# William Blake > Lead / Senior Product Designer (UX/UI/UR) | AI & Fintech Specialist | Turning Complex Systems into Simple, Human-Centred Experiences | Design Leadership, Strategy & Mentorship Location: London, England, United Kingdom Profile: https://flows.cv/williamblake Experienced UX Designer with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and financial services industry. Strong consulting professional skilled in Product Design, User Testing, Requirements Analysis, Information Technology, and Business Analysis. ## Work Experience ### Lead Product Designer - Owner @ Bill Blake Jan 2023 – Present | City Of London, England, United Kingdom Inspired by Chris Do’s training videos and podcasts on the business of design, I was motivated to launch my own contracting company. I enhanced my skills in value addition and project management alongside my design expertise and consulting background. Initially, I offered assistance to friends and family free of charge, and now I'm currently providing advice and mentoring to several other designers as they progress along their paths. ### Senior UX Designer @ Adaptavist Jan 2024 – Jan 2025 Hired to rapidly develop the Enhanced Search feature for Jira tools within Scriptrunner. Gained initial insights by conducting a workshop with the team and customer service agents to gather user perspectives. Based on the workshop results, developed prototypes which were tested with real users. Key features updated included folder creation, search filters, and filters based on group, project, and team. ### Senior Product Designer @ Reply Jan 2023 – Jan 2023 | London, England, United Kingdom Vodafone Project: End-to-end design of the mobile trade-in journey for Europe, coordinating with 8 product owners, due to working across many regions with unique rules and regulations demanding different versions of the user journey. Running user research, design and handover of briefs with rapid turnover times. ### Lead Product Designer @ RDX Works Ltd Jan 2022 – Jan 2022 | Greater London, England, United Kingdom Developing user-centric DeFi applications and assets on the Radix public ledger, I collaborated closely with the Head of Design and various departments to gather, design, and execute assigned projects. Concurrently, I provided mentorship to a junior UI designer, focusing on UX best practices and ensuring alignment with product management requirements. ### Senior Product Designer @ GfK Jan 2021 – Jan 2022 | London and Remote GFK Newron is a global marketing company that provides a single access point that combines market, consumer and brand intelligence supercharged with AI-powered recommendations, to show what and where, who and why, and most importantly how to shape what happens next. Working alongside other designers, data scientists, developers and product managers to update and create features on the platform based on feedback from users and design workshops. Key areas of focus: Promotion Planning, Forecasting, Market Torch & Competitor Analysis ### Product Designer @ Faculty Jan 2019 – Jan 2020 | London, United Kingdom Created or updated features on the platform which is one of the industry’s leading data science deployment and workbench toolkits. Recently I worked on project templates, navigation bar, and user permissions. Assisted with the Data Science consultancy arm to provide design input to client projects. Worked autonomously across the end-to-end design spectrum from discovery and ideation, through to prototyping and implementation. • Updated the existing navigation bar based on user & competitor research. • Created a new user permissions model to fix a security flaw within the platform. • Worked on a new feature to create project templates for data science similar to Github repositories to help data scientists share projects. ### Product Design Consultant @ IBM Jan 2016 – Jan 2019 | Winchester Product Design Consultant Working on a variety of projects for internal and external clients. Accomplished the following training courses; Global Consultancy Training, Java Development, Design Thinking University, Internet of Things, Block-Chain, Emerging Technologies, Advanced JavaScript, Agile Delivery and Dev-Ops. ### Lead Product Design Consultant @ IBM Jan 2018 – Jan 2018 | Northampton, United Kingdom BARCLAYCARD - Axe the Fax Revamping post & fax systems handling credit card chargebacks from merchants. Achieved by creating a customer portal, integrated into the current Barclaycard website. Once the vision had been set and agreed with client stakeholders, I was provided a User Researcher, UI Designer and a Content Strategist. The project rapidly took shape after conducting research sessions, we modified the prototype and delivered a design hand off within strict deadlines. • Facilitate meetings with key stakeholders regarding the progress of the prototype. • Coordinate the design team, to align with the client requirements set by Barclaycard and IBM. • Justify and negotiate design decisions with the client, that would not detrimentally impact build time for MVP. ### Graphic Designer @ IBM Jan 2018 – Jan 2018 | Hursley Laboratories IBM CIC - Recruitment Campaign Due to prior experience, I have with UX design and branding, the recruitment partner contacted me regarding a campaign to hire more developers and testers to IBM Hursley. The partners and centre leads ran a