Ph: 281-726-9800
E-mail: stuartdconway@gmail.com

Experience

Design Director & Houston Studio Lead

Accenture Song (formerly Fjord)
2021-2023

Hands-on design leadership of product and service innovation, identifying unmet, unexpressed needs, setting and communicating future vision through storytelling, translating findings into product / transformation roadmaps. Led, drove, and supported biz dev efforts on multi-million dollar human centered digital transformation portfolios; shaping resourcing and solution approach from initial client request through oral pitch presentation.

Accomplishments

• Led and managed two workstreams for next-gen industrial asset management software — $300M transformation effort to deliver >$1B in value

• Led multi-disciplinary service design teams setting future operating model and product vision — $40M digital twin delivery program

• Led qual user and market data research within Voice of The Customer workstream for client’s newly minted digital innovation practice, filling the 5yr pipeline with product and service development initiatives.

• Launched internal cross-disciplinary strategic design services group to offer market differentiation in business development efforts for the resources client group.

Responsibilities

• Lead multidisciplinary design teams to effectively deliver design solutions, across several projects and products simulataneously.

• Mentor junior team members by establishing ways of working, providing insight and guidance in career paths, coaching, and development needs.

• Tireless advocacy for clients’ users and customers through human centered design to create cohesive experiences across the enterprise.

• Deliver strategic and innovative digital and physical product and service experiences that track back to and materially impact priority KPI’s

• Partner with technology and business strategy teams to collaboratively deliver innovative products and services.

• Storytelling for socialization, gaining stakeholder support for design solutions and product vision, working with stakeholders to translate that vision into actionable roadmaps, securing 2nd and 3rd phase delivery engagements.

• Ensure maintenance and growth of design systems and UI consistency and quality across multi-touchpoint ecosystems

• Lead mixed-methods customer/user research and UX design from discovery through implementation and experience-led change management

Design Lead - Americas

Shell Agile Hub
2018-2021

Owned desirability workstream across all NA projects, establishing processes, ways of working, methodologies, and cascading those practices to NA product teams. Contribute heavily to building Shell’s first career pathway and frameworks for measuring value of design, championing the Design capability and its value to the business. Collaborate with stakeholders and lead designers in creation of compelling narratives for organizational support of the design practice and product visions. Identify service actor needs and opportunities for intervention; balance findings through DVF frameworks.

Accomplishments

• Identified over $60M YOY Value in digital transformation opportunity, and formulated a clear strategy for delivery.

• Successful introduction of design to the business, building a world-class service and product design team to deliver >$100M in YOY value.

• Killed 6 product concepts from not meeting D/V/F criteria, saving the company between $6M and $24M in delivery cost

Responsibilities

• Managed and led service design and research across multiple simultaneous projects ensuring adherence to best practices in sampling, data gathering, synthesis, and high-quality design output

• Train and mentor designers and non-designers alike on all things design/research

• Co-Create compelling narratives, business models, solution concepts, as-is and to-be journeys based on primary research data and innovation workshops, design sprints, observation sessions, task analysis, game-based service prototyping, and usability studies.

• Lateral and upward leadership and education of stakeholders throughout product  lifecycle in adherence with DVF frameworks for balanced design solutions

• Planned and facilitated critique sessions and strategic alignment workshop activities to surface user needs, KPIs/success criteria, product/portfolio visions, and ultimately judge desirability, viability, feasibility of proposed and in-flight solutions.

• Enhanced the Design capability through targeted mentorship and up-skilling of Junior, Mid and Senior level designers while developing outside relationships to create a robust pipeline of talented designers and researchers for upcoming projects.

• Provided design leadership and resourcing insight for business development, working with Product Owners and discipline leads to plan project activities and estimate costs.

Senior User Experience Designer

ExxonMobil: Upstream UCD
2017-2018

Led user research initiatives uncovering core causes of specific data utilization phenomena and global barriers to cost-saving innovation. Identified problem areas and articulated knowledge gaps, tech capabilities and cultural roadblocks to success. Created and tested UX solution concepts with users.

Accomplishments

• Designed and gained stakeholder support for new, tool-agnostic long-term UX vision, aligned to corporate IT strategy while managing feature-level design execution and usability testing of legacy upstream software.

• Over 160hr of contextual inquiry, user interviews, workshops identifying behavioral technological factors, key tasks, pain points, business process intersections and cultural influences across business units

Responsibilities

• .Perform user research to uncover product desirability and feasibility factors

• Create and test product concepts, articulating the value of features and gaining stakeholder buy-in

• Map technological landscape and backstage actions across upstream

Senior Interaction Designer

ChaiOne
2014-2017

Drive, design, and lead transformation of user data, business objectives and technical requirements into scalable experiences that deliver clear ROI to fortune 500 clients, ensuring consistency and quality throughout the product lifecycle.

Accomplishments & Responsibilities

• Designed and delivered 10 highly usable mobile and web-based applications scoring above 80/100 sus - 12pt above industry average.

• 75% decrease of well downtime and client satisfaction of 10/10 in first-ever  mobile product extension of powerful industrial data visualization tool  implementing novel, innovative IA and IxD patterns to meet complex user  needs. Project success led to multiple new contracts and speaking engagements.

• Reduced time on task by 15% (Sus 82/100) through responsive design for complex drilling data visualization and task management tool.

Responsibilities

• .Scope, estimate, plan, and lead execution of design strategy for large-scale, high-touch collaborative client engagements, gain user and stakeholder acceptance through collaborative design workshops and thorough testing. Design a range of artifacts from journey maps to high-fidelity prototypes to communicate the problem space, proposed solutions, and results of various research studies.

• Guide clients and Jr. Designers from initial concept through development and  deployment of multiple first-to-market products.

Experience Design Strategist

SDC | Design + Strategy
2009-present

Improve digital presence and boost conversion through use of robust analytics, UCD methodology eliminating customer pain points with data-driven design.

Clients

• Fifth Third Bank, HP, Inc., Nice Wines, Medici, PerfecTour

Interactive Art Director
TPRB Advertising
2011-2014

Create mobile responsive websites and print advertising for financial and e-commerce clients, driving design from wireframes and initial concepts through specifications and deployment

Accomplishments & Responsibilities

• Spearheaded the development of digital service offerings, focusing on e-commerce and conversion design strategy and execution

Clients

• Fifth Third Bank, Pevonia Botanica, NextEra Energy, Gexa Energy, H-E-B, Urban Decay

Jr. Interactive Art Director
TPRB Advertising
2009-2010