Portfolio

UX, Product Design & UI

Overview

Design is the intent behind an outcome. I design usable products that people love, provide business benefit, and are technically feasible.

Believer in user-centered design. Hands-on designer, architect strategist, researcher and lead with over 18 years experience, designing products that add value and reduce friction. Experience working with highly-functioning, multi-disciplinary, global teams.

Extensive experience in eCommerce, enterprise services, self-service, billing, payments, telecoms, and a variety of other subject areas.

Communicates natively in the languages of design, technical development or business, – dependent on the audience. At ease mentoring members of the team and strategizing at the executive level.

Situation, Task, Action, Result

Problem, action, result.

https://interviewgenie.com/blog-1?offset=1515110340518&reversePaginate=true&category=Amazon+interviews

Why Amazon

Customer obsession – The best customer service is none. – Jeff Bezos. A seamless customer experience.
Ownership and self motivation
Appreciate the opportunity to handle challenges. Problem solving.
Hard work and rapid results.
Speed

Customer Obsession

Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.

Problem: I was leading on the design to introduce a major new nationally advertised product. The website was extremely cluttered and yet we needed to launch this product on the website and apps.
Used qualitative and quantitative methods to find out what users wanted.
Online userbility testing on consumers
Dealer visit and insights
Improve the website flow, A/B testing lead on transforming the PDP page to simplify and make commercial products more finadable.
Improve the search flow, Improve and A/B test filtering.
Result: successful $x mil dollar project, exceeding yearly forecast.
Error messages on Instant Cash Offer
Chair of A/B multi-varaite testing. Filter example in eCommerce flow.
SMS validation in ICO flow.
Removal of 3D secure in topup flow.

Ownership

Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say “that’s not my job.”

Sound Sense Trainer – Working nights internationally, definign architectural solutions for great flexibity ongoing.
Browser testing for Topup flow Vodafone.
Product Management and Error messages on Instant Cash Offer.

Invent and Simplify

Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by “not invented here.” As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time.

Sound sense iPad system took a large amount of dev resources. I decided to make the system configurable so that we could easily change both the UI and certain functional requirements if we needed to change the product.
Redline tool at Trader

Are Right, A Lot

Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs.

Were wrong:

SMS code on ICO
3D secure on Topup
Update styling of website Vodafone as part of a project.
App development Sound Sense Trainer.

Were right:

Filter at the bottom vs filter at the top right.

Learn and Be Curious

Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them.

Hire and Develop the Best

Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others. We work on behalf of our people to invent mechanisms for development like Career Choice.

Insist on the Highest Standards

Leaders have relentlessly high standards — many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising the bar and drive their teams to deliver high quality products, services, and processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed.

Topup project, acted product owner, manager. 3D Secure, Missing tracking, Bugs, QA browser compatibility and specs.
trader ico error messages

Think Big

Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They think differently and look around corners for ways to serve customers.

Shoes.com case study. Working on experience manager. Action:
redesign visual hierarchy at Trader.
sound sense.

Bias for Action

Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking.

1800 Got Junk Redesign of webpage. Not time or budget to do lengthy testing. Guerilla testing on family. Heat maps from pages. Benchmarked against best practice.
Trader – extensive customer research on every minor item. Waste of resources. Analysis paralysis. Redesigned the webpage using standard layouts and implemented a common styleguide to speed up dev timescales.
ICO
Pull on expertise and background and existing data!

Frugality

Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency, and invention. There are no extra points for growing headcount, budget size, or fixed expense.

Sound sense iPad system took a large amount of dev resources. I decided to make the system configurable so that we could easily change both the UI and certain functional requirements if we needed to change the product. UK, India, China and Tunisia.

Earn Trust

Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully. They are vocally self-critical, even when doing so is awkward or embarrassing. Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume. They benchmark themselves and their teams against the best.

BuildDirect Heuristics

Dive Deep

Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, audit frequently, and are skeptical when metrics and anecdote differ. No task is beneath them.

Shoes.com case study.
Oversea the team and mentor and at the same time provide hands-on design and a granular level for design for the project.

Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit

Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.

3D secure Topup
Filter button on SLP Trader.
3D Secure wireframes.
A/B testing badge of ICO on PLP.
SMS code.

Deliver Results

Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion. Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle.

Trader. The teams worked independently in silos, some very junior. Wasted resources. As mist senior UX, I took the role of bringing the team together when the UX director left. I had hands-on work to perform in my team, so I set up regular rituals for the team and encouraged mentorship. At the same time, there was a lack of product management direction on my team and so I stepped in to provide that product direction to the team. Helped the team to determine and prioritize work. Also did hand’s on design and testing. Worked long hours. Achieved $xm dollars in revenue, exceeding projections.
Sound Sense Trainer – Working nights internationally, definign architectural solutions for great flexibity ongoing.
Usability audit at BuidDirect.
Prepay topup project. Working with a 3rd party. Scope cutting. Developed wires, tested browsers, Guy Laurence, reduced fraud, fixed monitoring, gave users a new channel to topup.

Stories

Vodafone Topup Project
Sound sense trainer

Questions

How many people are in the team?
What projects would I be working on?
What is the launch timeline / deadlines?
How does the People team interact with other teams in the org?
What is successful candidate in interview and in the role?
Any gaps we have not covered so far.

Examples of work

Below are a just a few small snapshots from Stephen’s extensive 18+ years UX, Product Design & UI experience.

Please note: Some detail has been redacted, taking into account for commercially sensitive information. Projects may be presented with gaps in processes and in overview form at times due to the inability to publish project information. This portfolio aims to demonstrate real life project work, not faux, pixel-perfect case studies. Some projects are displayed with dated UI. They are still presented because timeless, valid UX & product design decisions were made on that project