Tech Design that
works first time
for normal users
I've been designing award-winning, people-pleasing, industry-changing tech products for over 20 years.
It's just Product Design, in software (or "User Experience Design" if you wish): what the product should do and how, so that it does what users want, in ways they'll understand, like, love.
Below, some examples of what I know, and what I've done. My designs have changed industries, because they work first time, "out-of-the-box", for ordinary people.
On any project I might do some combination of these:
Not me, by the way:
And behind any good survey lies great care:
— Have a Comments box for every question - provides all kinds of eye-opening input
— Fewer questions = better data. Lose questions if the answers won't change your project
— One misunderstanding can wreck it - find your best wordsmiths, and have dry-runs
Before you start coding features: — Maximise your target user base — Make workflows to cover their goals — Do product-wide wireframes, just deep enough to show it'll all hang together Otherwise — wrong features, wrong people?
Most tech still gives normal users problems (you'll know, if you do user research). E.g.: — Techies like "fewest taps, fastest navigation"; users prefer obviousness — Users want bombproof data and UI! They fear using Settings, in case they "break" something! Plus: disposable income increases with age...
Which bugs stop you shipping? Who decides? — Each user goal is a chain of screens and interactions, as strong as its weakest link — But both the weakness, and the fix, may seem irrelevant in techie terms — So: product designers should decide what to fix & how (guess why Apple do it like that?)
UX Designer for Inamo, and its on-table interactive ordering experience, voted 'Best Restaurant in London' by Time Out readers
UX/Design Consultant to Flook, a location-explorer iPhone app, which won 'Best User Experience' at the Mobile Premier Awards, Barcelona. (It was also 'Staff Pick' on both the US and UK Apple store)
UX/Design Consultant to Zeebox, a TV-accompaniment iPad app, which Apple made their AppStore 'App of the Week'
Designer and Project Leader for PsiWin, a file manager & connectivity suite, which won 'Best UK Product' at Ziff-Davis Europe's "Software Excellence Awards"
Sole UX/Software Designer for Psion PDAs and for the original Symbian OS, a mobile platform so well-received that the world's mobile industry came together and made it the world smartphone standard for the next 10 years.
I've designed a huge range of apps, UIs, and devices over the years, for dozens of clients of all sizes.
Patent work: I wrote my first patent while still at Symbian. Since leaving there: — I have filed two patent applications of my own, one hardware and one software — both patents were granted and both sold — I've been contracted by two companies to help them with the patent creation process — I've conducted half a dozen "prior art" research projects for a variety of law firms, mainly as the User Interface specialist at Hillebrand Consulting Engineers
"Nick is one of those rare people who can design world-class software experiences and will change the mindset of software development teams he works with to design more from the user experience backwards."
"Nick is the first person I turn to for guidance on user interaction design. He brings unique insight, and is superb at bridging the gap between users, designers and engineers."
"Nick is simply one of the world's best UI designers. Having honed his skills at Psion he has gone on to work on a wide range of products over many years, giving him wisdom as well as bone deep knowledge of design."
"Nick has that unusual ability in an ex-techie (not that he'd thank you for reminding him of that) to understand how 'normal' people think. He was invaluable during the design phase of Flook, helping me to design a UI that the user never feels lost in, and that delights and pleases."
"We believe Nick is one of the world's outstanding people when it comes to user interface design. If more people built user-friendly interfaces like Nick, then the world would be a simpler, easier and better place to live and work in."
"At Crave we put diners in control of the food ordering process, and fundamental to that is a Tablet UX that's completely intuitive. Our user tests threw up a seemingly intractable design problem, but after half a day with Nick we had an elegant solution that our users loved."
"Wait – why is this site so simple?"
Every design wants to be "simple." (If a design succeeds, people may think it "obvious" - but "obvious to use" is rarely "obvious to design".)
"Did this design start from some template or other?"
Sure, if a template takes you half way, why start from scratch? I design products, not tech demos.
"Why can't I check you out from your Social Media?"
Second-guessing people from recycled opinions on blogs and social media - can I offer better:
1) the above taster of "Things I Know" and "Things I've Done", plus
2) if you've an interesting project and you're wondering if I might be of use, try me out for free - tell me about your project, then point me at some relevant product, spec or design and I'll write you a little review, free of charge -