Stephen Rea

CVPortfolio

2017

Stephen Rea

With 21 years of design experience Stephen has worked with numerous clients helping them to envisage their business goals by creating outstanding designs that put the customer at the heart of the product. This encompasses a broad portfolio of design achievements which covers service design, mobile applications, interactive products & games, along with product and architectural visualization. Adding to this Stephen has also worked as an Autodesk and Adobe instructor, teaching and mentoring literally hundreds of people and now give his knowledge away for free on YouTube.

Stephen has helped to introduce, lead and manage User Centred Design practices with an emphasis on lean agile methods which govern all of the design work he directs. The effect of this has been to help the companies Stephen has worked with to be more design lead in their thinking and thus more customer focused in their approach to services and products. This has meant in many instances having to build up or re-structure the design teams and their workflows and practices to make them more agile and customer focused.

At the end of the day Stephen still loves being a designer. At the heart of everything he does is a desire to produce designs that are truly beautiful because they balance both the desire to innovate with business needs and still keep the needs of the user central at all times.

+44 (0) 7968 753 324stephen@neatsphere.comwww.neatsphere.com

attributespassionate designercreative thinkerexperienced design leader, manager and director

//Career History

Lead Design Manager

Orange France Telecom

Company:

Date: January 2014 - present

As a Lead Design Manager at Orange, Stephen is responsible for the Orange Branded Device Experience Program run from London XD-Labs, ensuring that he delivers world class User Centred Designs to our country partners throughout Europe and AMEA.

Keeping UCD at the heart of this program Stephen also plans and schedules workloads and budget for my team as well as working with product owners to define yearly development cycles for continuous improvements to our users experience.

Whilst this is a management role he is also a firm believer in leading from the front and supporting his team at every stage of the design process – from User Story writing to Logic Architecture - creation of wireframe Key Screens & User Journeys and finally polishing the whole experience with a cohesive visual style that helps to reinforce the notion of Holistic UX.

Summary:

Platforms worked on:

Roles & responsibilities: Leadership of the user experience and visual design of the Orange Experience design program.

Management of design team and external studios.

Budget responsibility of 650€k pa.

Work with Brand and Transversal teams to ensure that all work is on brand.

Setting consistent standards across all projects with team and contractors.

Organization and management of User Testing.

Reporting directly to Factory Director and VP of D&U.

iOS, Andoird, Windows

Job title:

Job title: Head of Design

Blackthorn Technologies LtdCompany:

Date: June 2013 - December 2013 - contract

previous

Job title: Lead UX / UI designer

Chelsea Apps FactoryCompany:

Date: November 2012 - May 2013

Job title: Lead UX / UI designer

Hooplo MediaCompany:

Date: April 2012 - November 2012 - contract

Job title: Art Director - Beautiful Game Studios

Square EnixCompany:

Date: November 2010 - April 2012

Job title: Owner

Neatsphere StudiosCompany:

Date: 2005 - November 2010

Job title: Ideawork Game Studio

Lead ArtistCompany:

Date: 2004 - 2005

Job title: Senior Designer

SuperscapeCompany:

Date: 2000 - 2004

Job title: Designer

Silcon DreamsCompany:

Date: 1997 - 1999

Job title: Demo Artist

Gee Broadcast SystemsCompany:

Date: 1995 - 1997

Current position

//Design Process

A/B

DiscoverEvery design starts with research. It’s all about finding out about the client, their company and who the target audience is. Mapping out an potential features in the early stages of a project is just as important as working out customer journeys and how people will interact with the company / product or service being designed.

PlanPlanning is all about creating a logical architecture for the design that has input from the whole team. Everyone’s input is considered and added to the mix. From here a product / service MVP can be created with a roadmap that will help validate concepts and features during deliv-ery & launch.

SketchIt is said a picture paints a thousand words and having layouts and user journeys laid out in wire-frame for all to view is a great communication tool. It helps make sure all the logic designed actually works and forms the back-bone of the interactive prototypes to come.

PrototypeThis is where everything starts to come to life. Whether it’s the visual look or being able to walk through the user journeys as they designed, the prototyping stage gives the rapid start to a program that helps keeps costs down and quality up.

