I was 20, on holiday in Florida. All I wanted was to raid the chewing gum aisle at SuperTarget. Back home, gum meant spearmint or peppermint. Here, there were dozens — wintergreen mint, piña colada, watermelon, cinnamon. Ridiculous. Wonderful. But something made me stop. Not the gum. The floor. The whole store was a racetrack — a deliberate loop guiding you from entrance to checkout, past almost everything, without a single sign. Someone had designed this. Someone had decided how millions of people would move through that space before any of them walked through the door. That idea floored me more than the gum ever could. I picked up Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug shortly after — still the first book I recommend to anyone new to UX. Start noticing the world. Why does a takeaway menu make the mid-priced option feel obvious? Why do some forms feel like a conversation and others like an interrogation? That's UX. Once you see it, you can't stop.

Every tool in my stack has a job. Claude.ai and NotebookLM have fundamentally changed how I make sense of research — spotting patterns, challenging assumptions, and accelerating the move from raw data to actionable insight. Hotjar and Microsoft Clarity show me how people actually behave on a page, not how anyone assumes they do. UserTesting grounds everything in real human beings with real frustrations. GA4 and Webflow Analyze tell me where the numbers don't add up. Notion holds everything together — research plans, findings, recommendations, and the paper trail that keeps stakeholders informed. Wispr Flow means I can capture thinking on the go without losing the thread. And underpinning all of it is a simple principle: the tools serve the thinking, not the other way round. A fat-nibbed Sharpie, a wedge of Post-Its, and a dot grid notebook still make it onto the desk every day.

I'm a Lead UX Researcher at a UK fintech startup that helps small businesses access funding. Fast-paced, fast-moving, and rarely short of opinions. My job is to slow things down before anyone rushes to a solution — to ask the awkward questions, dig into how people actually behave, and turn that into recommendations that save money, drive revenue, and remove the friction that stops people doing what they came to do. That approach has prevented a projected £135m loss at Next, driven 37% more suit shopping engagement, and cut onboarding abandonment by 20% at By Miles. As a research team of one, there's no committee, no sign-off chain, and no one to blame but myself. After years inside large organisations where good ideas take months to clear, that kind of autonomy is something I don't take for granted. People are people, and friction is friction. That never changes, whatever the industry.

The biggest challenge is time. Research done properly is meticulous — planning, recruiting, scheduling, observing, note-taking, analysing, synthesising, and wrapping up. Each stage matters, and cutting corners shows. But in a fast-moving startup, the luxury of doing everything exactly as you'd like doesn't always exist. The other challenge is making space for proper discovery when everyone wants to skip to solutions. Stakeholders often arrive with answers looking for validation rather than problems looking for investigation. Reframing that without alienating people is a skill in itself. AI has helped — tools like Claude, NotebookLM, and Perplexity take on the monotonous heavy lifting. But nothing replaces human judgement, and hallucination is all too real. I treat it like a parent-child relationship — guide it, correct it, feed it context, and it becomes a genuinely useful co-pilot. Treat it as an oracle and it'll let you down.

Stop waiting to feel qualified. Get curious about why things work the way they do — in shops, in apps, in queues. Learn to ask better questions rather than jump to better answers. Find someone who'll tell you when your thinking is sloppy — that's worth more than any course. Don't limit yourself to an industry you can't get excited about. Stay ahead — the field moves fast and the gap creeps up quietly. I lost my way with Figma while raising a family, and it led me to pivot toward what I truly loved — research, strategy, and discovery. Never force yourself to upskill where the passion has gone. Learn to use AI properly — not as a shortcut, but as a co-pilot you guide and feed context to. If you've ever thought about starting a business, do it while you're young and the financial risk is yours alone. Once you have a family, the stakes change. Balance work with family time — kids grow up faster than you think. Never mistake loyalty for security. Redundancy is real. Always know your worth.

Regrets? Not many. But if I could go back, I'd think harder about university. I left with a degree, a student loan, and a CV that still needed building. The real learning happened in the workforce. For years, staying ahead meant spending your own money on courses and conferences — a tough ask on a junior salary. Those entering the field today have something we never did: AI. It's the most accessible learning tool our industry has ever seen. Embrace it, learn from it, but respect its limitations. It's a co-pilot, not a substitute for real-world experience and a good mentor. Nobody could have predicted in 2007 where AI would be today. You adapt. I wish I'd explored other countries earlier — culture shapes design in ways no textbook can teach you. And I wish I'd understood inclusive design more deeply from the start. As a parent of three children with additional needs, it's personal, lived, and a responsibility I own.

Staying inspired has never been a problem. The world is full of design decisions waiting to be questioned — you just have to train yourself to notice them. But my greatest source of inspiration is closer to home. I have three children, and watching them interact with the world — especially with screens and technology — teaches me more than any conference or course ever could. Kids are brutally honest users. They have no patience for friction and no filter when something doesn't work. And then there's Mia. My middle daughter is nine, non-verbal, and severely autistic. Watching her navigate a world that largely wasn't designed with her in mind, and somehow still finding her way, still surprising us every single day — that's what keeps me grounded, keeps me curious, and reminds me why designing with empathy isn't optional. It's everything.