Leading design and innovation for an award winning digital product suite.

Leading design and innovation for an award winning digital product suite.

Leading design and innovation for an award winning digital product suite.

Research

UX Design

UI Design

Interaction

Introduction

Squiz: Digital Experience Platform

Squiz: Digital Experience Platform

Squiz Digital Experience Platform (DXP) lets you build and optimise sites, portals and web apps fast. Bring capabilities from any vendor into a single platform, no lock-in.

Team

Sam Marks - Design Director
Toby Margetts - Strategy Director

Thomas Evans - Sr UX Designer
Chris Burnell - Sr Front End Dev
Anh Ta - Senior Back End Dev

Gioan Tran - Product Manager

What I Did

User Testing
Journey Mapping
Experience design
UI Design
Interaction Design
Prototyping

Results

I worked within globally distributed product teams leading design and innovation for the various products within the Squiz Digital Experience Platform.

Background

In 2018 I joined Squiz to lead design across both product innovation as well as assisting their clients throughout the implementation process.

Working through multiple evolutions of the strategy of the product suite, I was fortunate enough to see the overhaul of an archaic product library become one seamless suite in the form of DXP.

In 2018 I joined Squiz to lead design across both product innovation as well as assisting their clients throughout the implementation process.

Working through multiple evolutions of the strategy of the product suite, I was fortunate enough to see the overhaul of an archaic product library become one seamless suite in the form of DXP.

Being an Australian founded company Squiz initially conducted all of their product work out of their Sydney offices, but with the global demand of their products they expanded and opened multiple offices across Australasia, Europe, and North America.

Being the most senior designer across the northern hemisphere it was my job to ideate and deliver design works that aligned with the direction of the business. I consistently worked with product owners and managers in effectively collating materials and delivering design works.

Squiz employees celebrating the company birthday in offices dotted across the globe.

Globally Distributed, Connected Teams

Working remotely across the globe, daily stand-ups and weekly company meetings ensure connectivity is never lost.

Working remotely across the globe, daily stand-ups and weekly company meetings ensure connectivity is never lost.

Project Management

Stack

Jira

For project transparency and work management we used Jira to house briefs, project timeframes, client communications, and work delivery for sign off for both client and product projects.

Google Hangouts

To communicate both internally and externally, Google Hangouts provided the most fluid video conference experience for meetings from simple 1-2-1's to large group sessions.

Slack

Slack carried the weight of all of the internal communications made as a business, utilising group chats as a way to project manage and share information, as well as private chat for all 1-2-1 speedy comms.

Google Drive

Google drive housed all of of our important media, files, & documentation, utilising googles suite of products to allow for the creation of spreadsheets, work documents, and presentations.

Operating out of our beautiful WeWork in London's Silicon Valley (Old Street).

Responsibilities

Events & speaking

Events & speaking

I attended and talk shop at multiple Squiz events, focussing on delivering industry relevant talks and running small workshops at events to introduce the thought process behind the innovation of Squiz products.

Events ranged from Squiz' yearly summit event, showcasing the product latest updates where we'd deliver talks and run workshops, to sector based events externally.

Responsibilities

Design Mentorship

Design Mentorship

As the product design lead, I worked within a small team of four designers from Squiz' London office. Within the team I mentored both of our UX designers, working within the stream of their career ambitions to add value to their career as well as add growth and added design competence internally.

I developed mentoring paths allowing team members to dictate the areas of design in which they'd like to progress, and created the materials and a roadmap to measure that progression off the back of each session.

Responsibilities

Workshop Facilitation

Workshop Facilitation

I was responsible for facilitating design led workshops both internally within our product teams, and externally for product users.

Workshop content would vary dependent on the anticipated output, and would also vary dependent on whether held onsite or remotely.

Product Contribution

Model

Product Contribution

Model

Design System Value

In order to effective contribute to Squiz products, we adhered to a contribution model that ensured every innovation delivered value.

Working within the global product team, ideas and solution sessions were a regular occurrence. Identifying current issues, resolving and prioritising solutions, and prototyping these innovations all required filtering to ensure a fluid system was in place.

Global Workshop

Sessions

Global Workshop

Sessions

Workshops

We'd frequently facilitate global workshops via google hangouts, with different members of the design and technical teams hosting the events dependent on the schedule and projected challenges.

Using whiteboarding programs like Miro, Google Slides, and Figjam, we'd pitch ideas, project issues, and conduct interactive group meetings in Figjam allowing participants to contribute to virtual whiteboarding sessions.

Task Delegation

Once issues are synthesised, solutions are detailed and added to the roadmap via Jira

Once issues are synthesised, solutions are detailed and added to the roadmap via Jira

The establishment of solutions will then be drafted into a detailed brief and delegated to the appropriate team members, be it strategical, design, or technical.

Throughout these phases we are consistency researching and running competitive analysis to ensure we're being as innovative as we can.

Anatomical Works

Brand Curation

Brand Curation

Below is an example of the brand works I created within the product team.

Work Sample

Marketing Content Delivery

Marketing Content Delivery

Below is an example of how I utilised dissected brand facets to deliver the messaging within multiple campaigns.

Work Sample

Squiz Website

Squiz Website

Below is an example the brand rejuvenation of the Squiz website executed in the tail end of 2022.

Anatomical Works

DXP Dashboard Anatomy

DXP Dashboard Anatomy

Below is an example of some of the anatomical work created for the Squiz Digital Experience Platform.

Anatomical Works

Anatomy Applied

Anatomy Applied

Below are examples of the DXP dashboard housing datasets and component libraries in the wild.

Work Sample

Create A Datasource

Create A Datasource

Below is an example of a user journey mapped for Funnelback users to create a datasource.

Work Sample

Navigating Component Sets

Navigating Component Sets

Below is an example of the works conducted for Funnelback users to create a datasource.

Work Sample

Subscription Management Across Your Devices

Subscription Management Across Your Devices

Below is an example of subscription management no matter where you are or what device you're carrying.

Work Sample

Animated Video Content

Animated Video Content

Below is an example of the animation and interaction work I created for product promotion.

Empowering through empathy, guided by data. Collaboratively driving outcomes that resonate.

Crafted with 💜 by Elliot Rylands

Empowering through empathy, guided by data. Collaboratively driving outcomes that resonate.

Crafted with 💜 by Elliot Rylands

Empowering through empathy, guided by data. Collaboratively driving outcomes that resonate.

Crafted with 💜 by Elliot Rylands