Martin Johnstone » Freelance » User Experience • Interaction Design • User Interface Design

Conscia Enterprise Systems

admin — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 20:30:27 +0000

NHS Go was a huge project to give every member of NHS staff a single point of access to all of the information, web resources and online tools they require to perform their job. Using a highly customisable widget based interface similar to iGoogle or myYahoo!, the NHS Go RIA pulls content from a variety of web resources and allows the user to query website, perform searches and SSO (single sign on) without having to leave the NHS GO platform. Currently NHS staff have a huge variety of web resources which they must visit, and NHS GO provides a single point where they can perform a variety of actions.

I was responsible for designing and optimising the interactions within each widget to maximise the user experience initially by ensuring consistency in function, and also through user testing and improvement.

I also redesigned the interactions within the search functionality to improve usability, and redesigned the how the user could have a multiple pages of widgets, again to improve user performance.

Skills used:

Interaction Design
Wireframes
Storyboard
Prototypes
User Testing

Tools used:

AxureRP
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Fireworks

Issues:

Maintaining behavioral consistency within widgets that provide content from differing 3rd parties. Solved with iterative design and ad-hoc user testing and close communication with the development team to deliver the optimum solution.
Redesigning the functionality to provide multiple dashboards of widgets. Originally used a renameable tabbed system, but user testing showed this was too complicated. Redeveloped the functionality to use simple ’1,2,3′ tabs at top right of the dashboard.

Student Loans Company

admin — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 20:06:48 +0000

I worked on a number of projects for the Students Loan Company. The largest was an online student finance calculator accessed through the Directgov web site. This tool allowed a prospective student to enter their personal circumstances including domicile status, parental income, choices of course/university etc and then to receive an accurate calculation of their student finance entitlement. The tool was designed and produced to strict Directgov branding using their transactional toolkit.

From functional specifications I created user friendly designs and interactions using storyboards, sitemaps, wireframes and lo-fi prototypes. Once approved I hand coded the designs into standards compliant XHTML, CSS and JQuery to be passed to the development team. I was also responsible for maintaining documentation and using version control software to check in/out files.

Also I produced a library of design patterns as HTML/CSS/JQuery with documented instructions to assist the development team to effectively develop web standards compliant solutions.

Skills used:

User Interface Design
Wireframes
Sitemap
Storyboard
Lo-Fi Prototypes
XHMTL/CSS/JQuery

Tools used:

Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Fireworks
PVCS Version Manager

Issues:

Initially UI/UX design was done concurrently with development within sprint. This proved difficult, so UI/UX was run 1 sprint ahead of development.
Designing to the strict Directgov toolkit was problematic as there was not ‘out of the box’ functionality available to solve certain problems. Required regular dialogue with Directgov to create, refine and approve non-toolkit functionality.
Creating a solution to allow complex data tables to be displayed satisfactorily on a range of monitor sizes, down to 800x600px.

Morris Furniture Group

admin — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 20:41:57 +0000

I was responsible for planning, designing, (standards based) development, user testing and search engine marketing of 10 individual B2B and B2C websites, including an E-commerce site based on the Magento CMS platform.

During my time at Morris Furniture Group I learned PHP and MySQL to allow me to create dynamic and content manageable sites. It also allowed my to use and modify PHP based CMS systems such as Drupal, Magento and WordPress.

Each site is designed to reflect the brand values of the company and offer an excellent user experience, giving the customer the opportunity to explore the unique furniture, history and customer service each company is famous for.

Skills used:

User Interface Design
Visual Interface Design
PHP/MySQL
Standards compliant XHMTL, CSS & JQuery
Personas
Wireframes
Sitemap
Usability testing

Tools used:

TextEdit
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Fireworks
Drupal CMS
Magento CMS

Digital Music Retail Interface

admin — Thu, 26 May 2011 11:30:50 +0000

A ‘next generation’ rich internet application for exploring and purchasing music containing over 10,000 lines of Actionscript. Soundz is a dynamic interface allowing a user to browse, search, listen to, compile and buy music. Considerable use of usability techniques such as user & scenario analysis, wire framing, prototyping and user testing were employed to deliver a stimulating and empowering experience for all levels of user ability.

I was responsible for the whole project from conception, through design, testing and development.

Skills used:

User Interface Design
Interaction Design
Storyboards
Personas
Wireframes
Usability testing
Actionscript Development

Tools used:

Adobe Flash
Actionscript
Adobe Photoshop