brainstorming session, then provided me with words they would like to include into the advert that would be shown at local train stations. • Utilising design guidelines to create an ad campaign that would represent the local area to attract talent to IBM • Conducted reviews and tests of the advert with senior management, to ensure it represented company values. ### Lead UX Designer @ IBM Jan 2018 – Jan 2018 | Hursley Laboratories IBM CIC - Client Portal A request came through from the Growth Leader of the UK CIC’s for an urgent update to a website. IBM Client Innovation Centres has a portal for clients and other colleagues to view what offerings the UK CIC has. The last update to this site was made in 2015 and was in desperate need of a complete overhaul. • Updated the portal to reflect the key values set out by senior management, which are diversity, offerings, talent and our giveback we do in the local areas. • Used design thinking to create a user-friendly website, which will entice clients to use IBM. ### Product Designer @ IBM Jan 2018 – Jan 2018 | London, United Kingdom RBS - Cognitive Mortgage Agent Assist The Agent Assist app was conceived to improve call centre advisor’s response times, dealing with customers who are inquiring about mortgages. Utilising Watson to make the process as efficient as possible. Solution was a cognitive chat box, which would bring up scripts to queries regarding eligibility for mortgages. • Within strict deadlines, finalised the product to be shipped to RBS, completing UI bugs and design fixes. • Collaborated with the lead react developer to implement changes rapidly, whilst not losing quality. • Integrated a complex Watson Conversation chat bot into a portal built with React. ### UX Designer @ IBM Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | Hursley Laboratories PRODUCT TRANSFORMATION CENTRE - Image Scanner Converted acquired businesses into IBM property based on branding, updates, UI, documentation and websites. Updated an internal tool called the image scanner, whilst pair programming. The delivery of this project was achieved with immense success from, idea conception, user research, product development to release. • Reduced overall time spent by project managers creating image reports by 75% thus, saving labour costs. • Led complex client project, involving cross-functional teams without supervision, enabling me to develop my skills as a team leader. • User testing and analysis, to implement positive changes in the functionality of the tool. • Every product is a prototype, updates made in sprints increasing usability. ### Product Designer @ IBM Jan 2018 – Jan 2018 | London, United Kingdom DIAGEO - Flavour Combiner Diageo required IBM to create a flavour combiner, to show connections between certain types of foods and drinks to make better beverages. The research team had accumulated vast amounts of data, however struggling to make use of it. Solution to this was utilising Watson Analytics and Watson Studio, to model the data in a way that would show the stronger connections. Client was so impressed with the product they signed the second phase of the project. • Innovate a front end for a data modelling product, utilising D3 to create a visual representation of a complicated data set. • Preparing presentations to show progress with the client representatives. • Collaborate with data scientists to connect the front-end design & code to the back-end system. ### UI Designer @ IBM Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 | Glasgow, United Kingdom ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND - EQ Payment Development of a new app, managing online payment systems for currency trading and payment transfers. Completed an advanced JavaScript course for this project covering subjects in node.js, Angular, React, CSS3 and HTML5. • Client satisfaction scored 92% for 2017, based upon deliverables set by RBS. • Creating design guidelines documentation, to facilitate development of future versions of the app. • Incorporated customization features, based upon end user preferences. • Responsive front end design, solving bug fixes, defects and updates. ### Lead Product Designer @ IBM Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 | Hursley Volunteered for a cognitive project, utilising Watson to create a personalised web app, predicting who will be at certain meetings. The product was developed as a tool to help the average person, who could not afford a personal assistant. Focused on a few key elements; connect to email, web crawling and updating calendars. • Conducted user-centred research to create personas, scenarios and user stories to optimize user journeys. • Created low and hi fidelity wire-frames in Sketch, to visualise the idea. • Prototyped the tool, using Bluemix and Zeplin, to present to a panel who could turn the idea into a paid project. ### UX Design Internship @ Ordnance Survey Jan 2015 – Jan 2015 ### Technical Support @ Ordnance Survey Jan 2014 – Jan 2014 | Southampton ## Education ### Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) Business Information Technology: First Class Honours in UX Solent University ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/will-blake1 --- Source: https://flows.cv/williamblake JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/williamblake/resume.json Last updated: 2026-03-31