UX design is now a well established discipline. And while there’s growing consensus that it's the correct approach, delivering good UX is not always straightforward.
The textbook approach focusing on straightforward consumer interactions, websites and apps is fine - but it becomes a little more difficult when it comes to enterprise applications, productivity interfaces and specialist domains like healthcare, IT security and financial analytics.
Unfortunately there are less and less 'easy' problems to solve and we have had to adapt our approach to cater for the increasingly complex and specialist work that comes our way.
Frank Long is a Director of Frontend.com an international UX design studio based in Dublin, Ireland. Founded in 1998, Frontend.com was one of the first UX design firms in Europe and over the last two decades Frank has worked for some of Europe’s top brand names and tackled projects as diverse as antivirus software that protects 100 million customers worldwide, to a digital app that helps local milkmen deliver milk to their customers’ doors.
Not surprisingly user research plays a critical role in Frank's work and he has overseen several global research projects. In 2008 he published a critically acclaimed paper on personas 'Real or Imaginary: The effectiveness of using Personas in Product Design’. Frank has also applied particular focus to the area of Out of Box Experience and its impact on the delivery of effective healthcare solutions, working with several global pharmaceutical brands.
In 2004 Frank was invited to lecture on the Ubiquitous Computing Masters in Trinity College Dublin and has also lectured on design in the National College of Art and Design, Dublin, University of Limerick and the Dublin Institute of Technology. Frank has acted in an advisory capacity to the course board for Interaction Design in the National College of Art and Design in Dublin.
Frank has received a number of design awards at national and international level - most recently receiving the Grand Prix at the 2015 IxDA Awards in San Francisco. He is an active member of the IxDA and in 2009 was a founder of DEFUSE - an annual UX Design event that has become a cornerstone of Dublin Design week. In 2015, Frank was awarded a fellowship from the Institute of Designers in Ireland in recognition of his achievements.
Frank previously worked as an Industrial Designer at the European Design HQ of LG Electronics where, among other things, he designed 27 microwave ovens.