User testingYou can never know how a product or service will perform in the real world until you release it but user testing helps to minimise the risk of failure and the likely hood of success. It also gives verifiable evidence that can be used to iterate your prototype, helps to validate features and can even be used to alter project deliveries.

LaunchOnce a final MVP has been produced & tested we are ready to launch. Once out in the real world it will be the analytics that have been built into the design that will tell us how well it is performing and what in-life chang-es need to made to make the it more successful.

//Latest ProjectsprojectSoHo Business Hub

Why?Business requirements : To move from a traditional static sales model that asks customers to pick an offer based around devices and tariffs to an inspirational source that guides, empowers and reassures customers that it is possible to achieve more from Orange’s digital services so that Orange can re-position it’s services from simply competing on price to being seen as a thought leader who supports and adds value to SoHo customers.

roleLead Design Manager

platformWeb / Mobile

companyOrange France Telecom

Who?Primary Customer Persona :

Type of persona Trendy office

Name Anna

Age 40 (ish) - never like to press a lady on her age.

Type of business Artisan Bakery

Number of employees 2 full time and 2 part time.

Biggest business worry Working with perishable stock.Finding and keeping customers.Employee sickness and reliability.

Motivators ‘It’s great when cstomers smile and become regular purchasers and when the bakery gets noticed by critics and bloggers’.

Frustrations It’s not great when employees don’t share her commitment and the admin gets in the way of leading.

Summary Having started her business during an economic crisis and being higher educated than most Anna’s business plan is designed to deal with a slow economy with slow growth. To achieve a high growth rate Anna has identified that she needs to be digital with her marketing approach in an industry that is very traditional.

Secondary Customer Persona :

Type of persona : Nomadic Type of business : ConstructionNumber of staff : 1 - 5 full timeBiggest business worry: Availability of contractors and trust with them, manag-ing project deadlines.Motivators : It’s when a job finishes on time and the customer is happy.Frustrations : It’s difficult having to constantly solve problems arising from unforeseen circumstances.Summary : Everything is tool to be used to get the job done and that includes technology, if it doesn’t work well I won’t use it again.

Type of persona : Old fashioned Type of business : Landscape careNumber of staff : Father & sonBiggest business worry: Balancing different workloads.Motivators : Getting paid on time is good as well as being on top of work.Frustrations : Managing supplies and late payments is a real pain.Summary : We only really need technology for billing & supplies, I don’t see how else it can be of much use.

Type of persona : Digital transitional Type of business : Osteopath Number of staff : Her + one partnerBiggest business worry: Scheduling her growing number of patients.Motivators : Knowing she is making her patients better.Frustrations : Paper work taking me away from my work.Summary : Knows that technology is useful and will help but either doesn’t have to the or inclination to find out more on her own.

Paul David Claire

What is the conclusion?Small SoHo busines owners don’t really have the time to do their own paper work, let alone spend time researching how technology could help them with that task. Most are not particularly technology literate past the basics so do not understand technical terms past those in every day use.

How might we go about solving this problem?From the business needs we see that there is a need for repeat business outside of the bi-yearly agreement plan for a new phone.From the SoHo needs we see a lack of time, inclination and understanding of technology.

Therefore the solution should help inform the SoHo owners of available technology in a friendly, non pushy way so as make them feel comfortable, whilst at the same time steering them quietly toward the technology that will help them improve their business.

Customer journey

987

4 5 6

321

10 11 12

Anna runs a small garden centre and to keep her business running and increase client and staff engagement she needs tofind new ways to grow the value of her sales.

On the train home from work Anna is thinking about how she might increase sales and customer engagement when she receives a text notification about her phone bill from Orange.

Clicking on the link she begins to scroll through the content and is pleased to see it’s not another sales offer. What Anna needs is inspirational advice to help her think differently about the business problems she faces on a daily basis.

Anna finds Karin’s story inspirational and is pleased to see there are options to explore the story in more detail.She is also reassured to read the questions and answers relating to the challenges which she struggles to find solutions for.

Later in the evening Anna is checking her emails on the PC and sees the link she sent to herself and her team.She decides to learn more about how she might be able to apply Karin’s solutions to her own business challenges.

Anna does not want to be confused and needs to be able to follow the logic of how Karin has made her choices. She needs to believe that she can create her own version of Karin’s story. She is reassured to see Peer to Peer recommendations.

