Going back to the beginning.

After 15 years and 5000+ design jobs, I decided to go back to the beginning.

Earlier this year I completed a Customer Experience (CX) short course at RMIT. As part of it, I chose a real brand, interviewed 12 of their customers, created solutions and developed a CX improvement plan.

I did the course expecting to learn about frameworks and methodology. But what it actually reminded me was how much you can learn (and quickly) just by actually talking to people.

Not a survey. Not a brief filtered through three people before it reaches you. A real conversation about what's working and what isn't.

I've seen projects run for months, burn budget, go up the chain and quietly die. Often because the solution was built on assumptions and opinions, rather than anything a real customer said out loud.

CX at its best is the opposite. Scrappy, cheap to test, and fast to learn from. You just have to be willing to start by asking that awkward question… what do you actually think of us?