Hey, I'm Jo
Design lead with 16 years experience
Edinburgh, Scotland 🏴
User-centered storyteller focused on delivering end to end experiences that make impact. Passionate about usability and problem solving for design challenges and bringing everyone along for the ride. I take pride in being an empathetic facilitator, coach and mentor who empowers designers and teams to output the highest quality products.
I've been a Staff Designer at TravelPerk for the past 2 years leading onboarding strategy and optimisation. In 2021 I lead the Design Team at TravelNest, overhauling the way design functions within a fast paced vacation rental travel start up. Prior to that I focussed on solving complex travel problems for 7 years as a first 200 employee to exit of Scotland's first billion dollar unicorn Skyscanner. I started my career in creative agencies designing UI for big name clients such as Pfizer, Nivea, Iberdrola and Santander.
How I approach Design
Collaboration is king 🚀
- Coaching and mentoring
- Facilitation and workshops
- Design strategy
My goal is to bring everyone along for the ride and I actively encourage collaboration from the beginning of a project in a three amigos format with engineering and product across all team levels. I also work with product and engineering leaders to plan and execute on our strategy and goals, to deliver first class experiences. Everyone should be heard so workshops should be as inclusive as possible.
I actively mentor designers to deliver the highest quality of usability and craft and coach them to build and foster successful relationships.
Customer driven discovery and problem definition 🕵️♀️
- User research and interviews
- Synthesis and share backs
- Experience and service mapping
For me a strong start to the definition of a project is vital for success of both the business and users. I aim to gather both qualitative and quantitative data early on to understand opportunities and pain points.
I'll present findings back to stakeholders as it's vital to get everyone aligned on the problem space. This story might take the form of pain points, customer journey maps, affinity maps or research decks. We'll agree which areas to target and define our problem space and hypothesis before moving into delivery.
Top quality delivery and constant learnings 📦
- High polish UI
- Shipping MLP
- Inclusive and accessible design
- Experimentation, learnings and iteration
Crazy 8's, scrappy sketches, whiteboards where everyone can collaborate. Once we have ideas pinned down the quality of craft and interaction is critical so having Design work closely with Engineering to deliver and bring designs to life something I champion.
It's vital that we test, learn and iterate against our hypothesis until we're confident we're making impact and improving users lives. Not getting stuck with half delivered MVP's.
Some Case Studies
heyday
Brand and App Design
Parental wellbeing start up leading the design direction, brand and new app
Skyscanner
Brand Refresh Strategy and Delivery
Travel planning should be a consistent, easy to use and delightful on web or app
TravelNest
Zero to Hero App Strategy
Strategy and concepts to get a first version of a native app out to vacation rental customers
Skyscanner
Customer Care Tooling and Efficiency
Equip customer service advisors with the right B2B tools to enable first class customer care