Leslie Fountain

As Executive Director at Foolproof I have the luxury of combining my passion for human-centred design with helping some of the world’s biggest brands to solve complex design challenges. I’m also fortunate to be leading and nurturing an international team containing some of the best talent in the industry. Over the past couple of years I’ve been working within healthcare helping organisations transform their digital thinking and business culture. Throughout my career I’ve learnt from and worked with inspirational leaders who, like me, are driven to push the boundaries of experience design and give back to the communities we’ve learnt from. Therefore I’m a regular speaker at industry events, sharing my stories and experiences, and an active member of SDN UK, UXPA and BIMA. Before Foolproof I was the Joint Managing Director at System Concepts where I helped to build their UX team and worked with clients such as Amadeus, Microsoft and the New York Stock Exchange. Outside of work I enjoy playing ice hockey (like a true Canadian), skiing, running, gardening and urban explorer.

The power of UX: Transforming businesses from the ground up

18 min TED like Talk | Categeory: Business Design | Target Audience: UX Managers, Product Managers, Marketing Directors, Digital Directors, Head of Product, UX Strategists, Designers, Creative Technologists.

UX has the power to transform businesses from the ground up. At the heart of any system – organisation, movement, society – are humans. It is not technology, processes or tools that drive an organisation, but it’s people. I will share the story of how a pharmaceutical, through working with a UX agency, started to shift its culture from one that was marketing led, to user and customer led. By understanding their perspective and pain points, I will share how we helped them to shift from pushing products and messages to servicing real needs.

Three key takeaways

• Bring the team on the journey: All key stakeholder groups need to be represented to create a tighter integration of research, design, approval and build which will lead to a more unified goal. Successful collaboration has proven to the business that delivering right first time to customers is not only possible but can be faster, cheaper and ultimately more personally rewarding.

• Disruption triggers change: Get the basics right and build organisational capability and confidence around a new way of designing and delivering digital services to customers. By shifting the clients focus to patients, we were able to help pharmaceuticals assess real user value and prioritise their activities against a vision and design principles founded on insight.

• Have a champion at the top: Many organisations are structured by departments which create silos not only in the business but also in how the customer experience is delivered. By working with the Senior Director of Digital we were able to break down the silos and all strive towards a common goal – creating measurable improvements for people.