Hi! 👋 I'm Kirsten...

a storyteller who designs

I weave stories into every design project I do, bringing the focus back to what matters most...people.

My work

I have successfully delivered projects with Avanti West Coast, VetPartners, BSI, and Fortius including:
audits â–ª competitor analysis â–ª research â–ª information architecture â–ª tree testing â–ª personas â–ª user journeys â–ª user flows â–ª wireframes â–ª prototypes â–ª usbility testing

Internally, I lead our Community of Practice planning team and facilitate DesignOps projects to benefit the team and wider organisation.

train
Preventing errors and creating clear options for return tickets

Research â–ª User Flows â–ª Prototype â–ª Video

I worked with a national rail company on an error which was causing frustration during their ticket purchase journey.
I redesigned the journey to prevent the error altogether and worked with developers to update the backend logic to support the new design. I supplemented my design documentation with videos of the prototype in action.

View case study
collection of mobile sketches next to laptop
Helping flexible train travellers find the best fare

Research â–ª Sketch â–ª Prototype â–ª Test

I helped to deliver a brand new feature for a national rail company that allows flexible travellers to view the best fare within a range of dates.
I created two personas to shift the focus back to people rather than just business outcomes resulting in a more human-centered product.

NDA - Contact me for more info
avanti west coast train
Helping customers understand how planned engineering works might affect their journey

UI Design

This was a small UI design project to improve the planned engineering works calendar on the Avanti West Coast website. I redesigned the calender and implemented a traffic light system for disruption severity and added a search feature that enables people to filter by route.

View case study
design team
Improving the experience of the design team at Inviqa

DesignOps â–ª Service Design â–ª Research â–ª Roadmap

After being aquired by a global corporation, I took on a large internal research project to discover and define the value of DesignOps within our team and the wider organisation resulting in a roadmap and backlog of projects to improve the way we work and how we work together.

Case study coming soon!
kirsten presenting to a primary school
Inspiring current and future designers to learn and grow

Public Speaking

Storytelling is my superpower.

Here is a selection of speaking engagements including:

View presentations

What people say...

Kirsten is a force of nature!
Since our first call, I've known her progress within the design field will be unparalleled - since she has set her mind on design as a career, she has been achieving that goal with speed and determination. From self-learning coding to the ease with which she applies UX frameworks, to her confident and inspiring presentation skills, she's been nothing but brilliant.

Clients absolutely love her, and the account she has been working on has significantly grown, due to the brilliant work she's been doing.

I have immense respect for how much energy and passion she spends on learning, she made our team so much better since she has joined in so many ways, from working on our progression framework, to systematising our library, to proactively leading research on design ops and looking at how it can help improve the whole organization beyond our team.

Aleksandra Melnikova, Head of Experience Design, Inviqa

I love working on UX projects with Kirsten.
She is great at engaging multiple stakeholders across different areas of the business and making workshops fun and insightful. She has a great level of attention to detail and tenacity when exploring problems and ensures solutions are all encompassing of different customer scenarios. In the rail industry, this can be challenging but Kirsten leaves no stone unturned.

Tom Rowe, Digital Optimisation Manager, Avanti West Coast

She goes above and beyond to make things run smoothly for the team.
She's innovative and forward thinking. Her idea to create a template to track progress has been super helpful and I think that's a really strong area for Kirsten. She sees how systems can be improved, creates a solution and is generous enough to share her ideas without hesitation.

Sarah Haidermota, Early Stage Designer, Inviqa

I was one of the lucky ones that got to work with her first and at no point did she fail to impress, especially as it was a baptism by fire. The project, one of her first at Inviqa, was testing, gruelling, had a huge time pressure and was stressful for the team. Kirsten came in with buckets of enthusiasm, calmness, positivity, quickly onboarded and got stuck in. She took the initiative to implement efficiencies in the project, making things smoother and more manageable for me and the team. She was instrumental to that projects success. We now both look back on it with pride.

Owen Hughes, Experience Designer, Inviqa