About Us - Our Consultants
"Our team brings together leading edge experience in a wealth of environments, ranging from client/server to web applications and from e-commerce to hand held devices. Understanding how development projects run really helps them to integrate usability into the organisation."
Graham Uff, Managing Director
At Usability by Design we believe there are four core competencies required to make a good usability consultant:
- Training and experience in usability techniques, processes and research
- Understanding for how people think and work with interfaces
- A passion for championing the 'user experience'
- Real experience of development and design environments
Our consultants have many years of experience in the field, designing and building interfaces as well as consulting on usability improvements. They have worked in a variety of European and Global companies, including merchant banks, global software companies, government, local government and retail.
It's important that usability is integrated into any project team, and so our consultants work closely with your team to ensure there is no friction or confusion. Our consultants are always courteous, knowledgeable, personable and friendly.
Our Consultants
Usability by Design was started by a team of three, but has grown to include consultants from a range of backgrounds.
Graham Uff
Managing Director
Graham has a strong financial background and has also worked for over
fifteen years within the Information Technology arena. His experience
has included all aspects of software design and development as well as
usability, systems and business analysis, and project management. Graham
has worked within a wide variety of industries including utilities, manufacturing
and industrial organisations. His customer-focused approach brings a unique
and invaluable skill set to Usability by Design. More
on Graham Uff.
Sean Smith
Director, Senior Usability Consultant
MA (Psych), Grad Dip (Computing)
Sean has combined his training in Psychology (B.A. Hons, 1994 & Masters of Research,
2000) and Computing (Graduate Diploma of Computing, 2002) with his interest in the user
experience in becoming a senior usability consultant. Before joining the usability community,
Sean worked as a member of the Human Factors team at Australia's Defence Science & Technology
Organisation (DSTO) for over seven years, where he worked on the design and evaluation of
advanced visual and auditory display technologies.
Sean has extensive experience in the user-centred design process, including focus groups, interviews, usability tests and expert evaluations. As well as proficiency in the areas of evaluation and testing, Sean has wide experience in task and behavioural analysis, survey development and capturing user requirements.
Sean has managed projects for some of our most important clients, including Reed Business Information, HSBC, O2, Avis Europe, NewScientist, Kellysearch and TotalJobs.
Paul Chandler
Managing Consultant
Paul is a well known User Interface design consultant and a director of
Usability by Design. He specialises in the design of both large-scale,
high-volume client/server systems, as well as e-business and web based
applications. Paul has over nineteen years of software design and development
experience and more than ten years in user interface design. He has worked
in many industries including, retail, local government software houses
and the banking and finance industries. More
on Paul Chandler.
Trevor Thompson
Senior Usability Consultant
BA (Psych.), Grad Dip (Cognitive Science), PhD (pending)
Trevor has been working with Usability by Design since January 2005 and has worked with
clients such as The National Archives, Home Office, John Lewis Partnership, Reed Business
Information, Raymarine, The Environment Agency, Valuations Office Agency, Homechoice and
the University for Industry (Learndirect).
Previous to working with UbD, Trevor was Business Analytics Manager for an Australian website and software development company. He carried out project work for Microsoft, Kellogg's, Nestle', NSW Dept for State and Regional Development, NSW Dept for Information Technology and Management, NSW Premier's Dept, the Smart Internet Technology Co-operative Research Centre and many other clients. In most projects he has been solely responsible for gathering and documenting user requirements, interaction design and functional specifications.
Roger Smithers
Senior Usability Consultant
BSc (Hons, DPS) Ergonomics
Roger has been working with Usability by Design since January 2006, working with clients such
as Reed Business Information, the Environment Agency, Playboy UK, Picsel, Retailchoice.com,
and John Lewis Partnership.
Before joining UbD, Roger worked for 5 years in the automotive industry with TRW Automotive, Land Rover / Jaguar and the Ford Motor Company. Roger has been extensively involved in the design and testing of interfaces for in-car infotainment and car information systems. At Land Rover / Jaguar he was responsible for producing the driver interface, and incorporating design style guidelines and technical architecture requirements into a user-friendly, functional design. Roger was involved with the infotainment system user interfaces on the current Land Rover (New Discovery), Range Rover (including Range Rover Sport) and New Jaguar XK.
Arnstein Teigene
Senior Usability & Design consultant
Arnstein Teigene specialises in the user-centred design process as it relates to online booking
and purchase processes. He has recently been published in trade press on the subject of mobile
device usability. A strong technical background means that Arni also understands strategic and
implementation issues facing clients.
Want to know more about us? Click here to contact us.