Communication design and review: UX, UI

User interface (UI) and User experience (UX) design is the marriage of technology and good, old-fashioned communication principles. Kate understands the latter! She's described herself as a professional 'lowest common denominator', able to flag prescribed activities and assumed knowledge that may confuse the target user. Using technology is not instinctive for many members of a target user group. Kate's skill is in challenging assumptions by asking the kind of questions (How do I know where to click? How would I know that it possible? Why is this useful to me?) that either the organisation, or the programmers/developers they've hired don't need to ask of themselves – and then recommending alternative approaches that will be universally comprehendable.

Visual system: UI design*

Client: Housemark
Overview: Housemark’s GIS, geo-spatial platform – Explore – allows social housing landlords to manage their housing stock and understand the local markets in which they operate..
Role: User Interface (UI) designer
Brief, aims and outcome:  Briefed by GIS programmers (Nautoguide Ltd) to devise an online visual system to differentiate stockholders – social housing associations, local authorities and private landlords – tenants and market rent levels, as well as show the saturation of the area and detailed data attached to each asset, following their framework parameters.
 

UI visual sytem concept presentation:

data, geo-spatial, database, UI, UX, design

 

Portsmouth Historic Dockyard: user experience (UX) review

Review of the whole customer journey 
First stage was to review the existing pages and submit a report which flagged every stumble experienced when using the site. With header images that were too deep, and graphics taking up too much vertical space, users had to scroll down the page to find pertinent information – but the initial view did not indicate this. There was no budget, or desire, to redesign the website: a work-around was to make header images less deep, and move the visual list of attractions up. The list gives a great impression of the wealth of the attractions at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. The text introducing the Dockyard was rather generic ("A great day out" is a line used by myriad attractions), re-ordering the text helped highlight the unique value of the Dockyard's proposition.

The original homepage
UX, museum, design, website, e-commerce, tickets, sales

Part of the report with suggested edits
UX, user experience, outsider view

Ticket sales UX
The tickets landing page was headed by an explanation of a glitch in the sales software – thus customers were greeted with a negative. The many ticket options were confusing and hard to compare. The remedies suggested were simpler text and a clearer, functional layout. Again, a report, with recommendations was submitted before layout.

The sales software required a date, so changing the instructions (that were not on the landing page) asking for customers to input today's date was a cost-free work-around.

The original ticket sales landing page
   navy museum, heritage, museum, UX, UI, user experience, design, review

New layout for ticket sales header page with four clear options. The Dockyard wanted to drive sales to their two 'all attraction' tickets (hence colour emphasis), with the option of buying tickets for single attractions to still be very visible.
UX design, sales, not-for-profi, museum, customer journey

 

gift aid, charity comms, museum, ticket sales