About my work

What I do

Prototype new products. I enjoy exploring the possibilities of new online products, sketching in code, rapidly iterating ideas to see what works best.

Make sites work better. Whether planning a new site’s information architecture and user experience design, or providing guidance on how to make an existing site exceed users’ expectations, I have a good eye for what makes things work based on seventeen years’ experience.

Elegant front end development. Beautiful, compliant, accessible HTML, CSS and JavaScript with a good eye for design and editorial issues.

Decent back end development. Twelve years’ experience of writing neat, object-oriented, well-commented PHP and, now, Django.

I look for projects that are interesting, challenging and needed. I want to learn new things, and work with clever and interesting people and organisations.

Recent work

Over recent years I have prototyped several products for companies to investigate possible uses and interactions of services. Clients have included Google in San Francisco, BERG and the Guardian in London, Daylife in New York and, as part of Really Interesting Group, Nokia Advanced Design in Los Angeles.

Public, recent projects include:

 Earlier work

Misfits

Working with Six To Start, a web-based game to explore the world of the E4 TV drama, Misfits. All development by myself, using PHP, MySQL, HTML/CSS and JavaScript (OpenLayers and jQuery). Learn more…

Shownar

A website for the BBC that tracks millions of weblogs, Twitter, etc to help people discover the TV and radio programmes being discussed most. Working with BERG to plan and wireframe the site, plus creating the final HTML/CSS. Learn more…

Ununited Eurasia

A world-wide treasure hunt based around a website to promote a new single by Muse. Developed by myself for Six To Start, the rapid development resulted in 50,000 registered users in a week and 200,000 unique visitors over two weeks. Learn more…

Show Us a Better Way and Building Democracy

For the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Justice respectively, the sites encouraged individuals and organisations to pitch ideas for websites to be built with government funds. Both were made using TypePad and custom PHP-based form submission.

Crime Mapping

Working with BERG we developed proof-of-concept designs for the Cabinet Office of how ideal local police crime maps could work.

BBC homepage

A colleague and I were commissioned to develop a new editorial focus for the bbc.co.uk homepage for 12-18 months in the future.

BBC Programmes

Working at the BBC I developed the HTML and CSS for the first version of this site which provides permanent pages for every BBC TV and radio programme broadcast.

Dopplr

I developed the initial HTML/CSS templates for the social travel website.

Blyk

I was responsible for developing the structural and graphical design for some of the behind-the-scenes processes for advertisers on the youth-oriented mobile phone network.

The Time When

A prototype website developed in collaboration with the BBC. The aim was to both aggregate events that happened on individual days in history and also allow people to write their own memories of those dates and share them with others. An internal team later developed Memoryshare based on the prototype.

BBC Innovation Labs

I designed and built the website for this annual project using Movable Type. It is used to encourage companies to enter the competition and allows the winners to post updates during their week working together. It was planned so it could easily be re-used each year.

JamieOliver.com

Working with Poke, I was responsible for the site’s PHP, Perl, MySQL, XHTML, CSS and integrating Movable Type and phpBB. The site won a Webby Award in 2005.

Ning.com

I prepared many XHTML/CSS templates for the new social software development site from designs developed in-house, and trouble-shooted existing templates. These had to allow users freedom to create their own custom applications without disrupting Ning’s own structure.

TV Archive Search for BBC

Long before iPlayer or /programmes, using television programme data taken from broadcast streams I designed and built an internal site for the BBC to demonstrate alternative methods of navigating a massive archive of TV shows. eg, tagging, rating, social networks, etc.

TheyWorkForYou.com

Collaborating with other volunteers, I was responsible for the site’s XHTML and CSS, most of its initial PHP and some of its design and architecture. (I am no longer working on the project.)

Other clients

I have also worked on a variety of successful projects for companies such as the Sci Fi Channel, London School of Economics, Royal Society of Chemistry, FT.com, Nature, Campbell-Lange Workshop, Digit, Syzygy, Wilson Fletcher and Fast Future.

Background

Before I began freelancing in 2003 I worked in a range of capacities at companies such as Wired magazine (Alpha Geek), Capital Radio (Deputy Editor) and UpMyStreet.com (Creative Technologist).

In 2004 I was profiled in the Guardian.

I have also created and run several personal projects such as The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Today’s Guardian, Pretend Office, Septivium, Overmorgen and Haddock.

Other details are available on my timeline. If you have any questions, do email me.

Last updated: 9 September 2012