Cheil
Head of Digital: Jonathan Buckley
Head of Digital Strategy: David Bedford
Head of Development: Kevin Durley
Sr. Account Manager: Ben Major
Lead UX: Aaron Standen
Head of UX: James Sinclair
My Role
Improving the quality of the company’s UX offering and changing perceptions of its abilities.
Background
In 2018, Samsung’s in-house marketing company, Cheil UK, was producing UX work of low quality. This led to a negative perception of Cheil’s abilities and resulted in the loss of work to other agencies. The lack of a clear ownership or sign-off process and constant changes from the client also led to uncertainty, waste, and poor results.
Challenge
- Change the perception of Cheil’s UX abilities and improve the quality of work.
- However, this could not happen unless how work was produced also changed.
Approach
As the new Head of UX, I took on the challenge of improving the quality of work and changing the team’s perception. Initially, I focused on identifying the root cause of the issues and not breaking anything. Two workstreams were then created: one for simple fixes and the other for fundamentally changing the team’s work process.
Changing the way the team worked:
- Established a more formal structure for UX projects, including deliverables and sign-off points, in collaboration with project managers.
- Set up a lab to gather data on how designs were performing, to move design conversations from opinion to evidence-based choices.
- Enabled the client to witness the process and be part of the decision-making, increasing trust and ownership.
The simple stuff:
- Focused on building the team and standardizing work.
- Persuaded contractors to go full-time and recruited new members who were a good fit.
- Established a house style to ensure that all work was identifiably Cheil’s and moved from Axure to XD, which improved visual quality and made production quicker, easier, and consistent.
Outcome
- Improved client satisfaction and trust
- Increased project wins
- Revamped key areas of Samsung’s website, TV, domestic appliances, and mobile accessories
- Delivered a new website to support Samsung’s new flagship store at Kingscross
- Testing has become a habit
- The process has improved significantly, though old habits remain.
LAB
Set up a lab to gather data on how designs were performing, to move design conversations from opinion to evidence-based choices.
UX Tools
Set up a lab to gather data on how designs were performing, to move design conversations from opinion to evidence-based choices.