Inspired by Karin’s story,and how relevant herbusiness challenges areto her own. To keep her engaged she requires an easy and logical step through process that starts with her business challenges.

Anna needs reassurance and guidance throughout that she is building a business solution and not just buying additional technology, data or more expensive tariffs.

Anna likes the fact that the configurator starts with the business challenges she is trying to find solutions for, it then asks her what software business tools she is using and then asks her about connectivity, devices and tariffs.

Anna is configuring six separate elements and needs to be able to see clear overviews of potential purchases and her own software and products included in the profile configuration. She wants reassurance that Orange really can create a complete business solution.

Anna anticipates her staff may have some concerns around using technology to help them increase the monetary value of customer sales, so she shares the configuration profile.

Two of her staff have some concerns about how much training they can expect to receive. She decides to log back into her profile and use the E-Chat gain a better understanding of what is included in the package.

Whilst she likes the look of her profile configuration she is concerned about the monthly subscription cost.She knows that the Garden Space is about to enter the quieter summer months,

she finds it extremely helpful that there is a menu of costs so it is easy for her to make a considerable saving on the number of devices without compromising the business solution.

Knowing that setting up technology can be both frustrating and time consuming Anna decides on the full set up option. She is pleased to see that this option is included in her monthly subscription package.

Anna is anxious about the potential disruption that setting up might involve. Lauren from Orange arrives early and much to Anna’s delight all of the devices are preloaded and Lauren shares some useful working practices for transferring data. The staff are reassured by the easy to follow tutorials should they need a refresh on how a particular element works.

Anna’s challenge was to inspire customer and staff management to unlock new ways to increase the value ofsales. After one month her customers are using social media to highly rate the service. She looks forward to receiving the regular updates from the Tomorrow Club.

Service logic SketchingSimple rough sketch are created initally to help visualise early concept layouts for stakeholders and team members alike. These can be produced during meetings as well as after in order to have as much team input as possible during this stage.

For speed Adobe XD is used to take the sketches to the next stage of mock-up. There are many advantages of working this way that include, easy of use, speed , easy to make changes and generating quick feedback.

Keeping the principles that the business hub should be inspiring, empowering, guiding and reassuring the service logic reflects the customer journeys and helps describe the whole service for team clarity. The main challenge of this part of the design is to balance the need of the business to generate business and to not make the customers feel that they are being manipulated - the solution here is too allow the user to back out from where they are without fear of consequence.

Mockups

Staying in Adobe XD it is now possible to quickly link elements together to start testing the customer journey to ensure all the touch-points are met. This is where constant changes can happen and it help to make sure everything is set up correct to avoid time being wasted.

Prototype

Reporting results: Provided at the conclusion of a test it consists of a report and/or a presentation of the results, evaluated against the usability matrix and it’s goals. Recommendations can be made for resolutions of issues uncovered and categorized against development cost to resolve.

Usability Goals :Completion rate – the completion rate is the percentage of test participants who successfully complete the task without critical errors. Error-free rate – the error-free rate is the percentage of test participants who successfully complete the task without any errors – or non-critical at least.Time on task (TOT) – The time to complete a scenario is referred to as “time on task”. It is measured from the time the person begins the scenario to the time he/she signals completion.

Subjective measures : Subjective opinions about specific tasks, time to perform each task, features, and functionality will be surveyed. At the end of the test, participants will rate their satisfaction with the overall system. Combined with the interview/debriefing session, these data are used to assess attitudes of the participants

Problem severity : To prioritize recommendations, a method of problem severity classification will be used in the analysis of the data collected during evaluation activities. Impact – Impact is the ranking of the consequences of the problem by defining the level of impact that the problem has on successful task completion. Generally classed as high, medium or low. Frequency – is the percentage of participants who experience the same problem when working on a task. High is 30% or more, moderate is 11-29%, low is 10% or fewer.Problem severity classification – the identified severity of each problem implies a general reward for resolving it and a general risk for not addressing it in the current release. These can fall into four categories ranging from 1-4 with detailed descriptions for each.

