Danny Hearn – Deeply Human Design Ltd

20+years | Product Strategist | User Researcher | Design Mentor

Seasoned freelance UX contractor, available for user centered design roles.

What I'm looking for

Contract roles I can fit into

I work best in divergent, consultant focused UX roles :

  • UX Director (mat cover/temp)
  • Lead User Researcher
  • Senior / Lead UX / Principal
  • UX Consultant

Preferred Sectors
Social good, Tech for good, Retail, Environmental, Crypto, Public Sector, Startups, Education, Agency.
Culture 
I work best for inclusive and open work cultures that invite challenge and give a good level of autonomy.
 
Location

Primarily remote based but can travel fortnightly (based in Devon).

Working week
My preference is for 4-day per week with flexibility in mornings (child care drop off).  As I have family its important to me to stick to the working hours. 

My experience

UX Strategy & Innovation

  • Developed and ran the first Hackathon at John Lewis

  • Innovation Design Director role while consulting to Walgreens and Boots

  • Facilitated lots and lots of design thinking & user research workshops

UX Research & Design

  • User researcher for high profile brands Walgreens, Clarks, Boots, John Lewis

  • Led site-wide redesign at major retailers Fitflop, Beauty Pie, Agent Provocateur

  • Worked in SCRUM, AGILE, KANBAM, alongside BAs, Devs and product managers

  • Lead user researcher on several GDS projects

Management & Leadership

  • Managed & grew UX team at John Lewis for 5 years

  • Established first UX/UI team at Clarks as Global Head of UX

  • Developed design mentorship programmes for 100s of charities and social-good organisations, with design sprints

I’m a good fit for 

  • A T-Shaped UX Generalist with broad roles that cut across lots of UX design disciplines works well

  • Early discovery, user research roles, understanding broad landscapes

  • Unsticking problems, lack of research or overwhelmed teams

  • Tricky stakeholders that expect gravitas and credibility

  • Divergent early stage projects, startups

  • Ideation, workshopping and design sprints

  • Developing product/service strategy and roadmapping

  • Embedding and creating user centric culture

Not a good fit for

  • UI Design, detailed interaction and interface design

  • Roles that have very narrow focus and are soley tasked with producing one output

  • Working culture that demands late hours and long weekends

Client feedback

Danny was an integral member of our UX team. He provided a terrific understanding and empathy towards the retail experience we were designing. Danny introduced innovative ways of working, demonstrated solid and imaginative design thinking and built a good rapport with our clients. Danny is highly experienced, diligent, dedicated and I thoroughly enjoyed working with him.

Richard Rutter

Co-Founder

Danny is a joy to work with - he is a highly skilled UX professional who is passionate about bringing the best of that discipline to drive consumer-centric transformation - he is tenacious, compassionate and has a relentless drive to make things happen. If you need someone to help you lead your teams to a brighter future - Danny would be a great asset.

Lucy Calver

Digital Director

Danny was instrumental in helping to push the product development process forward. It was impressive to see how he was able to introduce and embed a range of innovative tools and methodologies. I would highly recommend him for guidance, coaching and leadership with product design teams.

Duncan Turner

Product Manager

Through his engaging presentation he brought his understanding and approach to understanding customer experience to life in a way that engaged everyone in the team at Fitflop. I really hope at some point I will work with and see Danny at work again !

Simon D Wright

COO

Rates & contracts

  • For rates I prefer to discuss it based on nature of role and length of contract but I generally price myself towards the higher end of the market rate
  • Preference for outside IR35
  • I work through my PSC – Deeply Human Design Ltd | 14615013 | VAT GB 432624024
  • References available on request.  You can also refer to my LinkedIN profile for recommendations