Civica Digital

UX was fairly new at the company. There were three designers, and the department worked like an internal consultancy: clients hired UX support into projects, sometimes at the office and sometimes on site. The path went from junior to mid-level within two months, then to senior after about a year.

Usually the only designer on an engagement, and often with several running at once. Clients varied in how involved they were. The constant was research. Whether the client worked closely with the team or mostly handed over a brief, testing happened with the people who would actually use the product.

IATA wanted one place for a fragmented payment and booking process. People worked across databases, spreadsheets and emails to manage bookings, move funds and create temporary payment cards.

This was still the tender stage, with no access to users and little beyond the brief. A speculative prototype took a week, after researching comparable systems and interpreting the requirements. It focused on creating a temporary payment card and on making dense financial information feel orderly. It was well received and became part of IPL’s winning bid for a £7 million contract.

Once the contract was awarded, several months of discovery and design followed. Workshops and testing with real users showed how much the pitch had simplified. Temporary cards had nuances the tender never mentioned. Watching people work through spreadsheets, emails and disconnected systems turned into clearer forms, payment flows and tables. The complexity that was needed stayed, organised so people could see what they were doing.

Three decisions mattered most. Information was organised, so booking and financial records could be inspected in clean tables. The critical flows, card creation and moving money, were reworked and needed far more care than the speculative prototype. And the styling stayed neutral, with international use in mind.

Work moved on to other client projects before the platform was finished. It did launch, but final delivery and results aren’t claimed here.

Flybe needed an accessibility overhaul to go with its new purple identity. The site had low contrast, text baked into images and weak screen-reader support. A heuristic evaluation documented the problems and proposed fixes.

The brand colours looked striking but didn’t reliably meet contrast requirements, so they were adjusted to stay recognisably Flybe while passing. Standards were set for developers and for image use too. Where important words had been flattened into graphics, real text went over imagery with a gradient behind it for legibility. The redesigned site launched and went through manual accessibility testing.

This project used forecast data to help councils and contractors anticipate when gritting would be needed, manage road coverage, plan routes and track grit reserves.

It was tempting to build one big operational dashboard, but drivers and controllers needed different things. Drivers needed clear maps and large, readable route instructions. Controllers needed tables of vehicles, routes, reserves and timings, including when to dispatch and how much to carry.

Workshops with people who do the work shaped the role-based design, including one at a gritting industry convention with more than 100 participants. The project moved on before completion, so there’s no confirmed launch outcome to report.

• Shell. A business fuel-card management system for overseeing drivers’ cards, allowances, spending and where cards were used.
• GWR. Contributed to modernising customer journey planning and internal tools, with attention to accessibility and newer technical requirements.
• Home Office and NCSC. Further public sector programmes, with experience design led across discovery, workshops and service design exercises.

As the team grew, responsibility grew to three designers: weekly check-ins and critiques, mentoring, working out each person’s strengths and interests, and training plans with budget secured to match. The role also became visual design specialist for the wider company, supporting marketing with creative assets and direction alongside client work.

One lasting contribution was a high-level WCAG visual guide covering contrast, image use, text size and screen-reader compatibility. Teams worked through it as a check at design sign-off.

Junior to senior, three designers managed and mentored, and accessibility made a routine part of sign-off. The IATA prototype contributed to a £7 million bid, and the project went from concept into detailed design. Flybe’s redesigned site launched with manually tested accessibility improvements. The Met Office workshops shaped specialist operational interfaces.

This covers 2014 to 2019. Some projects were left before completion, and original product designs aren’t published because of client and contractual restrictions.