I’m currently based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. My passion lies with understanding user needs, advocating for them during the design process, and ultimately crafting products that fulfil those needs. For me, being a part of that journey from the beginning stages is incredibly rewarding. I firmly believe that thorough research is crucial to creating a successful product. By diving deep into research, we gain valuable insights that pave the way for user-centred design solutions.
I currently work for Big Motive as a Design Researcher, you can keep up to date with what I'm doing there over on my socials.
ROOT is a website and mobile application that offers users a subscription to great quality local produce in Northern Ireland.
The aim of this project is to make local produce more accessible and build on the relationship between local producers and their consumers. In doing so, the hope is to educate the community on the importance of shopping local and provide them with opportunity to explore the wide range of great quality local produce on their doorstep here in NI.
It has been a long journey of refining the ROOT brand to get it where it is today. As always, my initial step was to begin on paper, where I could delve into experimentation and fine-tune my concepts through sketching. Once the branding was finalised, I found it incredibly useful to develop a design system that would serve as a valuable resource. It provided a solid foundation to ensure consistency and alignment in my designs.
Creating ROOT has been an incredible learning opportunity and a chance for me to see through an entire end to end design process individually.
Research was an integral part of this project and something I wanted to focus on due to the experience I gained during my placement year. It has been the back bone of this project and played a huge part in the direction that the application took. From desk research, competitor analysis, user surveys and testing, it all factored into the end result. I knew I needed to validate my initial assumptions, and to do this I uncovered the problem through research and created a solution based on real information.
Speaking to local producers especially gave me great insight into their day to day lives and allowed me to design a product that would work for them with their busy schedules. It was also great to be able to test the end product with users and make improvements based on feedback I received.
An application which makes local food more accessible for the people of NI. ROOT builds on the relationship between local producers and their consumers allowing producers to tell their unique stories. ROOT brings with it an opportunity to educate and change the mindset around food shopping habits in Northern Ireland.
