I am now into my last 30 days at FCA, it’s been a whirlwind of emotions - we have delivered against our targets, got everyone involved, worked with some real heroes (Neil, Brie and Andrew to name a few), and it’s been a blast.

I have availability for a new freelance design contract from the start of April 2024. If you'd like support from a seasoned designer who has seen a lot of things, it would be great to hear from you hello@michaelcattell.com

What did I enjoy:
As we are now in countdown mode, it’s time to start packaging up all we’ve promised and pop a lovely bow around it with instructions on how to use it. You might be wondering why is this enjoyable. To see the level of work we have done in such a short period, the support we’ve had and the cheerleading behind the scenes (see my comment for Brie and Andrew) has been nothing but lovely.

Alongside this, we are planning on how to ensure that time to delivery and designer-to-developer handover are handled in such a way that it keeps scaling, and working and is capable of answering many user needs and many what-ifs. Whilst this is a huge piece of work, and not a deliverable as such, we are ensuring we leave the design system in the best way possible to ensure it can live, breathe and grow without us being here.

Prototype kit training kicked off this week, which is always fun finding out how everyone’s computer works completely differently (proxy settings…jeez), but, again - I love teaching and this is such a win.

We also have a roadshow next week, where we are presenting - what is UCD, why you want it and how can you go from crazy 8s to a prototype in.. minutes (a practical workshop thrown in for good measure) but the prep for this has felt great and time to flex those new FCA design system and prototype kit muscles!

I’ve been working on Etsy as well this week - optimising our listings with tags, keywords etc, as it’s our family business it feels great to be working long hours on this and something I enjoy - data-digging is a great way to spend the evening after the kids have gone to bed and to see the results of this will be exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time!

What am I looking forward to next week?
The roadshow is going to be great to be involved in, While I’m not a permanent member of staff I do love being involved in the community and helping to pass on the knowledge of UCD and my experience as much as possible.

Handover of the design system is getting nearer and nearer, and it’ll be nice to get a step closer to handing it off and finally seeing it run in the wild, we still have some steps to do before this (tidying up code, training and finalising the contribution model), I honestly cannot wait to see this being used wider than the pilot teams and showing the full power of prototyping quickly and testing.

Watch of the week
I love space, obsessed with it (I’m an 80s kid after all) but watching “The Space Shuttle That Fell to Earth” on BBC iplayer was game-changing - such a powerful documentary about a disaster that could have been avoided (20/20 hindsight is great…).

Listen of the week
I did listen to a podcast my wife has recommended to me over and over again and that has anything to do with the founder of NotOnTheHighStreet.com, and it did not disappoint.
A good start is The Diary of a CEO podcast (episode 92).