{"id":36,"date":"2023-09-10T13:24:03","date_gmt":"2023-09-10T13:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ide-smith.co.uk\/?page_id=36"},"modified":"2025-10-26T10:04:30","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T10:04:30","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ide-smith.co.uk\/index.php\/about\/","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I&#8217;m Michele Ide-Smith, a Product and UX lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"909\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/ide-smith.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Profile-pic1-909x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-564\" style=\"width:368px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ide-smith.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Profile-pic1-909x1024.jpg 909w, https:\/\/ide-smith.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Profile-pic1-266x300.jpg 266w, https:\/\/ide-smith.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Profile-pic1-768x865.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ide-smith.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Profile-pic1.jpg 1136w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 909px) 100vw, 909px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve worked in digital for 30 years in the public sector (life sciences, higher education and local government) and private sector (a health startup, a software company and a digital agency).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m passionate about user research and user-centred design and have a Masters degree in Human Computer Interaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can see some examples of projects I have led on my <a href=\"https:\/\/ide-smith.co.uk\/index.php\/work\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"179\">Work page<\/a>. Or for my full work history visit my <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/micheleidesmith\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/micheleidesmith\/\">LinkedIn profile<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some highlights of my digital career include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Streamlined participant onboarding and led project to achieve WCAG accessibility compliance for a platform that hosts healthcare improvement and innovation projects engaging staff, patients and other stakeholders (2024)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Developed and delivered a product strategy shaped by user research for Europe PMC, an open access repository of scientific articles, increasing user satisfaction by 11% (2023)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Led a high profile project to build a collection of full-text COVID-19 preprint articles on Europe PMC, including scaling manuscript XML conversion operations by 2000% in 2 months (2020).&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Co-organised the Cambridge Usability group (2011-2020) and a one-off UX Unconference in Cambridge (2019)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Planned and led generative and evaluative user research, using the insights to deliver a user-centered re-design of the Europe PMC website (2019)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Introduced product management and Agile\/Lean UX methods to the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) (2016)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Led user research and design for an open access service at the University of Cambridge (2014)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Curated conference programmes for UX Cambridge (2014-2018), UX Scotland (2014-2015) and Service Design in Government (2014)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Designed Source Control for Oracle using Lean UX methods in 9 months (2012)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Introduced social media for engagement and set-up a community engagement platform in Cambridgeshire (2008)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Studied a MSc in Human Computer Interaction at UCL part-time (2006-2010)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Led user-centred re-designs of the Cambridgeshire County Council website, intranet and a regional community events website (2006-2008)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Introduced user-centred design and a top tasks approach to website content design at Cambridgeshire Council Council (2006)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Managed implementation of \u2018AAA\u2019 accessibility standards across a number of different interactive calculators and tools on Which? web sites (2004)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Developed an accessibility policy and sales strategy for a digital agency (2004)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Designed a consistent website information architecture and managed a CMS rollout across several Open University departments (2004)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Information architect for the Which? Endowment Action site, which won the New Media Age Best Charity Website award (2003)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Created and managed an intranet for the European Coordination of Film Festivals (1997)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Outside of work I&#8217;m a keen gardener and love walking in the countryside, with a Jack Russell terrier by my side. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m Michele Ide-Smith, a Product and UX lead. I&#8217;ve worked in digital for 30 years in the public sector (life sciences, higher education and local government) and private sector (a health startup, a software company and a digital agency). I&#8217;m passionate about user research and user-centred design and have a Masters degree in Human Computer [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-36","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ide-smith.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ide-smith.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ide-smith.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ide-smith.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ide-smith.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/ide-smith.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/36\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":568,"href":"https:\/\/ide-smith.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/36\/revisions\/568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ide-smith.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}