I'm Stuart Aitken

About Me

My name is Stuart, but my friends call me Stu. I am an ambitious and self driven user experience consultant

My business exists to put the people who experience a product, first. The needs of the business will be met if the service/product it offers is based on what matters to the user.

Empathy, compassion and vision are my tools when when telling a digital story. My aim is to expand on these talents with a company who share my vision for prioritising the user experience of a product, and who recognise the value of user centered design.

With an exceptionally vast knowledge of the UX design process (Research through to implementation), and user-focused design tools (communication, pen & paper, Marvel, Sketch, Adobe Creative Suite, front-end development, continuous optimisation), I am able to add value to businesses by methodically gaining a deeper understanding of their customers needs.

My process includes:

User data analysis
Persona creation
Ideation
Scenario building and storyboarding
Paper prototyping
Implementation planning.

My clients need to be able to attribute my services to their success.

My Experience

Education
Napier University, Edinburgh
BSC Interactive Media Design (2009)
Edinburgh’s Telford College
HND Interactive Multimedia design
(2005-2008)

Professional Experience:

AmazeRealise – Senior User Experience Designer (June 2016 – Present)

Responsible for the user experience across a number of high profile web applications which have included EFL, Cartoon Network, Lloyds Banking Group, Newday, Franklin Templeton, The Jockey club and many more.

Through usability workshops, ideation and iteration, important user behaviours and patterns were identified. In a collaborative environment, I worked closely with the target audience, clients, stakeholders and internal teams organise content, and through wireframing and prototyping to provide iterative solutions. I’m able to act as the technical conduit between project managers, product owners and the development team.

G2G3 – Lead User Experience Designer (May 2014 – June 2016)

I lead the user experience team at G2G3 in designing a range of highly creative products. I work closely with C# / MVC developers and a variety of HTML and CSS frameworks to output high quality game simulations and online products. Object oriented LESS/SaSS is crucial to my role, as is a fundamental understanding of information architecture and taxonomical organisation. I work in an Agile project management environment (Scrums), where team productivity is high and communication is efficient. I am able to bridge the gap technically as a developer and visually as a designer, to communicate effectively between different user experience work streams. Most importantly I deliver high quality results on time. Skills I aim to improve on include core Javascript and javascript libraries such as AngularJS (MVC and MV*).

Apex Hotels (2011 to April 2014)

This role required the output and management of HTML email campaigns to a wide target audience, analysis of CRM, administration within an Enterprise Content Management System (Ektron), video production and output to social media, animated banners for affiliate marketing, graphic design for web and contributing to a team workflow. I gained valuable UX experience and project management skills.

Edinburgh’s Telford College (2008 – 2011)

This role requires the planning, structure and delivery of lessons within a class/studio environment I have a vast knowledge of media requirements and current design trends. The delivery is of a high standard and caters to a wide target audience including additional support needs. Design knowledge is crucial.

Moovin’ on up – Graphic Designer ( June 2009 – September 2009 )

In this Studio environment I was responsible for the UX, design conceptualisation of websites, print artwork, animation and print layout for a large target audience.