When Tradition Meets Bold Ideas

TL;DR

 

• Created an award-winning product that redefined an established brand’s image and solved problems with no direct competitors.

• Drove vision and execution with a 20-member UX & Product group

• Outcomes:

  • Won the Open Athens UX Award (2024).

  • Designed a first-of-its-kind product, solving previously unaddressed user problems.

  • Elevated brand perception from “traditional” to “innovative” through positive customer feedback.

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Project overview

 

Cambridge University Press has launched the Research Directions series, a collection of open-access journals designed to address the limitations of traditional academic publishing. These journals aim to foster collaboration across disciplines and reflect the dynamic nature of the research process.

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Problem statement

 

The Research Directions journals are focused on several key objectives:

• Interdisciplinary collaboration: They aim to bring together researchers from various fields to tackle complex questions that cannot be solved within the confines of traditional disciplines.

• Dynamic research process: By allowing contributions at different stages of research, these journals facilitate a more iterative and collaborative approach to scientific inquiry.

• Open access: The journals are open access, ensuring that research findings are freely available to a global audience, thus promoting wider dissemination and engagement.

 

This product was developed with minimal reference to existing examples, as academic publishing has not typically made the research process highly transparent. The design of several interactions drew inspiration from open models in other fields, such as software engineers’ use of GitHub for open source development.

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Process

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• Discovery: Defined user needs through internal stakeholder interviews and external user research, including interviews with 21 researchers. Mapped user journeys and built personas to guide the design process.

• Ideation & prototyping: Created wireframes and prototypes informed by research insights. Developed an information architecture that reflected real research workflows and a concept for a new feature to map all research ingratiates connecting them back to the journal question.

• User testing: Conducted two rounds of remote usability testing with STEM researchers at various career stages, iterating on the design based on feedback to address pain points and improve navigation and usability of key interactions.

• Final design & launch: Delivered a user interface that balances brand identity with usability. Post-launch, monitored user engagement via analytics and feedback to drive continuous improvement.

 

See our academic article outlining this process: "Research Directions: A Noval Approach for Driving Research Collaboration by Design" (HCI International 2025).  

 

Outcome

 

This structured, user-centred approach ensured the platform aligned with researcher needs and delivered a seamless, accessible experience.

The successful creation of a collaborative, open-access research platform that prioritises user needs was welcomed by the scholarly publishing community with some surprised by the innovative product coming from Cambridge University Press.

Key results include enhanced interdisciplinary collaboration, faster dissemination of research, and rigorous peer review. Notable features like the Network Map and alternative accessible navigation improved engagement and inclusivity, while open access ensured that all research outputs are freely available to a global audience.

 

The UX team under my leadership received the Open Athens UX award for 2024 for their work on Research Directions