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Frequently Asked Questions

See below if you want to know more or I haven't been clear enough - you can find more answers to many of the questions I've been asked in the past. 

What kind of designer are you?
A designer - period. Hopefully a good one. But for arguments sake I identify as a Product or Experience designer.
What area do you specialise in?
The niche area that I specialise in is designing B2B/B2B2C Digital Ventures & Growth. 
So what do you actually do?
I mostly design digital products, services, platforms, customer experiences and businesses for very niche specialised B2B fields; whether that's optimising an existing product/ service to help the business improve or I’m helping to create new products or ventures under the premise of providing new value and alternative revenue streams. It’s totally dictated by whatever the problems are I’m trying to solve in what industry sector.
What services do you provide?
Contract or Fractional design services to optimise, transform or grow a business through;
 
> End-to-end product design and development
> User/ customer research
> Rapid prototyping
> Product strategies, roadmaps and strategic visions
> MVP / First release delivery
> Product-led growth initiatives 
> Design & innovation consulting 
> Process design
 
For more of a breakdown and outlay of how I categorise my services please see my services page
What have you designed?
Over the years I have designed for B2C > B2B > B2B2C markets and co-created; web apps, physical products, ecommerce experiences, smartphone apps, digital products, interfaces, physical retail experiences, new brands, re-brands, digital content, websites, experience strategies, communication strategies, product strategies, pitch decks, presentations, public service announcements, magazines, books, scripts, org strategies, and new businesses.
 
These days I focus solely on designing solutions for niche B2B sectors in complex enviroments which are generally digital products or services.
Why have you niched down?
Whilst I do have a background designing in other areas, nothing is more exciting and satisfying to me than helping to solve problems in the realm of B2B. There’s a real simplicity of helping someone ‘do their job or do it better.’ I find design has a profound and measurable impact on the businesses and the people in this space. More than I ever got access to in the B2C space. 

I know a lot of designers and other people view this industry sector as boring or unsexy when it comes to design but to me the bar for the solution is very high, and that’s because the user is very discerning of that solution because they need to use it everyday to do their job - it’s a tool that either makes or breaks their day. 

As a designer this is an exciting place to exercise your ‘creative intelligence’ for the nature of the problems are complex, there’s nuances and intricacies to the customers and users and a real pragmatism to the solutions. What more could you ask for?
What is your process?
I’m at the stage of my career where I’ve learned a bunch of different methodologies and processes from working in different problem spaces. I’m of the opinion that the context dictates the process you take (the principles and values are what stay the same, that integrity is important.) So it’s about blending practices and methods together and using what makes sense for solving the problem and the team you’re working with. Read about my process here
Why do you design?
It comes from a lifelong love affair with ingenuity and power of creativity and wanting to solve problems. I'm intrinsically motivated to do that, I get a real satisfaction from being helpful and trying to excel at solving problems by following my intellect. 

What made you choose design?
It all started with a curiosity and fascination for creativity. I found myself on a quest to understand ‘What was creativity?’ ‘How did it manifest?’ and ‘What did it mean to be creative?’ And through that journey I found design, a realm that not only satisfied my curiosity but also became a playground for exploring the incredible power of creative intelligence, then innovation and eventually led to evolved concepts such as ‘change.’

Why? Because design was the avenue that has allowed me to dig into problems, get my hands dirty with exerting intellectual flexibility, and make a real impact. It's not just a job; it's a dynamic journey of learning by doing and, most importantly, to creating change. And that's why I'm still here, immersed in the field of design.
Why is that important to you?
Holding that integrity towards the power of 'creative intelligence' is what's important to me, and being able to get behind the belief that we can change things for the better. Design is just a means to an end for me. Its how I exercise my creative intelligence.
Why do you focus on 'change' as part of your practice?
I use change as a suitcase term, whether you want to improve something, refine it, optimise it, transform or shift something, changing something is what we are doing. It is the central tenet of what underpins all creativity and innovation. Design is just the activity and embodiment of said change. Design is how we make those changes. 
What do you mean by 'operating at a nexus' or 'blended skill-set'?
Because of the environments I've worked in; messy, limited resources, with restrictive constraints and budgets I've developed a blended skill-set that is hands-on and pragmatic to get outcomes that create impact through the utilisation of the full spectrum of design. Plus I've picked up some product ownership skills and improved my business acumen along the way. Which is why I come to what I do with a bigger skill-set to employ. The value of this is adaptability in getting things done. That's why I often refer to what I do is 'design-led product growth'.
How do you approach research and discovery activities?
Research isn’t a passive exercise and it doesn’t have to be cumbersome or expensive - it's about ‘learning through making’ - it is driven by being curious, making sense of something by being deeply human-centred. Learning through making is how I approach all research - continuous prototyping and experimentation to create feedback loops and immediate improvements
How do you deal with ambiguity?
Accepting that it's going to be present and be comfortable is where it starts. Ambiguity isn’t a bad thing and it depends where you are in the design process in regards to what you should tolerate but ultimately my job is to help people feel at ease or make informed decisions or see clearly despite any ambiguity. To do that as a designer you’ve got to remain ‘curious’, you’ve got to experiment and hold true to the principles of ‘learning through making’, you’ve got to test your assumptions, and you’ve got to examine the bigger picture and what parts there are. Remember that having any ambiguity is part of the path towards solving a problem. It is the catalyst to ask more questions between ‘what is’ and ‘what could be.’
What aren't you good at?
I have a broad skill-set, but currently I’m learning to get better at motion design, so I can do more advanced animated interactions. I also suck at storytelling and selling my value, so I am trying to get better at articulating that.

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