User research
Design Strategy
UX / UI
Management
Lloyd’s Register
Revitalizing a Legacy Company Through User-Centred DesignAfter a failed £2M attempt, I led the UX strategy that saved Lloyd’s Register’s platform. The success secured two more projects and talks of a third—together projected to generate over £10M in fees and keep BAE engaged for at least 5 years.
Overal stats
Team
1 UX Lead (me)
1 Art Director
1 Visual Designer
2 UX Designer
6 BAs
~50 Developers in Leeds and Kuala Lumpur
Business focus
Deliver a large scale digital transformation and improve the usability of the platform
UX focus
Rethinking the information architecture
Update the visual design
Improve the overall usability of the platform
Outcomes
Fixed-price contract secured
£1.5M consultancy fees from first project
Success led to 2 more projects
Third project in discussion when I left
Projected 5-year engagement
£10M+ in total fees expected
The problem
Lloyd’s Register, the world’s oldest marine classification company, is responsible for certifying the safety of marine assets worldwide — from cargo ships to drilling platforms. Lloyd’s Register had once been an industry pioneer, but was now losing ground rapidly.
“If this digital transformation — starting today — fails, we will likely shut down within 18 months.”
This wasn’t just a redesign — it was a rescue mission.
My role
As Lead UX Designer, I played a pivotal role in restructuring and steering the project from chaos to clarity. I acted as the bridge between internal teams, stakeholders, and delivery partners—bridging strategy, design, and execution.
The process
We worked in agile sprints, breaking the product down into three core UX challenges:
Navigation: Creating a structure that mirrored user expectations.
Booking Work: Designing a seamless, transparent booking journey.
Asset Prioritisation: Helping users identify which ships or assets needed attention.
Diagnosing the Real Problems
Our first priority was to understand why the existing solution was failing. We conducted:
Heuristic Evaluation to identify UX flaws and accessibility issues.
Real-world Usability Testing with users to observe friction and task breakdowns.
The results were clear: navigation was fragmented, user journeys were unintuitive, and key tasks were buried under layers of confusion.
Understanding users
There was a large set of users whose work is directed impacted by the usability of this application. As such we interviewed several stakeholders
Strategic UX overall
I led the design of a new sitemap, completely restructuring how users would move through the app.
Then I created a set of wireframe templates with two specific goals:
- To set expectations of the proposed app structure to stakeholders.
- To enable scoping and costing the project under a fixed-price delivery model.
Previously, work had been delivered ad hoc, based on styling rather than strategy. This shift created clarity, trust, and alignment between clients stakeholders, product, design, and development teams.
Evolving the designs
As soon as I created the original set of wireframes, we went to real users to perform Paper testing. and focus group for ideation. These sessions informed the next set of wireframes and full fidelity designs
Evolving the designs
As soon as I created the original set of wireframes, we went to real users to perform Paper testing. and focus group for ideation. These sessions informed the next set of wireframes and full fidelity designs
From wireframes
To high fidelity designs and prototypes
Usability testing findings
With each release, we conducted targeted usability testing and produced stakeholder reports outlining outcomes and refinements.
Key findings:
- Navigation: Minor structural tweaks, no major issues. Users moved through flows confidently.
- Booking Flow: Strong performance. We applied e-commerce UX patterns, allowing users to track their selections at every step — this was a hit.
- Asset Cards: We tested several metaphors for asset tracking and landed on a card-based system, which users described as intuitive, clean, and informative.
Finally I was in charge of tracking and prioritizing user feedback.
Results
Full stakeholder buy-in for a fixed-price delivery contract.
BAE Systems retained as delivery partner, resulting in £1.5 million in additional consultancy fees.
Team expansion: Based on our success, we were asked to design a second internal-facing app for Lloyd’s Register’s global operations.
Scalability: As I exited the project, we were in early-stage conversations about extending this design model to Lloyd’s Register’s nuclear division.
Other projects
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