What is this place...?

For me, it always comes back to the words. I loved learning about languages and how they work all the way through school, and I studied languages at university. I've worked as a translator, written marketing materials and social media copy, and designed internal communication campaigns. I love using words to tell stories and to share new ideas.

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The thing I love most about words, though, is the power they have to connect people. How the right words, arranged in the right order, and said at the right time, can transform someone's day, week, or entire experience for the better.

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The way we experience things matters. We often talk about the good experiences we've had with products, services, or even other people - but, even more often, we remember (and, crucially, tell other people about) the bad experiences that made us frustrated, angry, and disappointed. The way we experience things doesn't just impact how we feel about a particular company or brand, but also how we feel in ourselves - our mood, our outlook, and our emotions.

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Because businesses and their products can have such a powerful influence on our feelings, I think organisations and the things they offer their customers have a huge responsibility to make sure everything they do is rooted in an understanding of how their customers feel, what they are trying to do, and what the business can do to help them get to where they want or need to go.

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For me, user experience is about empathy, emotion and connection. Asking good questions and listening properly to the answers. Involving as many voices as possible and never assuming we know how someone else is experiencing something. Checking, trying, testing, then trying again. It's about learning from other people and from our mistakes, and never letting the human being who's actually doing the experiencing out of our sight.

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I think user experience design and the focus it puts on real, actual people is both really important and really exciting. Because I love words, I'm especially drawn to how we can use language in the products we design to show people that how they feel really, properly matters - and that we're there to help them.

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In short, I love writing and I love helping people. I'm so excited to keep learning how to do both of those things even better.