Methodology : briefly describe the number of participants, the setting & tools used.Participants – Number of people, how they will be recruited, eligibility, skills & knowledge.Training – Will training need to be provided to perform the tasks – if what & how much.Procedure – Where will the test take place, which equipment will be used, where will the test team be & what type of equipment will they use.

Roles : the following are roles involved in a usability test, a person may have multiple roles and not all roles are required in every test:Trainer – Provides any required training in order to perform the test.Facilitator – Provides an overview to the participants, defines test criteria, assists participants during the test.Data Logger – Records participants actions and comments.Test observers – The silent observer in the room, also assists the data logger in identifying problems, concerns, any code and or procedural errors.Ethics – All persons involved with the usability test are required to adhere to the following ethical guidelines: •The performance of any test participant must not be individually attributable. Individual participant’s name should not be used in reference outside the testing session. •A description of the participant’s performance should not be reported to his or her manager.

Usability Test Plan Overview: written as an example as the project is yet to reach this stage

Usability Metrix :Scenario completion – define what the goals are and when they are considered complete.Critical errors – define how far away from the desired outcome of a scenario target is considered to be a critical error – generally caused by work-flow errors.Non-critical errors – recorded as errors from the participant that do not constitute a critical error – ie excessive key stokes – that be caused by confusion in usage.Subjective evaluations – collected via a questionnaire at the end during the debriefing and should be done in the form of free-form feedback as well as rating scales.Scenario completion ( time on task ) – recorded as the time taken to complete each scenario, not including any subjective evaluation durations.

Overview : a simple set of statements outlining the test plan, the goals of usability

Executive summary : summarize specific details of the usability test for the given product and describe any specific functions to be evaluated.

Usability tasks : Usability tasks are derived from test scenarios that have been developed from the use cases and / or with the assistant of a subject matter expert.

Making a phone easy for twenty-four millions people to use isn’t easy. Sometimes people need help. For the times when they

do there is Orange Assistant, ready to explain the unintelligible and turn it into the easily actionable. Even for those who’ve

never used a smart phone before.

Simple in it’s design it is a framework that allows other Orange applications to push their own help files to it so that Assistant

becomes a help system for any phone with an Orange sim card in. The long explanation is that the third party Orange app

creates a list of help files it pushes to Assistant first. This allow the user to browse for help quickly without having to reference

the third party app which would create a bottle neck. Once found, the help files is retrieved from the third party app or is

downloaded if necessary, with an option for the user to wait till in wifi range if they are concerned about data usage.

It consists of three main sections, Find help, Manage my phone, and it’s own Settings. The second section, Manage my

phone, surfaces settings for the phone that would otherwise be hidden from the user in th phones main settings page.

Although this appears to be task duplication at first, the interfaces are much more simplistic in order to allow for ease of

understanding.

summary

//Other recent projectsprojectOrange Experience Program

roleLead Design Manager

platformAndroid Mobile

companyOrange France Telecom

The Orange Experience program is an ecosystem of applications that live on any phone that has an Orange sim card inserted.

The community consists of static applications such as the boot animation and start-up wizard and work in conjunction with an

augmented home screen, a learning help system and a branded app store.

Homescreen:

It’s a little misleading to use the

singular here as there are in fact three

Homescreen layouts that hold the

whole of Orange Experience together.

The ‘Confident’ homescreen is for users

who don’t wish the manufacturer or

operator to clutter their home screens

with lots of widgets and apps that they

are just going to remove anyway.

The ‘Basic’ homescreen is for general

users who may not want to configure

their own experience so much and are

happy to have recommended apps and

widgets on their home screens.

Finally we have the ‘Simple’

homescreen. unlike the other two,

the simple homescreen is locked to a

single page with a set of large evenly

spaced icons that mirror options found

on feature phones. This options is for

those who don’t want, like or even need

all the features of a smart phone but

would like to keep their screens clear.

It is also the screen we recommend for

customers who are transitioning over

from a feature phone to smart phone

for the first time and want a familiar

experience before diving deeper into a

smart phones capabilities.

summaryTo really add things in the mix we also

have an advanced interaction method

called ‘Gestures’. This is exactly how

it sounds. By swiping a pre-determined

shape on the screen the user can

perform functions such as launching

apps, sending email, searching for apps

and even getting help.

