A Week in the Life of a Design Consultancy

A brief overview of a busy week…

Monday saw my first day working from home. I attended the weekly design review and also learned from Design Development Engineer, Phil Sampey, about HD’s certified quality process. My afternoon consisted of writing my introductory blog post and delving into some user centred research for upcoming medical device projects. Let’s just say, my search history researching them, has been one that only a designer could justify!

As mentioned in my previous post, I really appreciate how HD’s business plan is so internally transparent. This week, I attended the monthly business development meeting where we discussed progress, any success’ as well as areas for possible improvement. The team had opportunity to voice any thoughts and design ideas as well as ask any questions. This session really helped me to get up to speed with the teams aligned goals.

During this introductory phase, I’ve been fortunate to have a weekly review with MD, David Mills, to discuss my progress – we chatted generally and, more specifically, to do with my assigned roles thus far, as well as upcoming opportunities.

In addition, I have continued meeting with each member of the team to further understand their roles and how they fit into HD’s workflow. On Tuesday, I met with Design Manager, Mark, where we discussed project management techniques. I also sat down with Design Development Consultant, John, to discuss all things UX – he was able to point me in the direction of some great further resource as well as assign me some user research work which I soon got stuck into and look forward to taking on.

Midweek was particularly exciting for me where I joined a brainstorming session and was able to give some input both experience and, user centric in focus as well as learn about the mechanical, problem solving approach that other members of the team bring.

My feet didn’t touch the floor on Thursday, from having my cheesy headshot taken to undertaking some user profiling and attending a highly informative, thought provoking workshop with consultant, Mark Chipperfield who discussed all things pharma, medical and drug delivery too. It was a fantastic opportunity to delve deeper into design regulations and understand HD’s role in using creative methods for delivering devices which not only to meet user needs but, that also understand and satisfy regulatory requirements.

From here, I was able to take it back to basics and get hands on with some initial ideation and wireframing for another of my current projects. Come Friday afternoon, I’d just about made my way through my introductory checklist and was starting to find my feet. With a greater understanding for HD, I took some time to begin mapping the split of my role between Digital Marketing and UX design before heading into the weekend with a plethora of insight and a substantial reading list!