Hi, I’m John.
I build products at the intersection of design and engineering.

I talk to customers, align stakeholders, design experiences, conspire with engineers, and code interfaces.

I design complex products for technical users that are backed by deep understanding of customer needs and a strong systems mindset. My passion is equally driven by the need to uncover and understand customer problems as it is in the exploration of potential solutions.

I love immersing myself in the details whether it’s clearly defining and articulating the problem in Jira, building out flexible design system components in Figma, or implementing responsive interfaces with CSS and HTML.

2019–
I’m currently democratising access to geospatial data and analytics at UP42.

As the first design hire within the Airbus Defence and Space subsidiary, I have established design practice within the organisation.

I’ve been responsible for establishing a culture of continuous research through a combination of quantitative (SQL, BigQuery, etc.) and qualitative (user interviews, usability testing, etc.) techniques—to ensure decisions are made with the best data and insights at hand.

I also collaborate with our frontend team to establish the foundations of our design system, through the design and implementation of token and component libraries in Figma and Vue.js.

Highlights

  • Catalog Search
    A technically ambitious project to provide real-time visibility into available satellite imagery from multiple providers.
  • Geospatial Solutions Marketplace
    Facilitation of a design sprint exploring the opportunities for a lucrative, yet potentially high risk venture into a new market.
  • Marketing Website
    A holistic redesign of the marketing website driven by a research led understanding of customers.
  • Research Master Plan
    Working closely with sales, marketing, and business intelligence to implement a research stack for gathering, aggregating, and disseminating customer research and insights.

2017–2019
Prior to that, I was helping businesses automate their bookkeeping and accounting at Candis.

As a single person design team, I was responsible for user experience across the portfolio of products at Candis. Practically speaking, I conducted user research, produced design concepts and prototypes, documented epics and user stories, and contributed UI enhancements to the React codebase.

I also led the initiative to scale design to meet the needs of a growing engineering team through the development of a design system that served as the style guide and component library for current and future Candis products.

2015
I also helped people discover sports venues and achieve their fitness goals at Urban Sports Club.

When the service was only available in Berlin, I implemented key technical infrastructure including source control and continuous integration to support the startup’s ambitious plans for rapid growth which now covers over 80 cities.

My key achievement was leading the delivery team, where I designed the Restful API specification and mobile app experiences. Within three months, we replaced the existing manual membership card and log sheet processes with an API and mobile apps enabling members to check-in with their iOS and Android devices.