Work
I am a designer and anthropologist passionate about making services work for people and organisations. My creative practice is driven by openness, curiosity, and collaboration. I use approaches and methods from service design, co-design, ethnography, and social research.
This allows me to unravel and re-imagine experiences and services, and to lead and engage others in this process. I care deeply about inclusive design and the impact my work has. I thrive where research, design and strategy meet.
Reflective design practitioner committed to continuous learning. Experienced in scoping and leading design work, in involving others in conversation and collaboration around design, and in assuring work meets high standards. Confident managing relationships, and communicating the value of design to stakeholders and team members at all levels.
Experienced in working alongside non-design teams, in training and coaching to increase capacity and understanding, and in embedding user-centred approaches. Confident in mentoring others, highlighting the benefits of design-led approaches, contributing to strategic conversations, and championing inclusive design.
Value-driven. Experienced facilitator of in-person and remote co-design workshops and participatory design for Scottish Care, Digital Health and Care Institute, NHS Scotland, Scottish Government, Royal Bank of Scotland, NHS Digital Service, The Alliance, and Crisis. Confident in developing and implementing strategies and methods towards a more inclusive design practice.
Skilled in designing, planning and conducting ethical user research using qualitative methods such as interviews, ethnography, workshops, engagement tools, and user testing methodologies. Experienced in analysing research data, using insights to produce actionable design directions for delivery teams, and visualising research insights through user journeys, service blueprints, personas, and other design tools.
Confident at developing, selecting, adapting, and applying appropriate design tools and methods. Excel at translating needs of users, staff, and organisations into service concepts and at engaging others in this process. Experienced in using design to ideate, prototype, validate, and iterate proposed digital or service solutions, and to communicate how design decisions were reached. Competent creating prototypes, exhibitions, visual maps, user journeys, personas, digital interfaces, and service blueprints to communicate and test design proposals.
Experienced and confident in working alongside a wide range of colleagues, stakeholders, and co-designers. Thrive in multi-disciplinary teams of domain experts, policy professionals, software engineers, product and programme managers, user researchers, and user interface designers. Good public speaking skills, including talks on service design at Collaborate Bristol 2022, Digital Scotland 2020, Digital Health and Care Network, The Alliance self-management week, NHS Design Community of Practice, and Scottish Care annual conference.
I worked with a cross-functional team at HMRC to deliver a digital service for claiming child benefit. Leading a group of less experienced designers, I promoted good practice in a rapid and complex project. I enabled collaboration across the programme, and supported my team to develop and iterate internal processes collaboratively. This included documenting and evidencing design decisions, working in the open, and seeking feedback. Within my team, I acted as a strong design voice, promoting the understanding and importance of design roles. And I supported others to confidently influence and advocate for user-centred design.
I championed inclusive design, and provided design expertise at all levels. This included influencing senior stakeholders in NHS and government. And helping to organise Scotland’s emerging design community of practice in health and care. I also led service design across multiple long-term strategic programmes. My role was to coach clinical teams on applying design tools and methods. And to support them to create and implement system change.
I joined a new team developing digital tools from within the NHS. I established and nurtured equality, diversity, and inclusive design practices. I also led service design for multiple agile delivery teams. This meant developing processes and methods to embed people’s needs at the centre of our products, content, and services. And I defined the direction and strategy for the new National Digital Platform as a tool to enable service transformation across different parts of health and care.
I worked on products to better record and manage clinical data. I collaborated with engineers and other designers, ensuring all products are person-centred and enable end-to-end journeys. I supported business strategy, and helped to identify and curate compelling examples of our work.
Working as part of a multidisciplinary design team, I supported multiple projects. I developed new methods for collaborative workshops for Scottish Government. I trained colleagues in a method I developed for mapping complex cross-organisational services. I mentored junior designers. And I taught postgraduate students on design ethnography and innovation for health and care.
My role was to evaluate the work of GSA's health and care design lab. I designed and conducted interviews and creative workshops, to involve a variety of stakeholders in this process. I also researched and curated innovative processes, approaches, and tools in the field. I developed strategies for embedding these to make the team's co-design work more inclusive, fair, and impactful.
I mentored and worked alongside a multidisciplinary student team. We explored the future of banking through in-depth research into emerging behaviours. We prototyped and tested speculative concepts, and produced actionable recommendations. The resulting tools supported the client team to embed user centred design into their practice.
I helped clarify the business opportunity for this startup. I tested it against the target market. And I redefined the value proposition and business model with people at its centre. I managed partnerships with West College and Strathclyde University aimed at involving young people in design.
Working in a multidisciplinary team of designers and researchers at this innovation studio, I carried out a series of primary research activities, synthesized the results, and used these to support the design of new potential user experiences. Based on insights from user research, my team and I mapped a comprehensive service blueprint and identified future opportunities to pilot this in new markets.
As someone with both lived experience and design expertise, I advise the UK Cystic Fibrosis Trust in developing a Registry dashboard where people with CF will be able to securely view their health information and enter wellbeing data that can be added to their NHS record.
I lived and worked in an ecovillage and community of purpose shared by disabled and non-disabled people on a small peninsula close to Trondheim in Norway. I learnt to weave and to knit, to cook, to collaborate, to love snow, and to pass very long winters.
I provided care and company for someone living with cerebral palsy and epilepsy while sharing their home, countless cups of tea, and after a little encouragement, an active life and love for buzzing London.
I developed a human-centred design practice with a strong focus on collaboration and translating research insights into inclusive service concepts. I explored how design can be used to understand, critically examine, and re-imagine the cultures, institutions and systems that shape our world, and to articulate preferable futures.
I gained theoretical knowledge and practical experience of designing and conducting ethical research projects using qualitative methods such as ethnography and interviews. Moreover, I developed critical thinking and a sociological imagination of relating individual biographies to culture, contexts, and systems.