Strategy: Launch a mobile whitelabel offering for 9Spokes banking clients to give them a channel to connect with small business customers.

User research: Conducted user interviews to understand customer ‘whys’ and build personas of our target mobile customers.Studied customer feedback and metrics from the website for the mobile version to understand the ‘what’ of customer usage. Synthesised multiple data sources to optimise the UX design and layout of the mobile app.

UX design: Designed the wireflows, customer journeys and task flows for the mobile app. Used Lean UX methodologies to design and test the UI with potential users prior to design of the final prototype.

Technology: Identified the APIs that needed to built to support the mobile app and prioritised these in a backlog which was then assigned to the developers to build based on the priority to allow the mobile development team to build the app in parallel. Worked with the CTO to choose our mobile technology stack best suited to keep long-term development costs low.

Role: Product management, Product ownership, UX research, UX design.

Market trends: Retailers and SMEs in the hospitality segment were increasingly keen on using the power of mobile apps to reach their customers through mobile apps.

UX design: Designed the platform including the mobile app and the CMS including the customer journeys, user and task flows for all versions of the platform. 

Solution: Conceived, designed and product managed a build-it-yourself SaaS solution that enabled SMEs to build apps and websites through a simple CMS in the cloud. The solution was designed for small businesses to could add new features, update the content and in app promotions on all platforms including mobile apps and website instantly using a simple drag and drop interface. It was designed to be simple enough for anyone including non technical users to use.

Role: Product management, Product ownership, UX research, UX design

Strategy : 3News needed to find its own USP within a crowded online media space.

The approach: Completed a strategic evaluation of 3 News vis-a-vis our competitors by relying on multiple data sets to identify 3News USP and help differentiate and stand out of the competition.

The outcome: Relaunched an optimised version of the website resulting in a significant improvement in traffic and session duration which had flow on effects of building a loyal readership and improved advertising revenue.

Role: Product management, UX design, front end development

The need: Gentrack wanted to deploy the latest version of Velocity, its flagship billing software to new and existing clients clients. They were keen to ensure that the solution was optimised for user adoption.

The methodologies: I used different user research methodologies depending on the outcome to be achieved. Field studies, interviews and task analysis was used to to understand Velocity usage in different roles. User personas were created and refined from interviews and surveys to better understand the different roles at different retailers. A/B testing was used to compare metrics between the old version of Velocity and the new version. Customer journey maps were designed to trace the journey across most critical tasks including friction along the journey while surveys were sent to clients to gather holistic usage data and understand patterns of usage.

Role: UX analyst, UX designer

User research : At Genesis Energy we conducted user testing to understand the appeal of our pilot electricity usage monitoring app. I used surveys and mobile analytics data to gather quantitative data and conducted user interviews among pilot users to get qualitative data and matched these to see dominant themes that from the research. 

App redesign: The themes that emerged had strong focus around the UI and the usability of the app. Some powerful features were conceived as an outcome from the users research included, real time notifications of cost spikes for any monitored device, an instant comparison over previous costs for a device and a summary of the costs of different devices cost in real time. A gimmicky bubble interface disliked by users was replaced with an easy to navigate interface and the Hi definition prototype was setup on Invision for testing and refinement.

Role: UX research, UX design

Market trend: 64K EVs will be on NZ roads making up 2% of the total volume of cars on NZ roads. However, the number of EV chargers at destinations where people frequently shop, eat and drink has not kept up to the pace of EV adoption.

Customer problem: EV drivers would like to know if chargers are available where and when they choose to shop, eat and drink to be able to extend their range. This particularly affects the largest segment of EV drivers (~70%) are short range Nissan Leafs. User research confirmed that range anxiety remained the biggest barrier to adoption of EVs in NZ.

Solution: I designed as part of a two day hackation, an end-to-end solution that  included the installation of cost effective 22KW unit at destinations + a mobile app that allows customers to book chargers at destinations so that they are available when they arrive. Break-even to profit was calculated at a few years.

Role: Concept, UX design

Hackathon theme: The 9Spokes hackathon theme – Improve engagement of the product with its customer base.

The problem: Small business owners were busy which made it difficult for them to monitor data visualisations while at work which resulted in low engagement.

Solution: A redesigned app that focussed on the pains, gains, jobs to be done and context which included time and device for key personas. The app was designed to combine multiple data points from different app data sources and deliver intelligent tips contexualised based on the persona’s daily habits.

Outcome: The hackathon won the first prize for the best entry and tips as a feature was introduced in addition to data visualisations.

Role: Concept, UX design

Market trend: Second hand Nissan Leaf drivers are the biggest Electric Vehicle segment (~70%) in NZ. This market used to be dominated by innovators and early adopters. However, early and late majority EV drivers have begun to show interest in joining the EV revolution.

Customer problem: Early EV adopters have traditionally used an app called LeafSpy to read data about an EV’s battery deterioration and other stats. These stats are important predictors of the life of the car. LeafSpy’s poor user interface however alienates a large number of potential and EV drivers that are late adopters because of poor usability and EV technology jargon.

Solution: I designed a high usability concept mobile app prototype optimised for late EV adopters. The mobile app was designed to use data collected and spit out very useful metrics for a EV driver including driving habits, EV usage statistics,  environmental impact and the return on investment of customers driving an electric vehicle. Data mined from the app could also be used to understand EV driver habits and build new EV related products and services.

Role: Concept, UX design

Market trend: At Radio Live, morning engagement during live talk radio dropped significantly during prime time.

Customer problem: A large majority of office workers couldn’t engage with talk show radio hosts while at work.

Solution: Designed a real time web based chat where listeners could continue to interact with the host while they were live on air without needing to call in.

Outcome: Traffic and revenue nearly doubled overnight with online interactive conversations from listeners became a rich source of content on the website as well created interactive debates on the website. This helped to continue to drive traffic to the website even after an on air debate was over. The debates served as a rich repository of content for future debates on the subject.

Role: Concept, UX design

Market trend: A large Kiwi Indian population was underserved with only had a physical weekly newspaper available to serve the cultural needs of a large demographic.

Solution: Conceived, designed and developed the Content Management System (CMS), frontend and all features on the website with ASP.NET / SQL server. The solution was later migrated to Azure.

Outcome: The website is now one of NZ’s most visited websites and has an over 120K monthly readership. The website was used as a springboard to launch other services including an event ticketing service and an awards platform aimed at the Kiwi Indian community

Role: Concept, UX design, development

CRM: Developed a CRM for Rural News group to manage Rural News’ customer database which replaced a legacy DOS based application

Outcome: The application was developed using Windows forms with C# and SQL Server. The app printed sticker labels for postage and delivery of Rural News and Dairy News to its subscribers around the country.

Role: Design and development

Mobile platforms: Designed and built a multi-lingual Android Asian fortune teller and love calculator app. 

Outcome: The app was one of the top most downloaded in South Korea.

Role: UX design, development