How I Work
Initial Design Phase
Once research and discovery are complete, I move into low-fidelity wireframing and workflow modelling to explore possible solutions and validate initial thinking. These wireframes focus on structure, workflow clarity, page hierarchy, and user journeys rather than visual polish. At this stage, I typically conduct a second round of stakeholder walkthroughs to review updated assumptions, validate workflows, and ensure alignment before progressing further.
Because much of my experience has been within highly regulated and safety-critical environments, this stage is particularly important for identifying workflows or compliance requirements that cannot fundamentally change, even where usability challenges exist. In these situations, my focus is usually on simplifying interactions, improving clarity, reducing cognitive load, and making mandatory processes feel more intuitive for users without compromising compliance or operational safety.
Design and Development
Once workflows and structures have been validated, I progress designs into mid- to high-fidelity wireframes, user flows, personas, workflow diagrams, and interactive prototypes. These artefacts provide both high-level system visibility and more detailed exploration of complex interactions or edge cases.
At this point, collaboration with engineering becomes increasingly important. I work closely with frontend developers, technical leads, and product teams to review technical feasibility, component behaviour, architectural considerations, and implementation constraints. This collaborative process ensures solutions are practical, scalable, and aligned with both user needs and technical realities.
Specialised Bespoke UI Components
Where bespoke UI components or interaction patterns are required, I typically design and document these alongside engineering discussions while frontend and backend teams begin work on APIs, data structures, and platform architecture. As prototypes and frontend iterations evolve, further collaborative reviews help refine interactions, usability, and implementation.
Final round of Stakeholder Workshops
Once functional prototypes or early frontend builds are available, I usually facilitate another round of stakeholder and user workshops involving management, business analysts, operational users, and delivery teams. In my experience, interactive prototypes provide a much clearer understanding of product direction because users are often better at identifying what does not work than describing solutions in abstract terms. These sessions are therefore extremely valuable for validating usability, refining workflows, and increasing stakeholder confidence before final delivery.
Iterative Process
For larger enterprise programmes, this process often repeats iteratively across multiple project phases or workstreams, ensuring continuous validation, stakeholder alignment, and incremental improvement throughout delivery.
The final stages of the process focus on:
high-fidelity UI refinement,
accessibility compliance,
usability improvements,
user acceptance testing,
and final delivery support.
Throughout every stage of the process, my primary focus remains on creating intuitive, accessible, and operationally effective experiences that balance user needs, technical constraints, and business objectives.
Project I led from discovery to shipping
I led the redesign and modernisation of a large enterprise planning platform used to coordinate complex operational workflows across multiple teams and stakeholders.
The project began with discovery workshops involving stakeholders, operational users, engineering teams, and business analysts to understand existing pain points, workflow dependencies, and compliance constraints.
I conducted user interviews and workflow analysis to identify areas of duplicated effort, usability issues, and operational friction within the legacy platform. Based on these findings, I developed low-fidelity workflow models and iterative prototypes, which were regularly reviewed with stakeholders and engineering teams to validate assumptions and ensure technical feasibility.
As the project progressed, I worked closely with frontend developers and technical leads to refine component behaviour, accessibility requirements, and interaction patterns while balancing user needs against operational and delivery constraints. Interactive prototypes and iterative workshops helped align stakeholders and improve confidence throughout delivery.
The final platform improved workflow clarity, reduced duplicated tasks, simplified onboarding for new users, and supported a more scalable and modern operational process while remaining compliant with existing business and safety requirements.
Creating a component library begins long before any components are designed.
My approach to
component Librarys
The first step is understanding the purpose and scope of the library itself.
Is it being created for a single product, a suite of products, or an entire organisation?
Which elements should remain consistent across products, and which areas require flexibility to support different brands, workflows, or user needs?
In many cases, it is beneficial to establish a foundational design system containing core components, styles, and behaviours that can then be adapted or extended for individual products and projects.
Defining this structure early helps create consistency while still allowing flexibility where required.
Typography choices should reflect both the product’s functional requirements and its visual identity.
The foundation of any component library starts with typography. This includes establishing font families, sizing scales, weights, line heights, spacing, and kerning rules to ensure readability, hierarchy, and consistency throughout the product.
Colour systems are then defined alongside branding considerations.
This involves understanding how closely the product should align with existing company branding, whether the product is internal or customer-facing, and how colour can support usability, accessibility, and visual hierarchy. Accessibility considerations, including WCAG colour contrast compliance, should be integrated from the beginning rather than treated as a later-stage addition.
Layout and spacing systems are another critical part of the process. Decisions around spacing, density, grid structure, white space, and information hierarchy will heavily influence the overall usability and visual tone of the product.
A utility-focused enterprise platform may prioritise efficient use of screen space and rapid information scanning, while a more premium or marketing-led product may intentionally use increased white space and lighter visual density to create a different perception and experience.
Once these foundations are established, component creation can begin.
Components should initially focus on the most commonly used functionality and workflows before expanding into more specialised use cases. Each component should be reviewed across different states, behaviours, and interaction patterns to ensure consistency and scalability across the wider product ecosystem.
A component library should never be viewed as a finished document. It is a living system that evolves alongside the product, user needs, technical requirements, and business goals. As products grow, components will continue to be refined, expanded, and adapted based on feedback, usability findings, and implementation learnings.
When a first pass of the component library has been established, reviewing components within real layouts and workflows becomes essential. This helps validate whether typography, spacing, hierarchy, shapes, iconography, and interaction patterns work cohesively within practical use cases. Early iterative review at this stage helps identify inconsistencies and reduces unnecessary redesign or duplicated effort later in delivery. These reviews should include not just product and design but front end Engineering as well. A team lead review will ensure that intentions are understood but also that all applicable technologies are considered and used to their fullest.
Project I’m most proud of
One of the projects I’m most proud of involved redesigning a large-scale enterprise planning platform used within a highly operational and safety-critical environment. While the platform itself was heavily workflow-driven, I focused on introducing a much clearer visual hierarchy, more refined typography, improved colour systems, and a more modern component structure to reduce cognitive load and improve usability.
The challenge was balancing dense operational information with an interface that still felt approachable, intuitive, and visually cohesive.
I explored bold use of contrast, spacing, iconography, and status-driven colour coding to improve information scanning and workflow clarity without compromising accessibility or compliance requirements.
The final product significantly improved usability while modernising the visual language of the platform and increasing confidence in the system among operational users.