His UX career took him from studying in Manchester, to working in London and across the pond to New York, his current base. Andrew, who is originally from Stockport in the UK, reflects back on his journey into UX and some of the lessons he\u2019s learnt along the way.<\/p>\n [GET CERTIFIED IN UX]<\/p>\n Take our Professional Diploma in UX Design course<\/span>\n <\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n \u201cI think I wanted to be a footballer when I was little. When I got to sixth form college, I had no idea really what I wanted to do. But I had passions – there was this new thing called the Internet. I spent a good amount of time on it – you know, dial up modem, back in the day. I was really fascinated with how things existed online. Back then, people were still getting acclimated to what the Internet was and, more importantly, how to use it.<\/p>\n \u201cNowadays, it\u2019s hard to imagine a situation where the Internet doesn\u2019t play a role front-and-centre in a company\u2019s brand and\/or product offering. But back then, the Internet was almost like this distant supportive mechanism for simply drawing people in to advertise or sell something that most likely existed within the physical world. It was a very peripheral experience.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, however, this was great because it gave me a low barrier of entry to get into it at the time. I quickly understood domain names and web hosting, learnt how to write HTML and CSS, and I put my first website live!<\/p>\n \u201cI remember buying my first digital camera in 1999 while at college. My friends were fascinated that I could shoot pictures on a Friday night out and then I\u2019d have them up on a website the next morning so everyone could flick through them. Remember, this was four years before MySpace and Picassa and five years before Facebook.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI went to Manchester Metropolitan University where I earned my Bachelor of Science in Information and Communication Technologies. In hindsight, it was the closest thing to Human Design Interaction I could find at the time.<\/p>\n \u201cIt had parts in web design and user-centric research, parts in information systems and knowledge management, even database theory and a bit of psychology. There were all these interesting modules that I can look back on now and see how they were very relevant to the area and expertise of user experience.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the sideline, I was also learning more about web technologies. I spent a lot of time figuring out what kind of experiences I could create and then worked out how to build them \u2013 usually through plenty of trial and error. At one point, I even got deep into Flash. I felt like my passion and side projects were equally complementary to my degree.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI joined an agency called Clock, who were in Watford, just outside of London. I was employee number eight at the time. It was super interesting – I started as a web designer where, back then, your canvas for creating something was HTML and CSS.<\/p>\n \u201cNowadays, there are plenty of methodologies to understand and work through, from researching and understanding persona work, creating user flows, information architectures (IA) and wireframes, getting concrete ideas and prototypes into Figma, Sketch, Invision or similar, before working closely with engineers \u2013 who now have taken on the brunt of the development work.<\/p>\n \u201cBut back then, it was the designers who undertook front-end web development \u00a0responsibilities. To be honest, I got the inkling that pretty much everybody was doing something similar when working as a web designer back in those days. So while I began my career off as a web designer, it was really 75% development and 25% Photoshop.<\/p>\n \u201cI did that for a couple of years before I found myself getting deeper into IA. You see, while UX certainly existed, it wasn\u2019t a recognised title back in the mid 2000s. Information Architecture was more of the recognised position.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the same curiosity that got me interested in web design. When I joined Clock, I never felt completely satisfied designing somebody else\u2019s solution. I know that sounds strange but I was always intrigued about why I was doing what I was doing. And also, making sure it was the right solution rather than relying on what sometimes felt like blind faith.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you begin talking with stakeholders and clients, you begin to form your own rationale about whether they are suggesting the right solution; reframing the brief, as it is often referred to now. I would ask myself whether they fully understand the problem that they\u2019re trying to solve.<\/p>\n \u201cAs soon as you get into this headspace, you begin to touch on what problem is being solved for who; essentially the user-centric side of the equation.<\/p>\n \u201cGetting deeper into IA as a form of preliminary design helped me gain a hotseat at the table. I could present preliminary designs to stakeholders and have the opportunities to talk to them about what they wanted to get out of them, and what was informing their decisions. This led me more into the natural avenue of being more user-centric. It was always a strange curiosity I guess, of just wanting to understand more about why we were doing what we were doing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI worked agency-side for a number of years and cut my teeth on various projects for the BBC, Channel 4, News International, Eddie Izzard, The League of Gentlemen, and even JD Wetherspoon. I worked closely with a wide group of clients.