Employee Spotlight: David Raymond, Experience Director

In this month's #employeespotlight, David Raymond - Experience Director, tells us where his passion for technology, innovation and design began and how this developed during his time at university. He also discusses his work on a large international organisation’s customer-centred transformation programme, looking at the full organisational system, not just the end user experience for one product or service.

I was born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland. From an early age I had a passion for creative outlets such as photography and playing the piano. I spent most of my evenings on my skateboard, filming myself and my friends attempting to land tricks and editing them into short skateboarding films. Like many of my age, I was brought up in the golden era of gaming and spent far too long on my Nintendo 64 and Gameboy trying to complete Goldeneye on hard mode or become the ultimate Pokemon master. 

This was the beginning of my passion for technology, innovation and design. It was further fueled by being exposed to emerging technologies by my dad, who worked as a tech consultant.  At school, I really enjoyed and did well in Computer Science, but surprisingly at that time didn’t have much interest in Art and Design as a subject.

I had no real plan when leaving secondary school. I couldn’t quite put my finger on a career path or subject that I wanted to do. My family and I knew I was creative, I liked solving problems and loved technology. One evening while looking through different university prospectuses, my Mum and I spotted a course called ‘Digital Interaction Design’ at the University of Dundee. It instantly stood out as something that I was interested in. A mix of computing and design, solving problems for people through the use of digital technology and application of user-centred design. It was one of the first courses of its kind in the UK. So I applied, and thankfully I got in! 

Throughout University we covered many different disciplines in design, but it was primarily focused on digital product design. This was 2010, a time when mobile computing was just taking off. The iPod touch was very popular, the first iPad had just been released and the iPhone had only sold roughly 30 million units worldwide, compared to roughly 2.4 billion today.  

My course taught me about the importance of human-centred design, both in physical and digital products. I focused my time on understanding the needs of different types of users, coupled with testing and iterating solutions to design products that were enjoyable to interact with. Without knowing it at the time, I was getting a lot of experience in applying now well-established approaches and methodologies that have made UX design a great career path for me.

UX Design was not a term that was regularly used when I began University in 2010.

However by the time I graduated in 2014, it was a role that was more regularly being created within organisations. Following my degree show, I was offered and accepted a job as a graduate UX designer at our parent company - Sopra Steria - in Edinburgh. This was the first ever UX role in the company’s graduate scheme at the time.

When Sopra Steria and cxpartners joined forces a few years ago, I was leading the Sopra Steria innovation practice. I had established and embedded a user-centred design approach to innovation within the practice and I was keen to find ways that we could work with our new colleagues at cxpartners and support each other across our wide range of clients.

This led to me moving across to cxpartners, to join this incredibly talented team as an Experience Director within the private sector. I have been supporting our clients in delivering large transformation programmes and providing my knowledge and experience with technology and innovation.

I am thoroughly enjoying my time as part of the cxpartners family and working closely with our Sopra Steria colleagues. I hope to continue supporting our clients to deliver customer-centred solutions for some of the biggest challenges they face today. This includes the ever-changing landscape of technology, data privacy and security; the challenges we face around climate change; and adapting to the different needs and expectations that customers and staff have of products and services coming out the back of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Since becoming a UX designer in 2014, I have had the pleasure of working on a wide range of rewarding and innovative projects across multiple sectors and industries. One of the things I love about this job is getting to immerse myself in industries that I would probably not have otherwise got to experience, and become an expert in that. I love advocating for the end user and proving the value of being customer-focused and building solutions informed by their needs.

I get real satisfaction from understanding the complex challenges that businesses, organisations and governments face. I can then help them to create impactful solutions to improve their services and make their digital products more accessible, inclusive and easy to use by everyone.

I recently had the pleasure of leading the team on a project where we created the business case for a large international organisation’s customer-centred transformation programme. We conducted a 12-week discovery to understand the complex nature of their global English education business as well as the changing needs and expectations of their customers following the COVID-19 pandemic.

We mapped out the end–to–end experience for their customers and internal staff, identifying the highest impact opportunities for them to improve their products and services, as well as where their internal processes, tools and structures will need to change to transform their organisation into a truly customer-centred one. We ensured alignment across key stakeholders by creating customer interview highlight reels, enabling colleagues and stakeholders from across the organisation to hear the customer's voices first-hand. This was really impactful and has continued to deliver value.

This work defined the strategy, direction and roadmap for the transformation and unlocked the investment required for them to begin delivering this change.

The projects where we are looking at the full organisational system, not just the end user experience for one product or service. More often than not, you will find that fixing or improving one product or service is like putting a plaster over the wound. The root cause is commonly that the organisation is not set up in a way that allows it to continuously improve and deliver great customer experiences.

Creating the link between the internal challenges of an organisation and the pain their customers feel is often a lightbulb moment for our clients.

I love working at cxpartners because of the culture.  I am surrounded by so many talented people, all passionate about making the world a better place through design and all willing to support each other and share their knowledge.

We also get to work on such a diverse range of projects, with some of the world’s most recognisable brands, supporting them in achieving their strategic goals and ambitions.

It is a company that truly lives its values, delivers incredible work, supports its staff and gives opportunity to everyone to grow their careers in the customer centred design field.

Don’t let the word ‘Design’ scare you away. If you love creative problem-solving, have a passion for improving the world around you and are willing to learn, then a career in UX design could be for you! There are lots of great educational resources and programmes out there to get started.