Practical notes
Connecting service touchpoints and operations
Map enquiry, confirmation and delivery. Name the owner and handover material at each touchpoint, then check whether customers can see progress while waiting.
Practical notes
Evaluating digital marketing trends
Give a new channel one audience, one content sample and an end date. Preserve the learning when it produces no useful visits or enquiries instead of extending the trial indefinitely.
Practical notes
7 reasons why content calendars fail
Check that each topic has an owner, required assets and a release date. Keep unconfirmed ideas in a backlog rather than filling every calendar cell with undeliverable work.
Practical notes
Keeping long-term collaboration healthy
Review workload, feedback channels and learning opportunities each quarter. Experience should bring clearer ownership and support, rather than an endless queue of emergency tasks.
Practical notes
Learning from website evolution
Identify navigation, content and customer entry points that still work in an older site. Preserve those journeys during visual changes and compare whether the new layout improves understanding.
Identify navigation, content and customer entry points that still work in an older site. Preserve those journeys during visual changes and compare whether the new layout improves understanding.
Practical notes
Knowledge handover in long client relationships
Maintain a glossary, account ownership and decision history. Verify a handover through a real update task rather than treating a shared folder as proof of continuity.
Maintain a glossary, account ownership and decision history. Verify a handover through a real update task rather than treating a shared folder as proof of continuity.
Practical notes
A practical website year-in-review
List released content, broken journeys and unresolved requests. Separate output counts from improvements to customer tasks, and prioritise the latter in the next planning cycle.
List released content, broken journeys and unresolved requests. Separate output counts from improvements to customer tasks, and prioritise the latter in the next planning cycle.
Practical notes
Turning trend forecasts into testable hypotheses
Give each forecast an observable signal, such as a change in search acquisition or mobile enquiries. Revisit the signal before converting a prediction into a purchase commitment.
Give each forecast an observable signal, such as a change in search acquisition or mobile enquiries. Revisit the signal before converting a prediction into a purchase commitment.
Practical notes
Planning experiments for digital change
Compare manual and tool-assisted approaches on a low-risk workflow. Record quality, time and rework, and expand only when results are consistent.
Compare manual and tool-assisted approaches on a low-risk workflow. Record quality, time and rework, and expand only when results are consistent.
Practical notes
Reducing misunderstandings across regions
State time zones in invitations and describe observable behaviour in feedback. Record holidays and language preferences early to avoid last-minute delivery disruption.
State time zones in invitations and describe observable behaviour in feedback. Record holidays and language preferences early to avoid last-minute delivery disruption.
Practical notes
A future without screens
Split a voice task into short prompts, confirmation and a result. Provide a readable confirmation for money or data submissions instead of relying only on spoken memory.
Split a voice task into short prompts, confirmation and a result. Provide a readable confirmation for money or data submissions instead of relying only on spoken memory.
Practical notes
Designing digital services for older users
Support text resizing, label important actions clearly and allow correction after errors. Observe real tasks instead of treating age as a substitute for usability research.
Support text resizing, label important actions clearly and allow correction after errors. Observe real tasks instead of treating age as a substitute for usability research.
Practical notes
Reviewing evidence of technical innovation
Ask for a problem definition, working prototype and validation records. Evaluate demonstration quality separately from dependable operation and avoid unverified business results.
Ask for a problem definition, working prototype and validation records. Evaluate demonstration quality separately from dependable operation and avoid unverified business results.
Practical notes
Showing the practical value of education pathways
Keep eligibility, learning routes and application entry points on the main journey. Recognition may support the story but should not displace practical course information.
Practical notes
Avoiding unconscious bias in marketing
Review representation, labels and default scenarios for narrow assumptions. Test copy against varied real use cases without inventing customer identities.
Practical notes
Evaluating a digital experience
Assess comprehension, task completion, visual consistency and error recovery separately. Attractive screenshots cover only part of the evidence; retain the interaction journey as well.
Practical notes
Benefits of Responsive Design
Compare the same enquiry task on phone, tablet and desktop. Record missing information, steps and recovery, rather than checking only whether columns stack.
Practical notes
Expressing business responsibility on a website
Separate goals, actions, evidence and unfinished work. State the scope of environmental or social measures and do not present intentions as achieved outcomes.
Practical notes
Presenting design work beyond trophies
Show the user problem, key design decisions and interaction views. Recognition needs verifiable names and dates; use design analysis when that evidence is unavailable.
Show the user problem, key design decisions and interaction views. Recognition needs verifiable names and dates; use design analysis when that evidence is unavailable.
Practical notes
Designing participation in an online charity event
Place participation rules, fund use and closing dates near registration. Explain success and next steps on confirmation so people do not resubmit or miss essential updates.
Place participation rules, fund use and closing dates near registration. Explain success and next steps on confirmation so people do not resubmit or miss essential updates.
Practical notes
Recording the outcome of a charity campaign
Keep participation, received funds and expenditure evidence separate. Check the reporting date and duplicates before publishing figures; registrations are not donations received.
Practical notes
Planning an anniversary website update
Verify dates, historical image permissions and current service information. Keep primary navigation and contact routes available so a commemorative feature does not obstruct everyday tasks.
Verify dates, historical image permissions and current service information. Keep primary navigation and contact routes available so a commemorative feature does not obstruct everyday tasks.
Practical notes
Using game mechanics in a climate-action product
Tie points to explainable actions and state data sources and calculation boundaries. Let users opt out of rankings without losing the core service.
Tie points to explainable actions and state data sources and calculation boundaries. Let users opt out of rankings without losing the core service.
Practical notes
Building a martech stack
Map acquisition, content, email, analytics and customer records, including existing tools. Before adding a system, check export, synchronisation and maintenance ownership.
Map acquisition, content, email, analytics and customer records, including existing tools. Before adding a system, check export, synchronisation and maintenance ownership.
Practical notes
Balancing expressive and usable interactive content
Distinguish story chapters from primary actions. Essential information and contact routes should remain available when animation is reduced or video skipped.
Practical notes
Will conversational interfaces sound the death knell for websites?
Use conversation to clarify intent, then provide readable pages and confirmations. Complex comparisons, conditions and submission results should be retainable outside the chat history.
Practical notes
Making charity-event responsibilities clear
Name the organiser, eligibility, venue or dietary constraints and contact route. Close registration after the event while retaining information to prevent invalid applications.
Practical notes
Design Fidelity & Prototyping
Use low-fidelity wireframes for information order and realistic content for reading and brand questions. Avoid polishing every shadow before the structure has been validated.
Practical notes
Assessing emerging technology through design
Map entry, correction and exit before designing the spectacle. Emerging technology should not make a previously simple customer task harder to understand.
Practical notes
Designing Navigation for Responsive Websites
Prioritise primary tasks and place secondary categories in expandable groups. Mobile navigation should show the current page and support keyboard closing with focus returned to its trigger.
Prioritise primary tasks and place secondary categories in expandable groups. Mobile navigation should show the current page and support keyboard closing with focus returned to its trigger.
Digital disruption – are you ready?
Start with a frequent process that has clear inputs and measurable outputs. Retain manual handling and exception routes while establishing reliable automation.