Along with boot animations, wallpapers

and ring tones the Orange Homescreen

suite is one of the most comprehensive

on the market; by continuously User

Testing both during development and

in-life, we have a wealth of data that

help us to create the best experience

for our customers. What’s more this is a

rolling program that updates on a yearly

basis to match the Android release

updates we are able to implement our

findings.

Assistant : integrated help system

Status : Live

summary

Apps Orange:

Apps Orange is a key application for

Orange as a mobile operator. Allowing

it to remotely download and install

updates over the air to all it’s twenty-

four million customers on it’s branded,

partner and open market devices.

Essentially this application is an app

store, with the added twist that Orange

can surface it’s own applications

ahead of external ones. The user can

browse through a standard set of

categories shown in list format with the

apps themselves in a carousel mode

and view more information about the

selected app or game. Apps that are

either trending or new are displayed

in the highlights section at the top of

the screen. When it is time for an app

to update, enriched notifications are

sent to the user not only describing

he update but showing screen shots if

applicable.

The help files from Apps Orange

also integrate seamlessly with

Assistant giving the user the feel of an

ecosystem of connected applications

- something that will become more

important to Orange moving forward.

From a business perspective

this is the most important app

in Orange’s collection as partner

handset manufactures only allow one

application to be embedded on their

devices from an operator, meaning

Apps Orange is the gateway for all

Orange applications.

Start-up wizard :

summaryThe Start-up Wizard is the beginning

of the customer’s journey with Orange.

Helping set up their new phone the

way they want whilst introducing all the

great apps and features Orange has to

offer.

Of course there are many other

great features with this app, like

accessibility for older adults or the

visually impaired, with stronger force

feedback to let them know when a

button has been tapped. The user is

also introduced to Orange gestures -

an advanced way of searching for and

opening apps even if they aren’t an

Orange app!

Where traditional start-up wizards are

a linear journey for the customer we

have created a non-linear experience

that allows the user to ignore elements

that are not relevant to them whilst

making suer that that they can easily

access everything they might need

when using their phones.

Blackthorn’s Case Notes is the ulti-

mate in secure note taking. Based

around a simple IA system of ‘cases’

- similar in concept to a real briefcase

case notes allow users attach forms,

images, photographs,video and audio

to a case and to securely. All data

within the app is hashed so that tam-

pering with a file is impossible.

Another interesting side to this app

is that is apart of Blackthorn turnkey

mainframe solution that allows user

to upload and collect large amount of

files on to one system for processing

as part of a larger project.

summary

Blackthorn Case Notes :

projectCase Notes

roleHead of Design

platformiOS

companyBlackthorn technologies

GSK - connectLeaders :

projectconnectLeaders

roleLead UX/UI Designer

platformiOS

companyChelsea Apps Factory

The connectLeaders app is designed

to keep senior managers at GSK up

to date with what is happening in the

company and also how the company is

being perceived from the outside. Along

with the ability to quickly check stock

prices managers are kept up to date

without having to spend time looking

up articles.

Managers are able to browse articles

and even link to external sources.

Articles can also be ranked by likes and

comments left regarding the articles

which can lead to conversations.

To save managers time looking up

colleagues who have posted articles

or comments there is a function that

allows mangers to contact people

directly from within the app. Giving a

straighter line between cause & effect

when posting articles.

summary

Finding Stephen elsewhere on the web : Deloitte Timesheet :

projectDeloitte Timesheet

roleLead UX/UI Designer

platformBlackberry z10

companyChelsea Apps Factory

The Timesheet app is a joint venture between BlackBerry and Deloitte

to deliver a mobile time keeping application for Deloitte on the (then)

new BlackBerry Z10 platform. With Deloitte consultants and staff having

to account for their time down to increments of three minuets a design

was required that would make that as simple as possible. The solution

was a virtual one touch to mark the start & end of the current task being

worked on - reduce time & stress on consultants & staff and making

correct filing more accurate.

summary

YouTube channel In previous life Stephen has worked as Adobe ACE Instructor and a Autodesk ACI Instructor as well. On YouTube you can find over 120 video showing how to use Autodesk 3ds Max and AutoCad with all the project files available on his website – all for free.

Stephen is a great believer in the freedom of knowledge and the self empowerment it brings to those who apply themselves to learning of any kind and at any time of their lives. Learning new skills throughout our lives is all our responsibility.

