Hi! I'm a web designer
specialising in front-end development
and UI engineering

User Interface (UI)

What design will be intuitive for the user?

Screenshot from natwild.com.au

The Naturally Wild home page

Built on Shopify, this is set to pay for itself in 6 months, delivering 150x the previous website!

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Screenshot from redcup.com.au

Red Cup Cafe

Built using Joomla, the owner wanted a unique and authentic look

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UI skills

SkillRatingMeaningExample
Languages
jQueryI create from scratch
JavaScript (native)I know the basicsCustom typewriter (via Codepen)
CSS3 & earlierI could teach itRed Cup Cafe 2017
SASS/SCSSI understand most of itThis portfolio website (via Github)
HTML5 & earlierI could teach itThis portfolio website (via Github)
Pug/JadeI understand most of itThis portfolio website (via Github)
ReactI'm learning itvia Wes Bos
Design
Adobe PhotoshopI've used it for zonksRed Cup Cafe 2008 (via Behance)
Adobe IllustratorI've used it for zonksInfographic on Conflict Resolution (via Behance)
Adobe InDesignI know most of it
Web InterfacesI could teach it
Marketing campaignsI thoroughly understand it
PrintI thoroughly understand itGraphic Design portfolio (via Behance)
Frameworks
BootstrapI create from scratchThis portfolio website (via Github)
JoomlaI could teach itRed Cup Cafe 2017
WordPressI understand most of it

User Experience (UX)

What works for the user to make their experience the best?

Part of the product sitemap

Naturally Wild Information Architecture

Planning and delivering on IA for 1,500 products and variations

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UX skills

SkillRatingMeaningExample
Initiation
Business GoalsI confidently extract goalsRed Cup Cafe 2017
Competitor AnalysisI chart/graph in my sleep
Planning
User Personas/ProfilingI understand most of itRed Cup Cafe 2017
User Story MappingI understand most of itBook review (Jeff Patton)
User JourneysI understand most of itRed Cup Cafe 2017
Accessibility & WCAGI understand some of it
SpecificationsI know pros & cons of many ways
Prototyping
Information ArchitectureI see dead patterns (6th sense)Why I say I have a 6th sense in IA
Prototyping, lo-fiI confidently create
Prototyping, hi-fi (interactive)I confidently createRed Cup Cafe 2017
Qualitative ResearchI understand most of itRed Cup Cafe 2017
Quantitative ResearchI confidently create + analyse
Quality Controls
Standards/GuidelinesI confidently create them
Software
Adobe XDI confidently use it
AxureI confidently use it
Sketch + InvisionI understand the basics
BalsamiqI understand the basics
Proto.ioI confidently use it

UX blog posts

Project Management

How can we manage timeframes?

Gantt chart showing two major pieces in parallel

Outsourcing

How I delivered twice the value for Red Cup Cafe in the agreed time through smart outsourcing.

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Jeff Patton's 'User Story Mapping' book

Agile Project Management

How I have managed this portfolio site

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PM skills

SkillRatingMeaningExample
PM artifactsI could teach this
OutsourcingI thoroughly understand it
Software
Asana + EverhourI've ticked off thousands of tasks
MavenlinkI understand most of it
BasecampI've broken it
TrelloI've broken it
TeamworkI understand most of it
MS ProjectI've pushed it beyond its limits

I have a T-Shaped skill set

Tim Brown, CEO of one of the greatest design companies in the world, IDEO, hires people who are T-shaped.

I-shaped people are traditional experts, specialist in one field.

T-shaped people are the best creatives, able to empathise with a wide field and apply their mastery to new fields.

An I is a specialist, which is bad; a - is a generalist, which is also bad; but a T is a generalising specialist, which is good
A generalising specialist is also called a T-shaped person

Psychology + UX = Peaceful UX

I've combined UX, the Thomas-Kilmann Assertiveness vs Cooperativeness tool, and other Conflict Resolution principles to pioneer "Peaceful UX" (see articles on medium)

From hiring Filipinos, I've learned common personality indicators like Myers-Briggs & DISC personality profiles, and tools to measure IQ and EQ.

I'm 50-50 left and right brain—part big picture and part detailed.

Who cares?

Well, when a fault in a legacy website was going to cost $10-20,000 to fix, and everyone was fixated on the detail, I thought outside the box and found we could bypass that website for that part, using our other website. Inelegant, but free.

When a client asks 'I want a website with these functions' (detail thinking), I draw out the big picture goals and suggest a better solution.

Left + Right brain = Goal oriented designer/engineer

Business management + web = Tenaciously meeting time, cost and quality goals

I've learned how to outsource well so that a 50 hour isometric design can be done almost perfectly in South America (parallel to my work) for a tenth of the cost (see Red Cup Cafe)

I have complete freedom in how I set my business up, so I know hundreds of apps & processes that can easily collectively save a business 10-20+% productivity.

There's the tech support: "Have you tried turning it off and on again".

Then there's the web guru: "Let me Google that for you".

And the self-employed are practical and just have to make something work.

Combined, I'm the guy who says "There's an app for that", because it's not about perpetual inefficient fixing (IT), or just knowing how to pretend you know stuff (via Google), but it's honed, intimate knowledge of the problem, together with hundreds of possible solutions, and the creativity to pull that together to make it work, quickly.

Tech support + Web + Business = Solution finder