Welcome to my portfolio
Here I'll talk through some projects I've worked on and describe what my role was. Some are similar to other stuff on my website, but I’ve added a bit more detail for good measure.
Without further ado…
1. An onboarding experience for the BBC Music app
A bit of background
The app acts as your personal guide through the BBC’s vast collection of exclusive music content. But to give you a personalised experience, it first needs to get to know you. So it asks you to sign in and answer a few questions about your musical preferences.
When you first download the app you see these four screens. They rotate automatically, giving you a flavour of what it’s all about and asking you to sign in to get started.
Sign in and you get this confirmation message asking you to set up your preferences.
First it asks what music genres you like…
… giving encouragement along the way.
Then it asks what BBC radio stations you like.
And again with the encouragement (research showed it helped people along the journey, as they appreciated that the interface reacted as they made their choices).
And finally it lets you choose some BBC playlists to follow.
Last bit of encouragement…
… followed by a quick “wait” screen...
... and before you know it you’ve got your own personalised slice of BBC Music.
The process
Early on in the development of BBC Music, I worked on the product personality. I led a workshop with stakeholders from product, marketing, design and editorial teams to sketch out several different tones of voice, which we then tested in focus groups to find the right fit. The resulting tone of voice is playful and slightly cheeky, always encouraging the user to discover more new music.
For the onboarding process itself I started out by analysing some competitors and then worked with a designer and developer to create a paper prototype.
We ran this prototype by a number of stakeholders, made tweaks, then began testing it with real users in lab-based user research. We carried out several rounds, making improvements and increasing the fidelity of the prototype along the way.
We ended up with an onboarding process that explains the app in an appealing way and successfully guides users through the personalisation process.
2. A whole new way of signing in to the BBC
A bit of background
There’s a big push to make the BBC more personalised, so we can give people more bang for their licence fee buck.
To do that effectively, we first need people to sign in to the BBC. We can then start learning about their preferences and give them more of what they like.
The old system for signing in couldn't do everything we needed. So we’ve created an entirely new system from the ground up. You can try it yourself here.
The process
Early on in the project I led workshops with designers, product owners, marketing and an external agency to define the personality and tone of voice of the whole sign-in experience.
We came up with several approaches which we tested in focus groups, ultimately landing on a tone of voice that’s “Warm and welcoming”, “Joyful” and “Straightforward”.
I then wrote a tone of voice and style guide. Here are some excerpts...
A bit more about the process
I’ve written all the copy for the new sign-in system. And throughout the project I’ve collaborated with designers, information architects, developers and researchers to scope out user journeys, create copy and designs, and test them with users.
We now have more than a thousand lines of copy, which all needed translating into 22 languages. To keep track of all those words and languages, I designed a new translation process. And I created and managed a master copy spreadsheet, which looks a bit like this...
3. Using the BBC – a new help and info site
A bit of background
As part of the whole “signing in to the BBC” project detailed above, we created a new help site called “Using the BBC”. This gives information about how signing in works and how users can control their experience. You can see it for yourself here.
The process
I wrote all the content for the “Using the BBC” site. I worked with: a designer to research what kind of information users might need and figure out how best to arrange it; legal and product teams to make sure all the information was clear and accurate; and researchers to check the content could be easily understood by anyone.
4. TV Licence message on BBC iPlayer
A bit of background
I do a lot of work on BBC iPlayer, ranging from large-scale projects to smaller pieces of work. I thought I’d include one of the latter after the larger projects detailed above.
This was a job that came up when the TV Licence law changed. You’ve always needed one for your TV. But you now need one to use BBC iPlayer too.
When that happened, I wrote this message that appears when you try to play a programme on iPlayer. Here’s what it looks like on mobile.
The process
A Product Manager wrote a first draft, which was long and peppered with legal jargon. I rewrote it to be shorter and clearer, and that version then had to be approved by the BBC legal team, the iPlayer Product Owner and the TV Licensing company.
After a couple of rounds of edits we arrived at this version, which is clear and concise, while still complying with the needs of all those stakeholders.
5. A spot of long copy for DADI+
A bit of background
DADI+ are a data intelligence agency. I worked with another writer to define their tone of voice and write various things for them, including the staff handbook they send to new joiners as part of the onboarding process. Here are some excerpts.
The process
DADI+ already had a document that spelled out things like probation periods and holiday allowances. But it was a dry, impenetrable old thing, cobbled together from various sources. I rewrote it entirely in their confident, witty tone of voice, turning it into something that’s actually enjoyable to read.