about me

A little insight into what defines me from the next
A little insight….
about

My name is Gary Whelan and my passion is how we interact with the entire world around us, and creating products that enable people to do this better. From my early childhood I would always sketch ideas for products or inventions, now being an adult and i am basically doing this it in the digital world. I am blessed my career is something I have always enjoyed doing.

I enjoy the challenge of being presented with real world problems and being tasked with creating a digital solution. From architecting mobile apps for the education sector, to complex software solutions for the Fintech world.

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SOME OF MY WORK

PROJECT NAME: HUMM

OBJECTIVE: RESEARCH, TEST AND DESIGN A NEW UX STRATEGY FOR THIS COMPANY

I was approached by a company in Ireland called Flexifi, who had an existing product in the Fintech sector over the last number of years, who were preparing to scale their company, and optimise their product.

The product provides a method for shoppers to make instant purchases in store, and pay back in installments with zero interest up to a certain amount. My objective was to do a complete audit of the previous product, conduct research on methods to optimise the user experience based on that audit, carry out user testing, build wireframes and create a high-fidelity prototype to test some of these ideas. I then went through a test and evaluation phase before completing the final design.

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Full Portfolio here

PROJECT NAME: KTTIPAY

OBJECTIVE: CREATE A PLATFORM THAT ALLOWS USERS MANAGE FINANCES AND SHARE EXPENSES

This project was brought to me with just an general idea and an objecive to take that idea through first, a phase of validation and early research tp provide enough data for the client to then feel comfortable in proceeding to a build phase.

Through a variety of methods from internal brainstorming sessions, prototyping and desk research we achieved the validation the client was seeking and started a full traditional UX process. Further research, wireframing and eventually onto the final design you see below.

The final result evolved from what was simply an idea for bill splitting to what is now a more robust group sharing and expenditure product. Users can create accounts or ‘Kitties’ and share them with loved ones to group save and virtual cards are generated for all members to spend with. It is an extremely quick process when compared to banking products.

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MY METHODOLOGY

The more experience I have built up working as a UX Designer, the more that I have experimented both individually and as part of groups, different methods of sourcing information which can help to map out the direction of a product.

As a full stack UX designer, I am as passionate about seeing the reaction of test users in the early stages of a workshop, as I am about seeing the reaction of the client when they see the final design working for the first time.

From sketching on paper, to wireframing and from interviewing test users to viewing the results of a survey about my teams ideas, the research phase is the most crucial part of the process. I most enjoy creating personas and having sticky note sessions for projects, as I find they really fuel creative thoughts and ideas which have resulted in some great features in finished products.

CASE STUDY - INSTAGRAM STORIES AR MODE

OBJECTIVE: A LOOK INTO AR FUNCTIONALITY BEING IMPLEMENTED INTO INSTAGRAM STORIES

As a Product and UX Designer, my mind naturally and regularly envisions ways in which users interact with products, both digital and physical. I wanted to use that ability to imagine the user experience of my favourite social media tool, Instagram.

The objective of Instagram, whether through Stories or Posts is to allow users to become digital storytellers. To share moments, be they passing or everlasting events in their lives and to more importantly, immerse their audience in that story. So I wanted to build upon that offering even more interactivity in how users can engage in this content. By allowing users to both create and consume stories at particular locations and pinning them in AR. The example below showing a user in Times Square who can view in augmented reality, stories pinned to that location.

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PROCESS FROM PAPER TO FULL DESIGN

PROJECT NAME: TEEMIE

OBJECTIVE: IMPROVING THE WORKFLOW OF STAFF AND MANAGERS IN NON-OFFICE INDUSTRIES

Teemie is a project that I have been lead researcher and designer from the conceptualisation phase, to post development. I have been responsible for not only providing the necessary data in the early stages to validate the product, but also for creating the full product design for multiple platforms, wIth desktop, mobile and admin packages .

The creation of that product did not end there with my responsibility continuing while being the PM and guiding the process through full development. Our objective was to create a product that would help out certain industries with tools built just for them, and with a v2 and investment incoming, I believe we more than achieved that.

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PROTOTYPING

I am a big believer in testing ideas, and it is our responsibility as UX designers to use every method possible to validate an idea for a client. This can have many different outcomes, either they will have the best version of their idea moving forward they or will quickly find out if they need to re-evaluate their plans.

Fully interactive, high-fidelity prototypes will give them the information they need to make this decision, before paying high costs for development. This cannot be achieved with traditional hotspot prototypes. Which is why I use tools like Flinto, that allow complex animations and behaviours to build as close to a final product as possible.

It is also the most powerful visual from a design perspective to analyse the user experience and make any adjustments necessary. I have in the past couple of years begun to use prototypes far more regularly, as a method to create a a fully realised visual for the client, but also to enable the development teams to have an interactive visual to work from. This alone saves many potential back and forth.

PROJECT NAME: STUDENTITY

OBJECTIVE: THE CREATION OF POWERFUL SOFTWARE TO COMBAT ACADEMIC CHEATING

This project required a long research and discovery phase. One which would provide the data necessary to provide a software solution which would aim to eradicate any kind of cheating or plagiarism in college and universities. The product had the objective to provide some innovative features, which would combine to ensure that a person taking an exam or doing an assignment is the correct person, in addition to the originality of what they write.

Workshops and a lot of testing and iteration was needed to create the result. One which is now in the process of being adopted by some schools with a view to some big years ahead bringing it to the rest of the world.

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PROJECT NAME: ED TRIPPER

OBJECTIVE: A STUDY INTO THE BEHAVIOUR OF TEACHERS AND STUDENTS ON EDUCATIONAL TRIPS

Working closely with the client company, in addition to some schools in Australia and museums, we had to objective of improving the interaction and organisation of school trips. Our early research showed that there were many options out there for booking or organising the administrative aspect of a school trip.

Parental permission, logistics etc. The area we wanted to focus on was how teachers and students interacted while on the trip, and how digital tools could enahnce the learning experience for kids.

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PROJECT NAME: FURTHR

OBJECTIVE HELPING TRAVELERS TO ORGANISE MANY ASPECTS OF THEIR TRIPS

I lead this project from research phase, through iteration and improvement of the concept to completing the final design. WIth quite a new concept and some innovative tools within the product, the challenge was to create a flow that would house some of these innovative new tools, within a package that made sense for the demographic that we were targeting.

We achieved the end result with a combination of workshops, interviews with travellers, a lot of internal brainstorming and some good old fashioned iteration. The design result was also created with a lot of hard work and discovering the right feel for this demographic. The objective was to be fresh, appealing and easy on the eye and I believe that we achieved this.

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CASE STUDY : TECHNOLOGY IN FASHION RETAIL

User experience and mobile usage in retail, not just in fashion but in any aspect of commerce is one that is changing on a consistently regular basis over the past decade and all signs point to that trend continuing into the next decade.

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CASE STUDY: DESIGNING AND CARRYING OUT UX WORKSHOPS

A key element of research, in particular in the user experience or interaction design field is how to gain insight into what people like when interacting with products, how they use apps or websites, what they expect and more importantly what they don’t like.

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GARY WHELAN 2020