Personal websiteThere are more examples of Stephen’s work on his personal website, as well as links to his LinkedIn profile and the project files for the videos mentioned above.

//AppendixStephen’s notes on running a service design workshop :

Define roles: You don’t always get to decide with whom you work with. Even if you do, there’s no guarantee that you’ll be successful. Conflicts of interest and differing values or goals often get in the way of a team’s progress.

Defining team roles for the workshop will help you create a blueprint for the engine behind a project: a well-balanced team. As a co-created document, the team charter will help clarify the team’s direction while establishing boundaries.

Put things in context :When most teams begin to unpack the context of their product or organization, they take a myopic point of view that is rooted in the here and now. By creating context for the product or service, you and your team expand your thinking beyond the boundaries of your product and organization, to have a deeper conversation about what’s going on in the world and what’s changing that will affect your business in the future.

Important to know is that doing this starts to add real value after you have revisited it a couple of times. The first time doing it will serve to get the top-of-mind trends for your team mapped out. Revisiting, it becomes easier for team-members to add evidence for trends, or to actively hunt for trends that you and your team did not identify the first time. Those are the dark horses that can come out of nowhere, simply because they are not on your organization’s map: those are the developments to start to look for.

Define the customer persona : The persona canvas can be used to give a customer segment a face and name and make it easier to step into the shoes of the customer. Personas make talking about customers and their characteristics more tangible and concrete, and make it easier to refer back to a pattern of characteristics. Personas make it possible to create and share mental models and have a common language about several customer types.

Agenda storyboards : Agenda storyboards help you to design a meeting or workshop and share this with the key stakeholders and facilitators. Well-designed agenda storyboards enable you to gain clarity about what can be done during a workshop in order to make decisions about time, activities, and topics to be covered. Most importantly, a screenplay is a visual tool to help you design for results while managing all of the information in one simple document.

One misunderstanding is that the agenda storyboard is fixed and therefore not flexible. That’s not true. The storyboard should be co-created with the core team to help everyone design a results-driven meeting or workshop. In this way, a storyboard will actually help you to be flexible.

Moreover, when you design your agendA storyboards in blocks of time/activities, it enables you to shift to new blocks should the expected-unexpected occur, like lateness due to traffic jams, etc

Workshop check list :Design is not business as usual. The spaces your team designs in must be able to handle a new way of working. Design also is not linear. It is an iterative process in which you will constantly need to refer to artifacts that have been developed along the way. Carting these around the office and sticking them on different walls every other day not only is a pain in the neck, but also reduces the time you have to actually design. This reduces overall productivity. Having a ‘war room’ where the team can get together and see progress will boost productivity and efficiency tremendously.

Idea wall :The purpose of this stage is to fill up an entire wall with the ideas generated by a team in a short amount of time. This technique uses trigger questions to get the creative juices flowing. Using time pressure and a sense of competition (who added the largest number of post-its?) make it easier to shake any creative blocks. In groups of around 10 people, it is doable to reach more than 200-300 ideas in half an hour! From those ideas, there will always be a few that are truly new and interesting. You need to get past the ideas everyone already had first...

The idea wall is a great way to record the results of your ideation session. Asking them trigger questions as they fasten their sticky notes to the wall is a great way to get everyone, from the introverts to the extroverts, working together creatively and feeling a sense of achievement. As each team member adds ideas to the wall, the rest of the team will no doubt come up with new ones or point out ones that are funny or interesting.

Card sort your idea wall:Now that you have generated hundreds of ideas, it is time to make a selection. What are the really promising ideas? In many situations, this is where teams can bog down. What is needed is a simple way to categorize ideas with respect to the criteria defined earlier.

We humans are fantastic at categorizing things. We spend much of our professional lives categorizing and sub-categorizing the work we do. When it comes to pairing down your wall of ideas, a 2x2 matrix is a perfect tool to harness our innate ability to categorize.

Create a value proposition : Once the card sort has been done it is now possible to start looking at using a standard Lean Canvas board to start defining things more clearly for the business to understand

*\\ of course this just the start point of the design process but it’s a good start. From here there is still much user validation to be done to ensure the right ideas are being put forward.

Thank you