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing I really enjoyed about going freelance after that – and I contracted for around a year and a half – was that I was able to gain a ton of experience in many diverse industries and workplaces. There were some small companies that had that boutique agency vibe and some significantly larger companies that had a ton of developers, designers, UX-ers and so on.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was through contracting that I gained more exposure to all the different teams that are important in this increasingly maturing digital space: sales, marketing, acquisition, implementation, customer success, and so forth. Not so coincidentally, this was around the same time when digital experiences were becoming productised, with companies turning \u2018digital-first\u2019, where their digital offerings were truly front and centre.<\/p>\n \u201cI started to discover that a lot of the digital team like the web design team were becoming more integrated and working more closely with the likes of sales, support, acquisition and so on. So I thought that was an interesting time to get into freelancing and get exposure to that kind of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBefore I joined Beyond, I spent a year working with Razorfish<\/a> in London. It was a lot of fun. I was leading UX on a bunch of really high-profile projects for the likes of Audi, McDonalds and O2. After Razorfish I moved to Beyond and the first project I worked on was designing the Google Cultural Institute platform, which is known today as Google Arts and Culture<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI defined the majority of the UX for the Cultural Institute and I got to work closely with Product Managers and engineers over at Google. Myself and a couple of colleagues were working three or four days in Paris, then a week or so back in London and then back to Paris again, for about six months. It was quite a gruelling but incredibly rewarding experience.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was first brought into Beyond in 2012, the design team was quite separate from their research and insights team. There wasn\u2019t really a fluid connection between the two teams. It was up to me to use UX as a middle ground to help join those two incredibly complementary teams together. I had already built up some great relationships with these teams within those first six months working on the Cultural Institute.\u201d<\/p>\n [GET CERTIFIED IN UX]<\/p>\n Take our Professional Diploma in UX Design course<\/span>\n <\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n \u201cYes and no – while some people didn\u2019t need persuading, a few did. There was a lot of – and I don\u2019t know if I like the word – evangelisation of what UX is and how it could support the business. But then when you\u2019re evangelising, you\u2019ve got to be careful that you don\u2019t come across as overly preachy because, for some people, they may just turn off – which makes your job ten times more difficult. It was really trying to find moments of education through demonstration, rather than educating just because I happened to know about UX.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes! Because I was the first UX-er at Beyond, and when projects started to appear that increasingly required me to work with and from the States, in 2014, I eventually moved to our New York office. I hired a new Lead UX to replace me in London. I also hired San Francisco\u2019s Lead UX.<\/p>\n \u201cI played this overarching role as Beyond\u2019s Head of UX for about a year or so. But I don\u2019t really believe in trying to have a central power or ownership over a domain like UX. I\u2019d argue also, at the time, Beyond wasn\u2019t yet large enough to support that level of hierarchy. And so, the London and San Francisco UX teams naturally grew independently under their respective leads. But it was really great to know that I had helped to establish our UX offerings in Beyond\u2019s other key markets.\u201d<\/p>\nCan you remember what you wanted to be when you were younger?<\/h2>\n
What did you study at university? Did you enjoy the course?<\/h2>\n
Your first job after college was as a Web Designer and Developer with an agency?<\/h2>\n
![\"UX](\"https:\/\/blog.uxdesigninstitute.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Design-and-Development-1.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\nWhat was it that interested you about getting into UX?<\/h2>\n
You left Clock to work in contract roles and in agencies. People say you really cut your UX teeth when you work agency-side – would you agree?<\/h2>\n
Then you joined Beyond to set up their user experience function?<\/h2>\n
Was there much of a persuasion piece needed when establishing UX in the company?<\/h2>\n
Then you moved over to the States?<\/h2>\n
![\"UX](\"https:\/\/blog.uxdesigninstitute.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Manhatten-skyline.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\nAre there any particular projects that stand out for you during your time at Beyond?<\/h2>\n