its high-density of technical jargon, verbose/frustrating contact forms and cluttered, repetitive IA; packed with generic, duplicated content. The website was selling a collection of technical components, rather than a lifestyle and investment.


I was appointed to oversee all design, development and ongoing optimisations, and

completed the following process:

• Rebuild the website to increase engagement and conversions;

• Increase the firm’s low SEO rankings for popular localised phrases such as ‘heat

pumps Norfolk’ to increase incoming traffic to the website.

1. Gathering feedback from sales staff

and previous clients to understand

the most engaging aspects of the

product and initial objections;

2. Ideation and wireframing the new site

in mobile and desktop versions;

3. Working with Finn’s new PR & Design

agency to ensure that our UI and key

messaging was consistent with new

brand styles and TOV;

4. Working with our UI designer to

finalise the UI layouts;

5. Project managing development of

the website and CMS, allowing for

regular updates and accomodating

ad-hoc feedback;

6. Directing on-page SEO activities

including metadata, keyword

aggregation, schema.org snippets

and semantic HTML5 usage.

DELIVERY DATE

July 2016

PROJECT DURATION

2.5 months (design/dev)

RESPONSIBILITIES

• UX design

• Project management

• SEO / CRO activities

DELIVERABLES

• Responsive website

• WordPress CMS

• ~30% increase in website leads


DESIGNS

The website can be seen at https://www.finn-geotherm.co.uk.

OLIVER ASKEW Finn Geotherm / 2316

https://www.finn-geotherm.co.uk

INSIGHTS

Interviews with staff and customers led me to define the following insights:

• Customers are generally more savings-motivated than environmentally conscious;

• There is little correlation between ‘eco-friendly’ and financial expenditure;

• Strong correlations exist between ‘eco-friendly’ and effort/complexity/

responsibility;

• People associate geothermal heating with involvement, upheaval and representing

part of a larger project;

• There is a correlation between effort/complexity/burden and physical mass/weight;

• There is some correlation between lower weight/mass and desire in heating

solutions;

• There is strong correlation between cleanliness/neatness and perceived quality;

• People are beginning to align their stereotypes of green-energy providers with

double glazing, conservatories etc. - ‘too many salesmen, not enough experts’;

• There is little engagement with heating products or associated stats;

• The major points of engagement are:

⁃ how much will I actually save?

⁃ will it heat my home and hot water any better than the equivalent boiler?

⁃ do I need a PHD to use it?

⁃ do I need to plan around it?

⁃ do I need to maintain/replenish it?

• There is a strong correlation between the presence of technical information/data

tables and perceived complexity;

• There is some correlation between highly-promoted testimonials and perceived

salesmanship;

• There is some correlation between case studies involving recognisable local

buildings/businesses and perceived quality/dependability.

My design mandates were:

• Remove excess weight;

• Light, bright and neat;

• Put people before products;

• Experts and evidence over sales rhetoric.


WIREFRAMES


Since it was indicated that users would welcome a

simpler method of understanding the potential

savings available through the UK Government’s

Renewable Heating Incentive (RHI), I researched the

available online solutions from other suppliers and

Gov.uk*, finding that their savings estimators were

often complicated forms, requiring energy usage

information which is not readily recitable nor close to

hand. They often spanned multiple pages due to their

complexity, causing users to lose interest and

abandon the goal due to needing more paperwork.

Much of the required information however, could be

inferred by asking far more simple questions.

Through stakeholder interviews I managed to distill

the data requirements to just 5 simple questions. I

wanted the whole process to feel as intuitive as

setting a (modern) thermostat, to require no typing

of figures or completing generic forms, and offering

immediate feedback to encourage repeated

interaction and comparison. The new calculator

feature has enjoyed thousands of interactions and

generated many new sales leads.

I c l a r i f i e d t h e s p e c i f i c

calculations with stakeholders

to ensure their accuracy, before

writing a functional JS script for

the front-end development

team to integrate and fire

whenever the UI is updated by a

user - to save developer time

transposing a .xls into a usable

web asset.

A typical calculator form

FEATURE: SAVINGS CALCULATOR

Finn’s new RHI calculator*the gov.uk site has since updated its

calculator to be simpler to use.


Global event production firm

Working in a freelance capacity, I was asked to complete a full appraisal of Grit’s client’s two new websites - developed in-house by the client themselves. The CEO was seeking professional recommendation from Grit that the new sites were sufficiently ‘SEO-friendly’ to increase their online footfall, whilst also promoting their smaller and more localised graphics design agency.

This task required delicacy and diplomacy; Grit’s client had invested a great deal of

their staff resource into developing the new single-page-application websites.

However, it became immediately clear that not only would the new websites struggle

to be effective with respect to SEO, they also appeared severely compromised in

terms of usability and the likelihood of user-engagement. It was clear that the site

had been designed and built by non-web-professionals, and fell short of the quality

and tone-of-voice expected of a large, well-established and decorated firm. I needed to

communicate the issues diplomatically, whilst recommending dramatic changes.

The reports have been submitted to Grit’s client, who have since commissioned Grit

to fully redesign and redevelop a brand new website, commencing June 2017. I

followed the following process:

1. Authoring and constructing

objectives and instructions for Grit to

complete 1-to-1 interviews with

stakeholders;

2. Noting all technical shortcomings of

the websites such as cross-browser

bugs, bugs in client-side logic,

missing data and poor semantics in

HTML markup, areas of ‘thin content’

and load speed performance

blockages.

3. Using stakeholder feedback to create

heuristic user-centered artefacts

such as personas and mental

models;

4. Describing UX concerns with user-

centered heuristic evaluation such

as site journeys and blob maps;

5. Submitting separate documents to

encapsulate the websites’ health in

terms of performance, SEO, UX,

Content/Tone and UI respectively.

DELIVERY DATE

January 2017

PROJECT DURATION

3 weeks

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Whole-site appraisal

• Heuristic UX evaluation

• Recommendations

DELIVERABLES

• Reports

• Recommendations and action

points


PERSONA EXAMPLES

MENTAL MODEL EXAMPLE

OLIVER ASKEW Global Event Production Firm / 2321

USER-JOURNEY EXAMPLES


BLOB CHART EXAMPLES


ux / pm projects : 2015 - 2017 oliver askew · pdf filewoodfordeõs oliver askew ux / pm...

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