Yesterday, after 2 and a bit years, I left Asda / Walmart. My notice period was complete. Whilst I’m looking forward to the new challenge that lies ahead, leaving there was sad. My job was initially under the banner @WalmartLabs and I was hugely attracted to the ‘Internet technology company within the worlds largest retailer’ as a place to work. Most of my tenure there was as Senior UX Architect, mostly on the George.com mobile experience. I took over as team lead / Principal whilst my boss went on maternity. I got to do a hecka lotta cool stuff. I got three biz class trips to California, one trip out to Sofia, loads of trips to various parts of the UK for some amazing conferences and did several really cool training courses.

I’ve experienced many new ways of working and I’ve honed my appreciation for Agile working practices and Enterprise scale UX. The new string to the bow – the bit I’ve learned the most about is Design / UX Research, which I got proper ‘hands on’ with. I’ve very much expanded my toolbox in that area; Moderated and un-moderated testing, Lab Usability Studies, Guerrilla testing, Card Sorting, Tree Jacking, A/B.. – the list goes on. I’ve truly seen the power of what research can bring to the table – actually getting a steer from the people who will be using ‘the thing’ you’re designing for is the key to success. Taken part in Hackathons, GV Design Sprints, I’ve built hundreds of prototypes and bits of design, the biggest and most successful being a re architecture of the George mobile checkout experience. That was fun.

I. have. learned. so. much. Thank you @WalmartLabs.