Close Up with Leigh Gamon

On a project, I’m there to answer any questions on strategy around what the product is. It could be as simple as where a button should go for the best user experience, all the way to establishing the overall information architecture.

I champion the user at every stage of the process. People talk about UX (user experience design) as being a mindset, not necessarily a role. If you go to any kind of UX meetup you’ll notice a certain type of person there. People who are endlessly curious and just fascinated about how things work, and could talk about the details forever. That’s me.

A lot of my day is spent collaborating with people. Talking to designers, developers, producers and account service. I love the whole idea of getting the best out of who I’m working with. Instead of trying to sit in my own corner and just do everything on my own, I’d rather that I’m working out the best way to get the best product out of that person.

What I love doing is being the person to take that data and those insights and help interpret it into the creative.

I always loved film growing up. I saw the way that directors and editors worked as totally fascinating because they pulled everything together to tell the whole story, consistently and coherently. That really inspires me, and I believe we should be doing that in our products. We tend to like to separate everything. I love to be able to bring it together.

At CHE we’ve got the data team and the planning team who are able to take data and interpret it to get brilliant insights. What I love doing is being the person to take that data and those insights and help interpret it into the creative.