Hi, I'm Adrian

Leading with empathy to meet customer and business goals.

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About me

My background

With over 19 years of experience in UX and product design, I have dedicated my career to understanding customer pain points and delivering effective solutions. My journey spans across various business and consumer digital experiences, most recently at Experian Data Quality, where I tackled complex data management challenges for both small and enterprise-level businesses. My approach is rooted in continuous discovery, agile design, and rigorous customer validation through user interviews, workshops, usability testing, and stakeholder alignment. I firmly believe that the best solutions emerge from a deep understanding of the customer, coupled with a collaborative working practice. As a seasoned design leader, I have successfully led small design teams to achieve outstanding outcomes and consistently champion the voice of the customer throughout the organization.

More about me

I've been fortunate to work on projects for a range of large and medium-sized businesses in a variety of sectors including financial services, consumer goods, and data management.

My Approach

Actively listening

People need to feel heard. That’s why at the core of what I do is actively listening, observing, and understanding how users feel, see, think, and say. I aim to seamlessly weave this understanding with business requirements to define the problem that needs solving. To do this effectively, a few things are essential:

  • Close relationships with customers through continuous recruitment and contact channels to ensure a diverse source of research data.
  • Powerful research tools that enable scheduling, facilitating, recording, transcribing, analyzing, and drawing insights efficiently.
  • A centralized place for research that allows querying and pulling insights across large amounts of customer interactions.

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Collaborative design

I enjoy including people in the design process. Making them feel part of creating something connects them to their work and ensures they feel heard. I excel in workshop environments where people come together to brainstorm, critically analyze solutions, and make decisions collectively. The workshops I’ve run are well-received, and participants find them a valuable use of their time.

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I work closely with development teams, product management, content designers, sales, consultancy, marketing, and other departments because each brings a unique perspective. It’s crucial that we build the right thing in the right way.

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Calm leadership

I have led small teams of designers and front-end developers in several organizations, approaching leadership much like solving design problems. Recognizing that people have complex lives, I ensure they feel heard during difficult moments, whether work-related or personal. As a mental health advocate, I prioritize creating a psychologically safe environment, which is crucial for my team to thrive. When they feel supported, they can do their best work, learn from failures, and celebrate their achievements.

Adapting to the future

Throughout my career, I’ve continually adapted to new technologies, integrating them into my work. The advent of Generative AI is no exception, promising to accelerate productivity and transform how we experience products.

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At Experian, I’ve leveraged AI for various tasks, including competitor analysis, populating designs with realistic data, and querying our repository of customer research. By thoughtfully incorporating conversational and automated tools into our products, I’m excited for the shift from pixel-pushing to conversational design and a deep focus on understanding the customer first

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Work

Recent case studies

Voice of Customer
Service design and CX initiative

Voice of Customer

This discovery project looked into the challenges around customer requests which came into the business via various channels and the inefficiencies in our processes that led to some users feeling not heard.

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Data Quality Community
Design

Data Quality Community

The Data Quality Community is a website designed to help users of Aperture Data Studio connect, get help, and download resources. Initially, the community faced challenges with low engagement and difficulty in finding information. User and stakeholder interviews revealed issues with information architecture, fragmented experience, and inactive community participation. Workshops were held to brainstorm solutions, leading to design changes and improved information architecture. After implementing these updates, user feedback was positive, enhancing both external and internal engagement with the community.

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Aperture Data Studio Dashboards
SaaS Data Quality

Aperture Data Studio Dashboards

Aperture Data Studio is a data management and quality platform used across various industries. In 2020, Experian’s hackathon led to the creation of a dashboard feature that provides data analysts with a starting point and business consumers with tools to visualize data quality. This project gave executives a holistic view of their data without needing additional tools like Power BI and improved the homepage experience for all users, allowing them to drill down into their data. The dashboards, launched in 2021, have been well-received, enhancing overall data quality management.

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testimonials

Words from my colleagues

"I have had the pleasure of working closely with Adrian as the Design Lead in our Data Quality business. He has been instrumental in developing our new consumer and client research approach, as well as in selecting the right technology to support our strategic objectives. His expertise in UX, design, and product management is exceptional, demonstrating not only technical proficiency but also a deep understanding of how design can drive business outcomes..."

Derek Garriock

Innovation Director

I worked with Derek at Experian

"Adrian is an extremely hard working and conscientious individual who is adept at understanding the needs of the customer. He is a driven individual who excels at collaborative design work and has been a very supportive and encouraging manager to myself. He is experienced at the end to end design process and would fit straight into any design team. It has been a pleasure working on joint design goals with him over the past year."

Luke Brand

Graduate Product Designer

Luke was my direct report at Experian

"I worked with Adrian for over three years at IeDigital. He is extremely passionate about the customer experience, has a good eye for UX design and works hard to gather data and insights to help shape his thinking. A strong advocate of the end customer, Adrian considers many aspects of the user experience, including things which will help vulnerable customers."

Tom Stinton

Director of Product Consultancy...

Tom was my line manager at ieDigital

View all testimonials on LinkedIn

Interested to work together?

Would love to hear from your and discuss about your project.

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Latest insights

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Jakob Nielsen on AI

Jakob Nielsen on AI

Jakob Nielsen highlights how AI is simplifying programming by moving from low-level coding to higher-level abstractions. In UX, the focus is shifting from pixel-pushing to deeply understanding customers and their needs.